Saturday, September 20, 2008

Post Vacation Run Down

The week before last,Last month, Aaaarg! The first week of August, I went on vacation. We dropped Poppy off at her Grandparents and went to visit friends. The week after, I felt very tired and very run down. the two months following, I played too much Warcraft. However, I had such a lovely time on vacation that I must tell somebody about it. So, dear interwebs, it is you.

We drove down to DC on a Sunday to visit our friends Cathy and Gary. They had set up a Sunday evening dinner with their friends Terry, Tom, and Heather, which made my vacation. It was so nice to talk with smart, weird people out of the earshot of children. Subjects ranged from guns to polygamy. Hot damn! And Terry was a fine cook.

On Monday, Cathy took us on a leisurely little tour of Georgetown and... some other yuppie/college neighborhood. The art fag neighborhoods. I love art fags, kinda being one myself. We ended up browsing this lovely little book store called Kramer's Books, that had a whole restaurant called Afterwords in the back of it. Actually, we had lunch (crab cake sandwich for me... total yum!), and then browsed. I wouldn't go there looking for a specific book, but it was such a nice place to browse. Smelled booky, had good books on the shelves and all over everything else, lots of copies you could page through. Definitely a five senses kind of place. They also had a bar. Bet it's a great place to people watch. The bead shop next door had some very pretty glass beads and little Indian statuettes, and the shop girls were cute.

That evening, we went to a tappas bar that had a funny little wine bar in the back. You put money on a card, and dispensed 1 to 3 ounces of a wine into a glass. Just for wine tasting.

Tuesday morning was taken up by a bus tour for the spy museum... totally cool. Lunch after the tour was Gordon Biersch, a really tasty burger.

The museum itself was great. It's not so interactive that small children would do well, but the things they have on display: spy equipment, spy weapons, spy pop-culture, are way cool for older kids interested in things, and for adults. I thought the history was fascinating, and I was interested to learn that most of the biggest leaks in U.S. intelligence security have been in recent years. I wonder if they will do an exhibit on Valerie Plame when the sitting Prez is no longer sitting.

In the shop, I saw T-shirts that said "Deny Everything." I like the statement on it's own. It implies excitement, that one has something to deny, a feeling which illuminates my drab suburban middle management existence. I was hoping that they had a stylish mug. I love coffee mugs. They did!

We went home, Cathy made some yummy pizza dinner, and we watched a movie, 49 Up, a BBS documentary which is part of a series that has been following a group of brits from the age of 7 and up. This one dealt with their life at 49, thus the title. They include clips from previous movies, and it is interesting to see how people change over time.

Wednesday we went to walk around the National Cathedral. Can you imagine me in a church? Well, I have a taste for stained glass and old stone structures. It was rather dungeony, which appeals. And Darth Vader is a gargoyle, so that made me feel right at home.

Mmmm. Gargoyles.

Wednesday night we took everybody to Clydes, a gorgeous art deco restaurant with excellent appetizers. I was thinking about the seared tuna martini for a week afterwards. Thinking about it two months later makes me salivate.

Afterwards, because I was all worked up over spies, we saw Breach, which is about the Robert Hanseen, one of the guys they covered in the spy museum. Very excellent movie, great study of a tragically flawed character.

Mmmm. Seared Tuna martini.

All in all, it was so much fun. Especially the restaurants. I love being in a city with a really healthy restaurant economy. We missed Poppy, although I don't think she missed us much. She conned her Grandmother into buying her every toy in the universe while they were traipsing around eastern Michigan tourist traps.