Archive: Out of Town

After a whirlwind weekend in Washington, DC, I am back at home, behind at work, and slightly heavier, I’m sure, due to all of the super yummy food I devoured over the weekend. In lieu of a coherent narrative, I present: Highlights of a DC Weekend — Blurb Style.

Holy Hotness, Batman
At the risk of being ballyhooed by DC natives, I have to point out how ridiculously hot and humid the weekend was. What in the world? I can’t remember going through so many sweat-dry-off cycles in one day and that’s saying a lot, what with my summer camp job in college. In addition to the normal crankiness that comes with being hot and sticky comes, well, the stickiness. I don’t glow in a ladylike fashion; I perspire way more than is reasonable for a tiny girl and it is not pretty. Thank goodness for air-conditioned apartments and malls, I say. Amen.

Quack Attack!
Because I know that there are people who, at the sight of a giant, amphibious vehicle driven by a loudmouth tour guide and packed with kazoo-toting tourists, dismiss it as something hopelessly corny, I hereby shake my fist and proclaim that these naysayers should not knock things before they try them. See, duck tours, though tacky and obnoxious, are loads of fun and highly educational. Riding around on a vessel originally designed for invasion by land and/or sea while being bombarded by useless historical facts cannot be topped in the realm of cheesy tourist activities. I don’t deny that it’s cheesy; I simply challenge anyone who says it’s not entertaining. Of course, if your duck boat leaves at noon on The Hottest Day Ever (ahem), your fun quotient may decrease just slightly. Fortunately, the combination of a witty and knowledgeable tour guide, possession of a yellow plastic quacker, and the breeze off of the Potomac River will make it all much more agreeable.

Meet and Eat and Tell
I had the pleasure of meeting up with Zandria for lunch while I was away. I didn’t prelude this meeting very much because I was trying to quell my inherent nervousness. If I tried to craft a post about how I knew Zandria but didn’t really know her, I had a feeling that I’d be this close to writing up an index card of Topics to Discuss and stressing about whether shaking hands was too stiff. So I just avoided thinking about the meet-up and chose to wing it as much as is possible with me. Well, any worries I may have had dissipated upon meeting Zandria. Taller than I expected and with a slight southern accent (at least to me), she made conversation easy. We talked comfortably about our backgrounds and blogging as we chowed down on enchiladas and tacos. I can breathe deeply now that my first in-person blogger meet-up has gone down without a hitch and hopefully, Zandria wasn’t put off by how tiny I am and that I laugh really loudly. Because I would have warned her of that if I had written about how nervous I was. Good thing I didn’t do that.

After I got back from lunch, I ended up telling my sister about the blog, unprovoked. I wanted to get her permission to post pictures of her on the internet, but really, I wanted to get her reaction, which was more “How you say, blog?” than “Why didn’t you tell me?!” She made me bring it up right then and commenced to coo over the most recent pictures of Ted. It is just fine with me if that is the extent of the impact of this divulgence.

Delayed Wedding Present
When JG and I got married, we received two $100 gift cards from my grandmother’s sisters as a wedding present. How generous, right? Except that they were not redeemable online and we did not have a store location within a feasible drive. And the gift cards were to Saks Fifth Avenue, where one can buy two small throw pillows for that sum. Oh, I was annoyed. I knew that I should not look at a gift horse in the mouth (I wrote two rather awkward thank you notes), but when we were in need of things like glassware and comforters, this gift felt impractical and not very thoughtful. If only we had received a check, I moaned.

Those two cards languished in a shoe box for two years until I finally used (most of) the money this past weekend at a trip to the Saks by my sister. I had hoped to get a home good of some sort that someone may have bought as a wedding gift, but everything in that section of the store was miles beyond my price range. What’s a girl to do? Buy a dress, of course! I don’t know what my grandmother’s sisters expected me to buy, but I doubt that the cute, BCBG faux-wrap dress popped into their minds. What the heck — the price of the dress fit neatly within the gift card allowance, and best of all, it made me feel great. I handed over those gift cards with no regrets. Later, when I modeled the dress for JG, he made soft sounds of approval. It seems as though we’ll both enjoy this gift in the end.

In retrospect, I realize that this post is not so much brief. Oh, well.

