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A tourist in my own city

15 Oct

We’re having an amazing fall (read: 70 degrees and sunny) in DC, so I’ve been taking advantage of the weather by playing tourist. For my nerdy self, that means one thing: WALKING TOURS.

Last weekend I tagged onto a walking tour of Embassy Row, which felt a bit lazy since the starting point was a ten minute walk from my place. While it may sound dumb to take a walking tour of your own neighborhood, I wanted to do it because whenever I have visitors, I find myself making up stories in response to their questions. I thought it might be helpful to equip myself with a few facts for a change.

And man was I ever equipped! I learned a ton. Here are just two highlights to tease you into attending your own tour:

  • Embassy Row was originally called Millionaires’ Row and was where “new money” built their homes – and it became Embassy Row after the crash of the stock market, when many residents were forced to sell their homes (and foreign countries were the only entities flush with cash to purchase them).
  • Westinghouse lived here when the whole AC/DC battle was going on with Edison and he spent $1m of his own money to defend a guy on death row in NY to try to prevent the electric chair (with his current) making its debut (and generating some pretty horrible PR for his cause). It goes without saying that his house was pretty fantastic.

Excited from all that I learned on that tour, this weekend I signed up for a walking tour of Georgetown. Unfortunately, the guide had an artificially boisterous delivery style and over-the-top vocal projection, so listening to him made me cringe. I felt like a legitimate tourist as he yelled history at us on the otherwise quiet streets of Georgetown, so about halfway through the tour, when the group turned left, I turned right and walked home.

If I’m being fair, the guide was only part of the reason I bailed. My feet were hurting because I’d already walked seven miles that day because I’d stumbled upon something called “Do the Loop,” which was an art event in which several museums and galleries in upper Northwest opened their doors at no charge for the day. I used this as an excuse to check out the Kreeger Museum up on Foxhall Road, and I was impressed with the collection, which included many Picassos, Monets, Renoirs – and even a small Calder mobile.

As fantastic as the collection was, I was actually slightly more intrigued by the museum building itself, which had originally been designed and built as the private residence for the Kreegers (president of GEICO back in the day) – with the stipulation by the architect (Philip Johnson) that they leave it as a museum one day. Imagine living in a home designed to one day become a museum? It was fun to roam around and imagine decorating it for entertainment back in the 70s.

So… not much pith in this post, but if you find yourself in DC and looking for something to do, perhaps this will give you some ideas. And if you have an obnoxious tour guide, hopefully you’ll feel fine turning right when he goes left. Because he deserves it.

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I know this game!

1 Sep

Memory Game

“The first part of your memory to go,” my mom says, looking over the mug of her coffee one morning while I’m home in Michigan for a few days, “is the part in charge of names.”

She’s telling me this shortly after I witnessed my parents playing a game I’ve mentally dubbed “What Is His Name?”, during which they throw each other prompts to try to come up with the name of someone critical to a story one of them wants to tell.

Sometimes the game can be more like “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” where they arrive at the person’s name by tracking back through kinfolk, neighbors, teachers and friends. “Remember that kid? He was in Sandy’s class in sixth grade… his mother was married to the brother of the owner of the Independent Dairy… they lived in the house that the Webbers now live in… and you’d see him out every morning walking his dog. What was his name?”

This morning though, it’s a more entertaining version of the game because it takes me to a place where my imagination is fully engaged:

“You remember – what was her name?” my dad began.

“They lived over on Anderson Street,” he continued.

“Oh, I can picture her,” my mom said, nodding like a psychic confirming her hunch.

“She’s the girl I squirted in the mouth with toad juice,” he added.

BOOM. Microphone drop. How often has THAT surfaced as memory-jogging detail in one of YOUR stories? I’m going to guess NEVER. And think of all the possibilities that it evokes. How do you squirt toad juice on someone? What scenario even makes this possible? Was it deliberate or an accident? What IS toad juice?

