Monday, September 14, 2009

The Weekend Report: A Series of Ridiculous Events

What did I do this weekend? A better question would be, What didn't I do this weekend?
When my friends come to visit, it is just a series of ridiculous events - but what to write about? Obviously, we're all extremely entertained by ourselves, but that doesn't mean that the rest of the world (haha, look at me the ambitious blogger!) wants to read about our exploits. 

But some incidences do have universal appeal. 



1. For example, on Sunday, on our way driving into Arlington National Cemetery, we saw a woman fall out of her shoes. One moment she was walking along, minding her own business, absorbing the true patriotism that is "Our nation's most sacred shrine," and then the next moment she is spread eagle on the ground, with her shoes nicely lined up next to her. How does that happen?


2. A little later that day, we completely flabberghasted some nice Thai ladies at a restaurant in Alexandria. We were walking around Old Town, and at about 4pm we started feeling a little hungry for lunch (4pm is lunch time when you drag yourself out of bed at noon). Thai restaurant? Yes. So the six of us sat down, ordered, and had just started eating when a phone rang. The rest of the table heard a half-conversation that went something like this:

"Yeah, we're just getting some lunch...oh you're grilling? You're grilling for us??? Well, I don't know...yes, we just got our food...but...wait...oh no...what should we do?"

Luckily, in this type of situation, I make vital split-second decisions. 

Me: "Everyone stop eating. Stop eating now!"
Basically, this particular friends' grilling is not something any intelligent non-vegetarian human being passes up. 
To the waitress: "Can we get some to go boxes? Yes, 6 please. We need to go now."
So end of story? We wrapped up our meals, and shortly thereafter enjoyed amazing burgers as an entree to our meal started by an appetizing few bites of Thai food.
I can only imagine what our waitress thought. 


3. On Saturday morning, I ran in the National Press Club 5k. There was an awards ceremony and breakfast afterwards - I won money (YES!), and LLC won some sweet Chicago Olympics 2016 gear in the raffle (YES again!). The special guest handing out the awards was Jim Ryun. After returning to my seat, the man next to me said, "Do you know whose had you just shook?" 
Me: "Um...not really..."
Him: "That's Jim Ryun. He's the first man to break 4 minutes in the mile - pretty cool, huh?"
Nice of him to be so "informative," but I did just read a book about that!

4. The entire weekend was permeated with the slogans of the Tea Party Patriots. First of all, can someone please explain to us what the Boston Tea Party has to do with health care? (As Bostonians, we are all significantly offended by their illogical and offensive use of our fine city's name and rich history.)


They marched on the Capitol on Saturday, adamantly protesting such horrific things as offering health care to the uninsured...now if that isn't fascism, I don't know what is! (Sorry, I try not to get political in my blog - but someone holding a sign that says "Burry Obamacare with Ted Kennedy" is just asking for it..."it" being getting a push down some stairs...)

And apparently my friends just exude liberalism - while standing outside the Newseum, minding their own business, they were yelled at for being "bleeding heart liberals." (Well, when I say 'minding their own business,' I mean that they may have been taking pictures of all the silly right-wing-nuts, but who could resist a sign like, "Tea Bag the Liberal Dems Before they Tea Bag You!"???) 

For a list of the best slogans, check out this site. Hilarious. To the max. 

Anywho...other weekend highlights included:
- Seeing the changing of the guard ceremony at the Arlington National Cemetary (thus, "Arlington" by Trace Adkins has been in my head all weekend)
- The National Archives - did you know that we (as in the US) has one of the 4 copies of the Magna Carta? Surprising, considering that it's the foundation of Great Britain's government.


The Monuments at night - I've never done that before, and I can now highly recommend it. There are fewer people, and it's cooler, and the monuments are really beautiful when they're all lit up. (Be warned, the WWII Memorial has some of the biggest spiders I've ever seen!) 

You can look forward to some more info on the Monuments and National Cemetery - I'll do some research and let you know asap. 



So until next time, beware of tricky shoes, avoid the Tea Partyers ("Capitolism Made America, Not Government" - note the misspelling), and don't let the monumental spiders get you.