Going through the leftover photos, realized you could see the pumpkin (and smoke trail) in this shot. Welcome to the House of Pain, pumpkin.

Belvedere Plantation, somewhere outside Fredericksburg, VA.

A corn maze in the shape of a rocket.

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Hoping to do some catch-up tonight amid catch-up on laundry, dishes, and the general state of my currently chaotic home. To come: pictures from Jeff and Mollie's wedding, pictures from an amazing maize maze adventure, a report from a terrific play in D.C., the latest on Date Lab encounters, and a stack of other things sitting next to my keyboard.

Headed to wedding prep shortly. If you know Jeff, this song works great.

The other night, I was struggling with what to say at Jeff and Mollie's rehearsal dinner. Jonny was speaking too, and he and I went round and round on how to approach it. We considered writing a ridiculous song together. We considered being the good angel and bad angel over Jeff's shoulders. (Guess who would have been which.) We then went solo, but I was still stuck until Lori texted some advice Thursday night. She described giving a toast at her sister's wedding and told me, "You will do well because you care about him and that is all that matters." I was grateful. A few minutes later, words began to flow.

…

How long have I known Jeff? I’ve known Jeff so long… that when we were first friends, in grade school, our principal would confuse us. We looked that similar. Then he got a different haircut! And what a long, strange trip that haircut would be. But when Jeff commits, he commits.

For instance, to friendship.

Like, when you met Jeff at the picnic before kindergarten, at Blessed Sacrament, you were clearly going to spend the next nine years of grade school in your funny blue uniforms, sitting together at lunch.

Or on the field trip to the amusement park at the end of eighth grade, when you weren’t a fan of the roller coasters, and he hung out with you all day. Or in high school, waiting in the cold outside the Metro stop for you and the rest of the gang to arrive, even when he lived the closest and had gotten there first. Or senior year, when prom didn’t go well, and he cheered you up the whole next week. “I am like Peter,” he wrote in an email. “The rock upon which you build your social life.”

Or in college when you came back for break and weren’t really sure what was what anymore, and he said to come out to Maryland for the night. Meet some people, he said, get out there. And you had a great night. Or still later in life, this past winter, when you were still a little lost, he basically said the same thing, and next thing you knew you were on vacation with him, Mollie and their friends in the mountains.

Jeff has never been afraid to put himself out there. He has never been afraid to commit. Or maybe more accurately, when he has been afraid — you see it in his eyes ever now and then — he’s typically, eventually, pushed that feeling aside and moved ahead. This trait has brought him a good, great, life, and it’s something I’ve always looked up to him for.

He will commit — to friendship, to haircuts, to football every day after school in the neighborhood park, to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every day, to pools, in particular to Speedos, to music, to volume, to so many things and people for whom he truly cares — like now, in more life-changing scale, to Mollie. When he fell hard for her, it was easy to see, at the very beginning, how right it was. This was the haircut. This was the Speedo. This was the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And as wonderful as she is, she proved right his belief in commitment.

That’s why we’ll always love Jeff. And why he’ll always love us. And love Mollie, most especially. Congratulations on this happy day.

Jeff's wedding is near, very near — groomsman tux on my closet door, rehearsal dinner tomorrow night (or, at this late hour, tonight) — so I enjoyed this recent New Yorker passage (abstract) I ran across today.

In what is probably Simenon's most poignant book, "Maigret's Memoirs" (1851), our hero remembers a time when he was an apprentice policeman, on a bike. A friend invites him to a party given by some government people. He goes, but he feels awkward and ill-dressed. At one point, he is standing next to a full plate of petits fours. He reaches out for one, then, without thinking, another and another. Eventually, he looks down and sees, to his mortification, that he has eaten every last one of the little cakes. Furthermore, other guests have noticed and are staring at him in disbelief. At that moment, a girl in a blue dress comes up to him with another plate of petits fours. Would he like one? she asks, and advises him that the ones with the candied fruit on top are the best. This is the niece of the hosts, and what she is saying is that Maigret should have all the cake he wants. Her name is Louise, but she is almost never called that again, because she is soon Mme. Maigret.

Howlin' at the moon, I hope it shines on you
Pull it off the ground, just an inch or two

Maybe you stay up late. Maybe you wake up early. At certain points in your life, when you're awake, time seems to pass faster. Sleep is good and necessary but a break. The world keeps spinning and such. When you're awake, you bring your own momentum. You outwalk the storm. You catch the last train of the day. You find the right song at the right, insistent beat. You move at whatever pace you like. You can make the night last as long as materially possible when it feels in your favor. All the while, the sun's indeed coming to get you, as this song sings, but the more you say the chorus, the better the reclamation sounds. You need, even want, the next day to reach the next night. No matter the sleep or your hours kept, you put trust in what's next. You bring your own momentums and pull the sun off the ground, just an inch or two.

A friend wrote recently with a problem.

