A recap of Rajani’s visit to Washington the weekend before last… she arrived on a Friday night, and Thom and I took her to one of our regular haunts, the Silver Diner, for some good eats. Basically it was Relationship Jeff meets Independent Jeff. Yay, it was great. When we got back home, she showered us with Christmas presents. I received a couple of books (The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003 and the Norton Anthology of Poetry… ah, the Amazon wishlist finally put to use), a CD of Hawaiian music called Call It What You Like by Mark Keali’i Ho’omalu (he’s also featured on the Lilo & Stitch soundtrack), and a mousepad with the London Underground map on it. Cool!
A visit to the Mall is de rigueur for any Washington tourist, so the next day, we went to the National Gallery, and arrived just as a gospel choir was finishing up a set of Christmas songs in the rotunda. We spent most of our time at one end of the west building (“our” corner of the Monet room contains The Japanese Footbridge and Palazzo da Mula, Venice) and of course, we browsed through the gift store. Note that the Cascade Café, a pleasant eatery that I like to frequent whenever I’m at the Gallery, closes at 3 p.m. most days, so by the time we were ready to chow down, we had to find some other place.
We got on the Metro and headed back to Pentagon City, and ate at California Pizza Kitchen, another of our haunts, though as Thom remarked (if I remember correctly), we definitely spend more time at the Borders next door. Later that night, the three of us went to a fun holiday party given by a couple of Thom’s friends. There’s nothing like a lovely home full of friends and food (and a blasé, but amusing cat) to get you all in the Christmas spirit. (Or maybe it was the knockout Irish coffee.) With Rajani and Thom there, I couldn’t help but toast “the holidays with my favorite people.” Aww.
On Sunday, Rajani embarked on a day trip to New York by herself, to see Avenue Q on Broadway¹, making Thom and me a little jealous. (Okay, a lot jealous, but we’ll take Manhattan soon enough.) That left us most of the day to ourselves, and let’s just say that he and I had no problem taking advantage of our alone time. Ahem.
Rajani returned that night, full of puppet-musical-theater glee. The next morning, before she had to leave for the airport, she and I had a leisurely breakfast, and watched some of Down with Love on DVD, my umpteenth time—oh, still so fabulous—and we exchanged our goodbyes. Thus ended our annual reunion (usually a New York escapade). Let’s hope for more frequent visits in the new year!
¹ The Clintons—as in President, Senator, and Chelsea—caught the show on Saturday, Dec. 27. Check out the all the photos on Broadway.com: “Clinton was positively aglow with praise for the show—presumably Avenue Q’s well-placed dig at President George W. Bush helped turn the prez into a fan.” Heh. (Link via Hit or Miss.)
I was just surprised there were no pix of the Prez with Lucy the Slut.
You guys have to get up here to see AVENUE Q. It really is worth it.
Matt: We’re in the process of putting together a Valentine’s weekend trip there to see Rufus Friday night and Avenue Q, at the very least, sometime that weekend.