I Ain't Missing You At All

It's official: I work in the best office EVER!

After work on Friday, the entire office went to Bill's for beer and philly cheese steaks. I, of course, was running late. The world needs to know that I run on my own time. Everyone else is just insanely early. I was late because I wanted to wait for Mel to get off work, and we had a little metro mishap. When we made it to the metro, we had to run and get on the train. In our haste, we didn't check to see what line we were on. It was orange; we needed blue. Sitting there, I remember being told by bill to NOT get on the orange line. But we did, and there we went. We finally realized we were on the wrong line when the view of the Capitol was not in reasonable walking distance and the area was pretty sketch looking. Let's just say, not a neighborhood you want to get lost in.

We righted our wrong and made it to Bill's. Which, P.S. is in a somewhat sketch area as well, but he lives in a "gated community" so all was well. And Denny's was right there. So Mel and I walk in and everyone was there sipping beers and watching Jeopardy! It was awesome! Then we ate philly cheese steaks and drank more beer. Then a couple of the boys started debating something pretty heavy, so Mel and I took that as our cue to exit stage left.

Rewind a couple hours and my day started with two tours back-to-back. I am still in absolute awe whenever I walk through the Capitol. Ah-MAZING! Plus we got to go into the Senate gallery while C-Span was filming AND we went on the House floor. I pretty much sat where like Condi Rice and Don Rumsfeld have sat during the Pres's SOTU address. It always amazes me whenever I see the House gallery. To think of all the members of the House and Senate, various Cabinet members, all nine justices, the joint chiefs-of-staff, etc., etc. plus all the guests, the First Lady, staffers, etc., etc. all crammed into such a small room. It's mind boggling when viewed in person. There is absolutely no way that all those people fit in there, but they do.

Yesterday was a nice, chill day. Met up with some buds at Bullfeathers (shout out to Teddy Roosevelt!) and hung out there for about three hours just sitting and chatting. It was really nice to slow down.

Speaking of slow down, Mel and I discussed the difference between her and I in regards to the way we dwell in this city. She's adapted nicely to the culture and quick pace, looking forward to her destination. I walk with a destination in mind, but slow and always looking left, right, forward and back to everything along my path. I find this city so fascinating, and who knows how long I'll be here. Might as well take in as much as possible while I can. You would never be able to guess how many dry cleaning stores there are. They're pretty prolific out here. You would never know that if you didn't look around. I'm the perpetual tourist, too amazed by my surroundings to ever believe that I actually live in a place with so much history, power, and action.

I leave you with the wise words of Ferris Bueller: "Life goes by pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

And I don't plan on missing one bit!