Regardless, while the part of the brain that’s in charge of names might be off on vacation, clearly the rest of it – responsible for managing all the other details accumulated over a lifetime – is ticking along just fine. If it were me, I’d just make up nicknames on the fly and rename people as I told stories. In this example, the protagonist would’ve been Toad Mouth out of the gate.

Speaking of, I better run. Gotta go see Tea Girl before I greet Eager Early Coworker at my office.

 

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There goes my Uber score.

25 May

Image Source: Groupon April Fool's Joke

The sun is setting on Memorial Day as I write this. I imagine most people feeling relaxed, rested and reflective after a nice three-day weekend. Not I.

I spent the day agonizing over whether I should take Miss Moneypenny to the animal hospital or wait until my vet’s office opens tomorrow morning. Because when I woke this morning, I discovered that my cat was pacing laps, alternating between peeing blood, licking herself and crying out in pain.

A quick Google search revealed that she likely had some sort of urinary tract issue that – according to the internet – could spiral out of control if left untreated.

I dialed the animal hospital to ask if I should bring her in or if I should hold off and take her to my regular vet on Tuesday. “You can schedule an appointment later this week,” the unhelpful girl at the desk told me.

I called Alan. “What do you think?” I asked, knowing it was unfair of me to pin my cat’s health prognosis on a recovering lawyer.

“Get a second opinion,” he offered.

So I called another animal hospital out in the boonies and reached a more helpful person (and cat owner), who said she would probably be fine if I waited a day, but that if it were her cat, she’d probably run it in.

I was torn. On one hand, the thing that would give me peace of mind would be taking Miss Moneypenny to the animal hospital. But I didn’t want it to turn out like when I took her in for eating the Christmas ribbon, when they looked at her and sent me home instructing me to “keep an eye on her and bring her back if anything changes.”

If I owned a car, this might be a no-brainer. But since I don’t, I have the added complication of figuring out how we will get to and from the vet. And Miss Moneypenny hates being in her carrier, so she is guaranteed to scream the entire time, making it traumatic on both of us.

Should I go? Should I wait? I was truly torn, so I decided to give it a bit of time to see what happened. Good news: Miss Monepenny eventually stopped pacing and took a nap, so I used that opportunity to run to Petco and get some remedy that is supposed to relieve the symptoms of a UTI.

All was well until Miss Moneypenny awoke from her nap and went straight to her litterbox – where she began howling, then pacing, then licking, then howling, then repeat. And repeat some more. Indefinitely.

Since it was looking like it would be a long night for both of us, I decided to bite the bullet and take her to the animal hospital. My driver on the way there was awesome – very understanding and sweet about the fact that he was transporting a cat. He went so far as to call himself a kitty ambulance, though he got a bit uncomfortable when he asked what was wrong and I told him she was peeing blood.

I guess that IS something of conversation stopper.

All was fine at the vet – they gave me two different medicines to get her started on immediately to help with the pain. And while I hadn’t spent my afternoon at a cookout, I’d only spent a few hours at the ER, so I was willing to consider it something of a win…

Until I had to get home. I was so relieved to have the worst behind me that I’d forgotten that the Uber ride is part of the trauma. Without thinking, I summoned a car and hopped into it. As soon as I set the duffel back containing Miss Moneypenny on the backseat, she let out a Volume 20 MEOW.

The Uber driver (named Cynthia) let rip with a blood-curdling scream and almost ran us into a telephone pole. “I’m sorry,” I began, but before I could finish, she interrupted, “What IS that?”

“It’s my cat,” I started to explain. In fact, I usually warn Uber drivers that I have an animal before getting into their car and ask if it’s OK. This time, however – probably because Cynthia had exercised a splendid lack of respect for other motorists and stopped for the pick-up in the middle of the road with a line of impatient cars honking behind her – I’d decided to just jump in for the sake of efficiency.