To those who might be wondering if I do anything other than take pictures of a dog, I say, “Yes! Just watch me!” I’ve taken today and next Monday off from work to have a long weekend and visit my sister in DC. Yay! Among our list of Things We Must Do are:

• Go on a duck tour
• Visit the Spy Museum
• Use my sister’s DSW coupon
• See Ratatouille
• Eat, eat, eat

The tone of the weekend is rather frantic and strategic — um, like the planners might be — as evidenced by this line in a recent email I received:

PS - Don’t bring things like towels and a hair dryer - I have all of that rigmarole. You need to save room for shopping……

Even with that fun-filled itinerary, I’m most looking forward to hanging out with my sister. We’re two peas in a pod who never get to see each other, so we’re making the most out of our 72 hours together. That’s not a lot of time to rehash twenty years of inside jokes and create a slew of new ones. We have to be efficient here.

There is that added quirk in that I’m meeting up with Zandria for lunch this weekend, so we’ll see if The Question comes up and my sister gets wind of this little venture. But the real question is:

Can our nation’s capital handle RA & Sister?

Much to the collective chagrin of vacationers at Ocean City, New Jersey, the weather was highly uncooperative on Independence Day. Gray clouds? Wind? Rain?! How unpatriotic! Like good Americans, JG’s family and I grumbled about the inclement conditions and the resulting lack of fireworks and then had our fill of traditional July 4th goodies, like margaritas and taco dip. Because nothing says, “Happy Birthday, America!” like Mexican food.

The spate of gloomy weather was even more significant to JG and me because we arrived in Ocean City on July 3, which left us with only three days to spend on the beach. I woke up early on the morning of the 4th and watched the sky progress from dark gray to lighter gray; there was no perceivable sunrise, which was not a favorable omen when you are going for hot and sunny. JG and I ate our breakfast donuts and watched the clouds in between solving crossword puzzle clues. Surely, the dark weather wouldn’t last past lunchtime.

Now, I am not at all a beach person. The feeling of sand between my toes makes me feel gritty, waves of stinging salt water always seem to buffet me so that my eyes burn and my mouth fills, sunscreen makes me break out, and I hate sweating, which is pretty much all I do while I bake in the sun. Needless to say, I was not looking forward to the actual beach time as much as JG was, but the sight of the beach after lunch was a letdown, even for me. On the busiest day of the summer at Ocean City, there was a mere smattering of folks set up on the sand. The sky was an ominous shade of gunmetal and the wind was so strong that birds flying against it simply hovered in one place, as though on a midair treadmill. The lifeguards were huddled on the stand in bright orange, nylon coverall-type outfits, not looking at all ready to plunge into the ocean. We planted our chairs in the sand, suited up in sweatshirts and baseball caps, and hunkered down for the long winter. I mean, the afternoon.

Two hours later, I stood up. I had woken up with a start from a restless nap from the feeling of sand berating my face and feet. Whenever anyone stood up, walked away, brushed off anything, or flicked a towel, sand was thrown into wind and inevitably hit someone. From the incessant shower of sharpness on my two square feet of exposed skin, it appeared that I was a sand magnet. I had had enough. It was time to give up. I was the first to retreat into the indoors, but the others soon followed. I simply had the advantage of the first hot shower.

The next day was equally dismal and my endurance was correspondingly short. I didn’t see the point of subjecting myself to discomfort – nay, misery – when I could curl up inside and be significantly more relaxed. Wasn’t that the point of this vacation? Or something?

Thankfully, our last day turned out to be beautiful and sunny. JG and I headed out to the beach early and were the last ones to head back up to the house. He did his best to squeeze a week’s worth of sunshine and beach games into one packed day; I snapped as many pictures with backdrop of blue sky as I could. The previous days’ overcast skies were such a contrast to Friday’s clarity and we couldn’t have had a better day if we had placed an order. Maybe our order came in a little late, that’s all.

Tonight, JG and I are meeting his mom’s side of the family for a few days in Ocean City, New Jersey. Almost everyone is already there, but with work and class, our arrival was a bit delayed. I think JG will still get in some good beach time before we leave on Saturday.

This vacation is an annual family tradition, but I’m still getting used to the whole idea. As a native of rocky shorelines and look-don’t-touch-oceans, I don’t exactly relish the feeling of sand in my feet or the scent of salt in my nose. I’m resigned to the fact that, while beaches will never be a part of my perfect vacation, JG certainly is. If he wants to go to the beach, well, then we’ll do it together.

That’s not to say that Ocean City doesn’t have its charms. I’m looking forward to eating dinner at the clam bar, buying cotton candy on the boardwalk, and getting saltwater taffy stuck in my teeth. Non-food-related glories include zooming through a stack of books, lounging on my beach chair, holding my own with a gang of game-playing (and smack-talking) cousins, and taking pictures with a much-improved camera as compared to last year’s model. Despite the lack of a reliable Internet connection, being out of the office and at my leisure are very appealing, indeed.

We’re off! Happy 4^th of July!