Can I give the boot the boot for a few hours?

The camping trip was pretty fun. There were approximately 50 people there. It only rained for about an hour on Friday night and I had to resort to covering "the boot" with a huge black garbage bag that was oh, so cute and made such a neat sound with each step.

Saturday morning was spent hiking around the Foxfire Museum, which features a ton of southern appalachian log buildings, most of which had been moved to that area for preservation purposes. It was pretty neat. Hiking was a challenge, but I made it work and took tons of photos.

By Saturday night the woman-child had finally resolved to having a good time and decided to round up all 30-40 boys for games of capture the flag and other such intrigue. She was pissed when I made her go to bed at 10-ish.

I didn't get much sleep either night. The man in the tent to our left snored so loud it sounded like he was sawing a giant sequoia; the man in MY tent snored as loud as he usually does, and the effing whippoorwill in the trees above us tormented me until the sunrise, "whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will" all freaking night. And Saturday night proved to be downright freezing. I'm not sure what the temperature dropped to, but it felt like 30s weather. It's really not fun to camp in weather that cold.

In other news, I received an email this morning from a very old flame (c. 1986-1987 senior year high school), with whom I have kept in touch over the years. He was our foreign exchange student, hailing from Belgium. We reconnected when I was in graduate school and my baby girl was a mere toddler and have kept tabs on each other via his "american host family," who just happen to be my parents' best friends (and with whom he has remained extremely close to for the last 21 years since he lived with them). Now that he's all grown up he is an attorney (still in Belgium), and actually founded his own firm several years ago. His email said he is enroute to visit [the host family], and will be stopping over in Atlanta for a day and wanted to meet up. I agreed to meet him for drinks after work tomorrow and via email worked out where that would be (next door to my work and 1 mile from his hotel).

I haven't seen him in about 12 years, so I'm a tad nervous, though looking forward to it. Of course I'll be working on what to wear tomorrow and I'll work hard on my hair tonight and my makeup in the early morning. The last item to work on will be shoe(s). I'm thinking of removing "the boot" just before meeting him so that I won't look so ridiculous, although I have already warned him of the monstrocity.

Is it crazy/stupid to attempt the meeting (and drinking) without the boot? I know I can move very carefully without the boot, and most importantly I need to make a good impression after all these years.....