“Where IS it?” she yelled.

“It’s here – she’s zipped in this cat carrier,” I said, pointing.

“I hate cats,” she yelled. “They scare me. My ex-mother-in-law had cats. They sneaky. They all quiet. Then they just be there. Looking at you.”

“Well,” I offered, “This one isn’t quiet. She won’t sneak up on you.”

Miss Moneypenny hadn’t stopped howling from the second we’d sat down. Just then, as Cynthia turned around to look at us and confirm everything was manageable, Miss Moneypenny’s head came exploding out of the carrier. Cynthia screamed. I grabbed the duffel, somehow managing to halt Miss Moneypenny, who by that point had gotten both front paws out as well. Apparently the vet hadn’t zipped the carrier completely.

“Get that thing back in the bag!!!” Cynthia screamed at me.

I was doing my best, but if you’ve ever tried to force a cat to do something, you know it’s a lesson in stubborn wills. It felt like time stood still as Miss Moneypenny and I fought the containment battle. I finally prevailed, but had clearly lost Cynthia’s trust in the process.

Less like this.
More like this.

About this time, we almost got hit by a bus because Cynthia pulled out into traffic. “My nerves!” she exclaimed.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I don’t want to stress you out. Do you want to drop me off here and I’ll call a different Uber?”

“Naw,” she said. “We almost half-way there now. Just keep it in the bag.”

I assured her I would.

About this time, she started scratching herself wildly – her arms, her legs, her head.

“Are you allergic to cats?” I asked.

“Only when I see ’em,” she responded as she scratched.

Throughout all of this, Miss Moneypenny continued to shriek, making sure that no one forgot there was a cat in the car.

Finally, when we were a block from my place, we hit a red light. “I’ll jump out here,” I offered. “I feel so bad that this has caused you stress – I can take it from here.”

Cynthia didn’t argue. I just saw my door lock flip open. “Thank you so much,” I said, pulling the carrier from the car.

Without a word, Cynthia flipped a U-turn – at a red light, from the right lane – and burned rubber as she left us in her rearview.

You know I felt compelled to give her five stars. Out of guilt. Somehow I don’t think she had the same compulsion.

 

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Let’s see… did you really need to be there?

19 Apr

Image Source: http://www.quickmeme.com/img/91/912e90c02b8f22e482183f1940c9972ed6633bf2ecefd2907920777c81f05f8c.jpg

OK. So here’s something that provided HOURS of comedy fodder to Alan and me during our recent trip to Hawaii. I think it will be categorized as, “guess you had to be there” but I’m willing to test-drive it on an audience before sending it to an early burial. Here goes…

On our flight from Seattle to Honolulu, Alan left his Kindle in the seatback pocket of the airplane. Nevermind that the flight attendants TOLD us to check the seatback pockets for any belongings. I guess Alan was fairly confident that his contained only used napkins and drink stirrers, which would’ve (in hindsight) been about 90% accurate.

Also? He may have been under the influence of a Mai Tai (or ten) when we landed, so some of the instructions were undoubtedly ignored.

Fast forward two days, to our first opportunity to camp out in the sun and read.

“I can’t find my Kindle,” Alan informed me.

Before I could even suggest places for him to look, he said, “I’ve already searched everything and I’m pretty sure I remember tucking it into the seatback pocket on the plane.”

Doh. Fortunately I don’t enjoy reconstructing events to job people’s memories, so I wasn’t miffed.

Alan was somewhat calm about having no reading material, but I knew why: he’d had his Kindle for years and it was both clunky and glitchy, providing more headaches than smiles. He’d been planning to get a new one for some time and had only stalled out of convenience. He might not like not having a book to read on vacation, but he would certainly look forward to replacing his device.

“I bet you can replace it today so you have something to read on vacation,” I suggested – only partly altruistically since I knew Alan would be bored facing the ocean without something to read.

