Weekend Away
This past weekend, I flew with David and Sasha to Baltimore. We turned out to be quite well matched flying partners as Sasha prefers the window seat, David prefers the aisle, and I'm quite content to be in the middle of people I know.
We arrived at some time on Friday night, and Fin picked us up at the airport, and drove us to Fairfax where we were all staying with lorhusol (A.) and demarldy (AR.) mdhensley was at their house waiting for us as well.
Friday night was a blur of munching on cheese, seeing the house, talking, and making some loose plans for the weekend.
Saturday morning I played my new game, (courtesy of B.) while waiting for other people to wake up. Everyone did eventually wake up, get dressed, and we headed out. Our first stop was IHOP for a late breakfast/lunch.
Next we headed to a couple of pet adoption events so that Misty could look for a kitten to adopt. The first place didn't have any kittens, and the second had an odd (to me) policy of requiring that kittens be adopted in pairs, unless there was already another feline in the house for it to socialize with. I've always had the impression that dogs were more social than cats, and I've never heard of such a policy for adopting puppies/dogs, so it struck me as odd that kitten adoption would require such multiple placement. Regardless, this brought to an end our kitten hunting for Saturday.
Next, we got on the metro and headed in to D.C. to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. Woot! As it was rather late in the day, we didn't have much time to look around, but we did get to see the one exhibit we'd wanted to - a wall AR. had put together looking at differences in depictions of the moon in art before and after the moon landing. It was quite interesting to see, as well as to hear the additional background information she had on what went to putting the display together. Twice now I've gotten to have her as a personal tour guide on a museum trip - both times well worth it!
Next, we headed down the mall to the Smithsonian "castle", near which there was a carousel. Naturally, I wanted to have a go on the carousel, and A. kindly accompanied me, while Fin took pictures with my cell phone. (If I could figure out how to get pictures off my phone, I'd consider posting them.) Sadly, the carousel has not been well maintained, but the breeze provided a nice respite from the rather warm weather on Saturday.
We met up with the others inside the castle, where we cooled off in the air conditioning. I did grab a scoop of gelato (half cinnamon and half chocolate), which got shared around. We discussed dinner options, and decided our best bet was to head back to Fairfax and either go out or order in there.
After a terribly long metro ride (we had to disembark halfway and wait for another train, as things were a bit screwy due to track maintenance), we finally made it back to the cars and made the short drive back to the house.
Then began the odyssey of ordering in Thai food. The first place we tried told us to call back three separate times, so we gave up and tried another one. David had enough of calling by then, so it fell to A. to try to put the order in. What seemed to be a straightforward order, soon got drawn out into an ordeal of trying to make the person at the restaurant understand what we wanted. It didn't seem to bode well that he had to spell out the names of the dishes when they neither had the menu numbers nor seemed to be able to understand what he was saying.
By then, A. was making some very funny facial expressions and hand gestures, so David started to grab it on video. After 15 minutes or so, A. was able to hang up the phone, and we went on to wondering whether we'd actually see any food.
Our confidence was further eroded when the phone rang - it was the restaurant with questions about the order. Then they called again - I'm not certain if it was to ask directions or just to clarify the address.
Amazingly, we did get the food. But, to little surprise, the order was not quite correct. For some reason, they decided that Sasha didn't really want tofu after all. The order had it crossed out. The food didn't seem to be at all spicy either, though David did mention his had some.
After dinner, we went on to play The Great Dalmuti. This is the first time I've played where for every round I was either a greater or a lesser, but never a merchant. I went from lesser peon, to greater dalmuti, to lesser dalmuti (my actual goal, as I wanted to sit in the rocking chair), to five (?) consecutive rounds as the greater peon, and then back to one of the dalmutis.
Everyone was quite tired, but no one seemed to want to be the first to go to bed, so I took the plunge. I was awake long enough to acknowledge Fin coming upstairs to go to bed, and then I was off to sleep.
Sundy started out much the same way as Saturday, with people getting up slowly, and slowly getting ready. Sunday breakfast/lunch was at the house, where Fin made some tasty crepes. We piled back in the cars for a trip to Maryland to go to an animal shelter to look at more kittens. As it turns out, looking at kittens at an animal shelter takes forever, which gave me much time to ponder why it is that I seem to be the sole dog-person in a sea of cat-people. On the plus side, Misty did put in an application on a kitten, and all seemed to be hopeful that she'll get a kitten out of the deal in the next week or two.
By the time we were finished there, many of us were spiraling down into low blood sugar hell, and in great need of food. We still had one stop to go before we could go back to the house for dinner, so we made our way to Fin & Misty's new apartment. After seeing it, I can't say how happy I am that they now have a workable living space. In spite of how recently they made their last move, their apartment feels quite comfortable.
I picked up the Atari that had been held for me, along with the cooler I'd sent back with Fin after his visit in March. (Chocolate mousse had been requested!) We headed back to the house, where dinner preparations were already in progress. I went upstairs to repack my bag with my new acquisitions, munched on the remaining cauliflower I had brought with me, and then headed down to join everyone for dinner.
Not much happened after that. Fin took us to the airport, I forgot my sunglasses at the house, our flight was delayed, we had a gate switch, we made it back to Detroit uber late, B. picked me up, we made it home, we talked, I tried to snuggle with Ding, Ding elected to sleep on the floor, I fell asleep and didn't wake up when B. left for work.
The end.
I've decided I'd like to make a longer trip to D.C. to see more of the museums. AR. had also mentioned that there is one with some Japanese pottery which sounded interesting, but I'm especially interested in the air & space museum, and the one farther out that has more of the full sized display items.
Based upon the conversations I had with AR., it seems like a trip in February during the week would help me to avoid most of the crowds, not to mention ensure that there isn't so much chance of heat exhaustion.
