Mels reports spending 45 minutes in Clocktown at night trying to get back to Rte. 9:

... It is one thing to get lost in the city, where things are well lit, and there are gas stations or Store 24s where you can pull over and get your bearings or ask for directions. The middle of Metro West is a whole other story, driving around on dark winding roads where you need to have your high beams on until a car coming the other direction, with its high beams on, forces you to cut the lights and drive blind for a moment or two. We had to retrace our steps not once, but twice, when we finally found a man getting into his car in Ashland Center who told us how to get to Route 9, and, from there, the Pike. (Bless him.) ...

Julia Spitz reports she learned her lesson the hard way, when she decided to walk across the ice to an island in the Ashland Reservoir:

... It must be safe, right? Look, grownups, kids, dogs, all out on the ice. And I'd always wanted to see what the view looked like from one of the islands in the Ashland Reservoir.

Things were going real well until I got a few feet from the island. Then came the sound. Then came the gushing cold water.

It could have been worse. It was only a foot or so deep… at first. Then the mud on the bottom started giving way fast. ...

News of the latest Ashland lady getting arrested for prostitution leaves Julia Spitz wondering what's up with the normally quiet Framingham suburb:

... I love my hometown, I truly do. But from time to time we've been known to have some, well, issues. All variety of water woes, lingering concerns about Nyanza, the occasional flare-up of drugs and motorcycle gangs. Now we seem to be a magnet for prostitution. ...