Saturday, June 19, 2004

Traffic...the antidote to peace and love

OK...so yesterday I drove to D.C. to stick my suitcases in my summer apartment and do a few errands...it was supposed to be a "short" trip just to get semi-moved-in. The trip there was rather uneventful, I didn't get lost or wreck my friend's car...and I had five Jimmy Buffett CD's to listen to...AND plenty of Diet Coke. Life was good. Got to D.C. and the place where I'm supposed to be has NO parking at all. So, I pay $15 to park for like, an hour, under some building and head up to the office to get my key and whatnot. The apartment is nice...better than where I came from. The roommate had stuff around but no beer in the fridge (hmmmmmm...hope that's not an indication of anything), but it was clean and had a great view...happiness. All the great things you think about when you think "D.C." are right outside my door, so I'm excited about that because when we lived in Fairfax when I was a kid, my dad commuted to the Pentagon and we only got to go into the city on "special occasions." My dad in fact had taken me to watch a bill being passed into law one day...and all of the sudden everyone freaked out and we didn't know what was going but they shooed us out the door and we weren't allowed back in...when we got to the car and turned on the radio it turned out the Challenger had just exploded. After that it was strictly to The Smithsonian and back a couple times a year, and every once in a while we got to meet my dad for a soft pretzel at this place he loved under the Pentagon.

Anyway, the point of this story is that after I lugged my suitcases up to my place in the heat, dealt with the parking situation, etc...I needed to run back here since I was in my friend's car. And it was 2pm so I didn't think traffic would be that horrible, at least once I got outside the city. But then God decided to teach me a lesson about what happens when I think. 3 hours later I had barely gone 30 miles. I finally ended up getting off on some two-lane highway and ended up taking twice as long to get back because the speed limit was 45 most of the way. So, all in all I spent 9 hours yesterday driving...to go a round-trip total of about 300 miles. Yeah.

So, tonight we're off to see Stomp, and then tomorrow I go back to D.C. to do my write-on (hopefully) and figure out how all this Metro nonsense works...and also where I'm supposed to be Monday morning. I'm sure my first day of Metro riding and pantyhose will produce some sort of an amusing anecdote for my faithful reader. Tomorrow evening when I get back perhaps there will be a review of Stomp and the continuation of the horrible frustrating day story from yesterday (oh YES...there IS more!!).
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