Wisher

Shaked and, to a lesser extent, Missy and Braver came to visit this weekend. We did a lot of things around the city. Friday's dinner became somewhat of a fiasco right away, so you knew it would be a good weekend. A bunch of us had dinner at an Asian restaurant. While placing her order, Shaked asked for her dish without rice. The waiter instructed her to give her rice to her friend, to which she responded that he should just not bring her any rice. