Visitors!

After returning from Artscape, I headed back up to Baltimore the next day to pick up my sister Keely and her best friend Deb. They were coming for a quick visit to check out my new place.

Keely and Deb have been friends for as long as I can remember--Deb is really part of our family and Keely is one of the super loyal readers of this Blog, who is not-so-secretly very excited that there's a post all about her. Keely and Deb have been on many adventures together, including a trip to visit me here in DC while I was in college--that was 1999, which I only remember because they also came to visit me when I worked in Disney World that same summer. I'm pretty sure this is the first overnight trip the two of them have been on together since.

Keely and Deb are hilarious together. I promise you I started laughing shortly after the got off the plane and I don't think I stopped until we parted ways at the airport a few days later. At one point, I was driving home from dinner at Woodberry Kitchen and I was laughing so hard it was almost dangerous. Deb said, "I'd better stop making Patricia laugh while she's driving" and then proceeded to repeat the exact thing that was making me laugh so hard.

Here are Keely and Deb paying their respects to the Ace of Cakes:
Since I had to go to the office on Tuesday for what would be my last day there for nearly three weeks before my vacation, I sat down with Keely and Deb to go over how they would spend the day touring DC on their own. I sent them to one of the most popular Smithsonian Museums, the American History, and to my new favorite art museum, the Portrait Gallery. In between, I suggested they stop at Teaism for lunch. Finally, we'd meet in Dupont Circle for dinner at Kramer's.

Deb, for whatever reason, could not remember the name "Teaism" and would come up with a different name for the place every time we talked about it. My favorite version was "Teazini," which I think is a cross between Teaism and tetrazzini.

Tuesday morning, we went over to Northside Social for breakfast before I put them on the Metro and went to work. I noticed a number of professionally dressed people heading upstairs and thought there might be a networking meeting going on. Soon, the meeting began and the participants were reciting some kind of pledge. Keely looked panicked and said, "is there CHURCH going on upstairs?!?!?!" Before I could reply, Deb said, "What!??!? Church!??! Maybe it's a cult! Are they going to make us join?!?!?!?" I told them, while laughing, that I was pretty certain it was a networking group. They weren't completely convinced and were visibly relieved that it was nearly time to go.

FYI: It is a networking meeting, it happens to be, as I suspected, a meeting of BNI, which I was a part of for a short time in NYC.

Tuesday evening I found Keely and Deb at Kramer's and we had a good dinner while they debriefed me on their adventures for the day. I needed to meet up with my friend Reed to give him keys and directions to pass on to some friends that would be using my house while I was away, so we went over to his apartment. Reed, Keely and Deb got to chatting and he decided they should be his recipients of the $10 for the Year of Giving project. Keely and Deb were a little nervous at first--when he started to interview them, Deb got so quiet I nearly didn't recognize her. Soon, though, they opened up and had a good chat about everything from children's literature to hot air ballooning and Dairy Queen. You can check out Reed's version of the story, along with a very funny video on his website. And here's a photo of their conversation:
From there, we went back to my car and had random encounter of the week #2--another driver pulled up next to my car as we were preparing to pull away from the curb. I motioned to ask if he wanted the spot. He waved off, saying he was going straight, but didn't move. Then, he motioned for me to roll down the window.
"Hey, how do you like that Hyundai?" he asked.
"It's great, thanks!" I replied, slightly baffled.
"Really? Do you think it's better than those Japanese cars?" he replied.
"Uh, I guess so?" I replied, having no idea.
"OK, great, thanks!" He replied, and drove off.

We made a stop at the Social Safeway for a tour, where I ran into one of my former students--he was buying beer, and man, I am not used to that, but it was good to see him. Later, we ended up having a driving night tour of the monuments and gelato before going home so I could pack for the big trip to California and Australia.

The next day, I got some work done in the morning and we were off to the airport with Gretchen, who was nice enough to ride with us so she could take my car while I was away. Of course, we stopped at Dairy Queen on the way.