He immediately latched on to the idea, so we did a quick search to see where Kindles were sold. It was a surprisingly short list, made even shorter when you consider retail options on Oahu. We decided to give “Toys ‘R Us” a try since it was on our way from the North Shore to Hawaii Kai.

When we entered the mall, we couldn’t find Toys R Us. That was somewhat surprising since it’s usually large enough to be an anchor store, but we turned our sites to the directory and found that it was a “Toys ‘R Us EXPRESS.” We groaned, knowing that the “express” meant it probably had limited stock.

As we approached it my mental track sounded like playing the game show “Press Your Luck,” where I kept hearing the phrase, “No Whammies, No Whammies, No Whammies, Stop!”

Upon entering, we found one salesperson  – presumably a local high school girl – working the cash register, utterly bored but not looking for an interruption.

And here’s where we enter inside joke territory…

“Excuse me,” I said, hoping to save time. “Do you have any Amazon Kindles?”

She stared at as blankly, her mouth hanging open as if my words had caused her jaw to lock. The only thing that moved were her eyes, which shifted between Alan and me, more slowly than a metronome set for a kindergartener.

After a suspenseful pause (during which Alan and I had both scanned the shelves behind her) she said:

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhm… … … …. …. 

No.

Alan and I looked in opposite directions as we swallowed and nodded our heads, trying to formulate a question that would politely allow us to do our own search for a Kindle without insulting her.

Because clearly, she didn’t even try – she didn’t glance around or ask clarifying questions – she had just stood in place, staring at us before taking one full minute to say no. I’m pretty sure that she was trying to mentally riffle through the filing drawers of her mind to recall if she’d ever seen a Kindle, and was finding that each drawer was shockingly empty, as if she were an Enron employeed and we’d just announced an audit.

Alan beat me to the punch. His diplomatic response (as I stood shaking with quiet laughter) was, “Cool. Can you show me your electronics section then? I might find another reader.”

After fumbling for a key, she zombie-walked three feet to a locked glass door just to the right of the counter, pushing aside a rolling ladder that blocked the way. “See anything?” she asked, gesturing to row after row of LeapFrogs.

My giggling intensified, as I imagined saying, “Sorry – we’re looking for a READER, not for something to help us LEARN to read.”

Fortunately, Alan ignored me and pointed. “Hey, I think that’s an {Amazon Kindle} Fire! Could I take a look at that?”

She obliged, allowing Alan to handle the EXACT ITEM we had come in to purchase – the SAME ONE she had just said they didn’t have in stock – as long as he called it something different.

As she rang him up, we couldn’t even look at each other. We both kept making guttural, “um no” noises, the way she had told him they had no Amazon Kindles for sale. We sounded like a retail version of Slingblade while we checked out, then thoroughly lost it in the car.

For the rest of the trip, it only took one of us saying, “Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm… No?” to crack the other person up.

 

 

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Look Ma – I’m flying!

5 Apr

Chopper ride over Oahu

Anyone who knows me knows I hate flying. I’m convinced that I’ll meet my end in a fiery blaze of jet fuel.

When we started planning our trip and I asked Alan what he absolutely wanted to do in Hawaii, his response was immediate: Helicopter ride.

My response was equally fast: All you, buddy.

Then a few things conspired to change my mind.

  1. Alan began guilting me. “If you’re ever going to do it, Hawaii is the place.”
  2. Alicia told me she had a few solid “posts from the grave” ready to go for Facebook, such as:
    1. Worst helicopter ride ever.
    2. Don’t do it – see my Trip Advisor review.
  3. My friend Brent hooked us up with his friend who is a pilot/instructor in Honolulu and flies with the fire department. There’s a vote of confidence.

So it was that we found ourselves lifting off over the water on Wednesday afternoon for a loop around the island with Joey, the pilot, whose calm demeanor did a lot for putting me at ease.

Because pictures are worth a thousand words, I simply offer you this:

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