Whew

For a vacation weekend, I have had a LOT going 'round these parts. All good things, but definitely don't feel like I got much of a break. And the funny thing was, I literally had one thing a day planned in advance. Activities were springing up like so many mushrooms after a good rain.

Started Friday off by sleeping in (yay!), then meeting Ashley and her boy for lunch (at Lost Dog). Super yum. Then Lyndsay and I headed to a $5 movie at the favorite movie dive that is conveniently within walking distance of my new place. We intended to see "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" - terrible idea, I know, but we were looking for girly fluff, and it was only $5... - but there was this weird mix-up with the movie getting delivered and so we ended up seeing "I Love You, Man" for free instead. So the girly cheap outing turned into an even cheaper dude movie, which I thought was totally appropriate for the two of us. Then Kandi called me and wanted to try a new recipe, and even offered to come and make it at my house for dinner. Who am I to turn down service like that?!

On Saturday I felt very disciplined and patriotic and whatnot because I got up at a decent hour and headed up to the National Cathedral to go to an organ concert with Kandi. Now, a smart person that has lived in DC for five years now might think to check about road closures before heading out on July 4, but not me! Just headed right along my merry way, which of course meant massive unforeseen detours, but I still made it all in time. And the concert was okay - sort of boring, but free! - and then Kandi made me ricotta cheese pancakes with sweet cherries, and that really sealed the goodness of the morning. So really the main activity of my weekend was Kandi feeding me and then I filled in the rest with lesser plans :).

That night I was co-hosting a party for a group of Namibian and South African HIV/AIDS activists that I'm doing a program for at work, because they needed a place to spend their 4th, and being as we couldn't find anyone to host them, we had to just do it ourselves. I ended up having a really nice time with them all, and somewhere along the way might have agreed to take an HIV test so they could see how it all goes down in the U.S. I kept telling them that it really wasn't something that I needed to do based on my lifestyle, but they were fairly relentless, and all things being equal, if they want to see what happens, I'm game. So I'll keep you all posted on our field trip to the Walt Whitman clinic or wherever one goes for such things.

After it was all said and done, my co-hostess asked if we should now break out the hard stuff, and so then for the first time in my life I drink a single malt scotch straight up (or neat, I suppose, since I do know some terminology). Must have been all the horrid bourbon tasting in Louisville, because I didn't even flinch with it. I felt like such a bad ass - like I should also being smoking a cigar or something. Pretty awesome.

And then today I worked in the two-year old nursery, as I am wont to do on the first Sunday of the month. I intended to come home, maybe meet up with Ash again, get some chores finished, and then head to the evening service, but instead started reading a book and then woke up on my couch about 30 minutes after the service started. So apparently the busyness took more out of me than I thought.

Well, thank you if you've put up with me for this long in such a rambling post. Hope you had great 4th!