In spite of sleeping in this morning, I'm still exhausted.
We arrived at some time on Friday night, and Fin picked us up at the airport, and drove us to Fairfax where we were all staying with lorhusol (A.) and demarldy (AR.) mdhensley was at their house waiting for us as well.
Friday night was a blur of munching on cheese, seeing the house, talking, and making some loose plans for the weekend.
Saturday morning I played my new game, (courtesy of B.) while waiting for other people to wake up. Everyone did eventually wake up, get dressed, and we headed out. Our first stop was IHOP for a late breakfast/lunch.
Next we headed to a couple of pet adoption events so that Misty could look for a kitten to adopt. The first place didn't have any kittens, and the second had an odd (to me) policy of requiring that kittens be adopted in pairs, unless there was already another feline in the house for it to socialize with. I've always had the impression that dogs were more social than cats, and I've never heard of such a policy for adopting puppies/dogs, so it struck me as odd that kitten adoption would require such multiple placement. Regardless, this brought to an end our kitten hunting for Saturday.
Next, we got on the metro and headed in to D.C. to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. Woot! As it was rather late in the day, we didn't have much time to look around, but we did get to see the one exhibit we'd wanted to - a wall AR. had put together looking at differences in depictions of the moon in art before and after the moon landing. It was quite interesting to see, as well as to hear the additional background information she had on what went to putting the display together. Twice now I've gotten to have her as a personal tour guide on a museum trip - both times well worth it!
Next, we headed down the mall to the Smithsonian "castle", near which there was a carousel. Naturally, I wanted to have a go on the carousel, and A. kindly accompanied me, while Fin took pictures with my cell phone. (If I could figure out how to get pictures off my phone, I'd consider posting them.) Sadly, the carousel has not been well maintained, but the breeze provided a nice respite from the rather warm weather on Saturday.
We met up with the others inside the castle, where we cooled off in the air conditioning. I did grab a scoop of gelato (half cinnamon and half chocolate), which got shared around. We discussed dinner options, and decided our best bet was to head back to Fairfax and either go out or order in there.
After a terribly long metro ride (we had to disembark halfway and wait for another train, as things were a bit screwy due to track maintenance), we finally made it back to the cars and made the short drive back to the house.
Then began the odyssey of ordering in Thai food. The first place we tried told us to call back three separate times, so we gave up and tried another one. David had enough of calling by then, so it fell to A. to try to put the order in. What seemed to be a straightforward order, soon got drawn out into an ordeal of trying to make the person at the restaurant understand what we wanted. It didn't seem to bode well that he had to spell out the names of the dishes when they neither had the menu numbers nor seemed to be able to understand what he was saying.
By then, A. was making some very funny facial expressions and hand gestures, so David started to grab it on video. After 15 minutes or so, A. was able to hang up the phone, and we went on to wondering whether we'd actually see any food.
Our confidence was further eroded when the phone rang - it was the restaurant with questions about the order. Then they called again - I'm not certain if it was to ask directions or just to clarify the address.
Amazingly, we did get the food. But, to little surprise, the order was not quite correct. For some reason, they decided that Sasha didn't really want tofu after all. The order had it crossed out. The food didn't seem to be at all spicy either, though David did mention his had some.
After dinner, we went on to play The Great Dalmuti. This is the first time I've played where for every round I was either a greater or a lesser, but never a merchant. I went from lesser peon, to greater dalmuti, to lesser dalmuti (my actual goal, as I wanted to sit in the rocking chair), to five (?) consecutive rounds as the greater peon, and then back to one of the dalmutis.
Everyone was quite tired, but no one seemed to want to be the first to go to bed, so I took the plunge. I was awake long enough to acknowledge Fin coming upstairs to go to bed, and then I was off to sleep.
Sundy started out much the same way as Saturday, with people getting up slowly, and slowly getting ready. Sunday breakfast/lunch was at the house, where Fin made some tasty crepes. We piled back in the cars for a trip to Maryland to go to an animal shelter to look at more kittens. As it turns out, looking at kittens at an animal shelter takes forever, which gave me much time to ponder why it is that I seem to be the sole dog-person in a sea of cat-people. On the plus side, Misty did put in an application on a kitten, and all seemed to be hopeful that she'll get a kitten out of the deal in the next week or two.
By the time we were finished there, many of us were spiraling down into low blood sugar hell, and in great need of food. We still had one stop to go before we could go back to the house for dinner, so we made our way to Fin & Misty's new apartment. After seeing it, I can't say how happy I am that they now have a workable living space. In spite of how recently they made their last move, their apartment feels quite comfortable.
I picked up the Atari that had been held for me, along with the cooler I'd sent back with Fin after his visit in March. (Chocolate mousse had been requested!) We headed back to the house, where dinner preparations were already in progress. I went upstairs to repack my bag with my new acquisitions, munched on the remaining cauliflower I had brought with me, and then headed down to join everyone for dinner.
Not much happened after that. Fin took us to the airport, I forgot my sunglasses at the house, our flight was delayed, we had a gate switch, we made it back to Detroit uber late, B. picked me up, we made it home, we talked, I tried to snuggle with Ding, Ding elected to sleep on the floor, I fell asleep and didn't wake up when B. left for work.
The end.
I've decided I'd like to make a longer trip to D.C. to see more of the museums. AR. had also mentioned that there is one with some Japanese pottery which sounded interesting, but I'm especially interested in the air & space museum, and the one farther out that has more of the full sized display items.
Based upon the conversations I had with AR., it seems like a trip in February during the week would help me to avoid most of the crowds, not to mention ensure that there isn't so much chance of heat exhaustion.
In spite of sleeping in this morning, I'm still exhausted.