"Like many ladies," she began, "I've always had a soft spot for a man with an accent. Do you know what will cure that? Spending an hour on the phone with the British IT guy discussing your CMS and video files, along with Mac applications vs. PCs, pros and cons of Groupwise and Entourage, and why it was very naughty of me to install DropBox. It was like being held hostage by a charming English terrorist."

Hmmmm. To my friend…

I can’t speak for IT people and apps and The Dropbox and whatnot.

But as a CMS proprietor, I have to say that if he’d wanted to use the CMS to seduce you, he could have. He likely knew you were married. The sheer hotness of a CMS is a powerful thing, you see. When done right, a CMS is a partner. Is there for you. Listens to you. Remembers what you say. Looks sexy. Wants to build something together with you. Wants to share with the world what you have together. You can count on this care every day – and, you can bet, every night. (Except 10:00-10:30 p.m. every Wednesday when offline for maintenance.)

Things can get a little weird sometimes, sure. Right? Everyone always thinks it’d be fun to bring in more people, to spice things up with some “collaboration.” But then you get to all the logistics. Stuff gets messy! Rarely ends well. Or, another common problem: when you get around to deciding who can do what to whose back end. Take my advice and decide on permissions ahead of time. There are going to be problems in any relationship. Somebody asks somebody to do something, and somebody doesn’t do it. Somebody tells a long story, and somebody forgets. Someone’s unresponsive or doesn’t make sense. But at the end of the day, whatever the issues, you know you need each other. And when everything goes right, it’s magic. You build something real.

Yes, the CMS may always be a little bumbling. But you know who else is a little bumbling? A certain charming Englishman named Hugh Grant. And you’re just a girl, standing in front of a CMS, asking it to love her.

Next up: Why distance between content and presentation makes a heart grow fonder. Or why the best data models are also pretty on the inside.

One of the best parts of Saturday morning was snagging early tickets for The Gaslight Anthem show in December. It's going to be the band's last show before they re-enter the studio… in Asbury Park, New Jersey, in the seaside town's 80-year-old convention hall… on a Friday night.

As I wrote to fellow Gaslight-loving friends Casey and Meghan, as the show reaches its climax, and we sing the chorus of our favorite song one last time, the building itself will bellow and crumble to the ground, and a giant wave will rise from the ocean and sweep our bodies and the rubble into the deep, leaving only a stretch of pristine sand and a reverberating D chord. That's exactly what will happen, I'm kinda sure.

Can't wait. To celebrate the ticket score, I went a few rounds through TGA's cover of Tom Petty's Refugee, coming with other covers and cuts on their iTunes Sessions tomorrow. Then I lost a little more time clicking through the band's wild collection of covers on YouTube. Part of what I love about Fallon and the rest is fearlessness in trying songs they love — no matter the source. Like, for instance, Katy Perry's Teenage Dream.

Others that seemed worth rounding up:

• Baba O'Riley at Carnegie Hall
• Hot Water Music's Trusty Chords
• Pearl Jam's State of Love and Trust
• Kelly Clarkson's (yes) I Do Not Hook Up
• Petty's American Girl at the Stone Pony
• From an EP last year, Tumbling Dice
• Lightning Dust's Antonia Jane
• Fake Problem's Songs for Teenagers

A couple of these are on the new iTunes things. My favorite? Maybe the last. But Baba O'Riley this time of day always works somehow…

Yesterday afternoon, I went to my car in the garage, and it wouldn't unlock. The alarm system wouldn't disarm. When I opened the Accord manually, the remote wouldn't turn off the alarm. Wee-ooo, wee-ooo, oooop, oooop, nothing to see here, people. After I discovered how to disarm the system manually, the ignition wouldn't work. Couple lights turned on and nothing else. After an hour trying various methods and combinations, I gave up on it and went ahead with my night on foot.

And the night went great. All kinds of good Metro timing. Terrific to try the new District Commons — try the shrimp and grits and the coconut macaroons, but skip the devils food cake, not worth the effort — and catch up with Daily Northwestern friends Elizabeth and Emily. Then off to Passenger to celebrate friend Sheri's birthday (and see her whole family, who were fantastic hosts during the Springsteen symposium). Finally, Matt's to see Visiting Lavallee, Arrived Yuri, Moved Nacin, etc. Greg and I metro'd back. We came up with some great idea I've lost.

Anyway, the point of this post: This morning I got up early and called Geico's Roadside Assistance. It couldn't have gone better. The woman who took my call (whose name I sadly didn't catch) was friendly, fast and all kinds of clear about the process. An hour later, Javier Wetzell from Auto Rescue of Fairfax showed up. He was also friendly, fast and all kinds of clear. Not only was the battery dead, it was also corroding. He had me run for a cup of water, and it cleared things enough to let him work. Within five minutes, my car was purring, and he was giving me next steps and rolling out of the garage before I could even tip.

Geico, Auto Rescue, thank you. You won today by a mile.

I drove for a new battery at Jiffy Lube and then a pumpkin at Giant for this afternoon's carving party. The cashier in the 15-items-or-fewer line was tickled I was buying a pumpkin and only a pumpkin, and I was just glad to be there (as much fun as Metro with a pumpkin could've been).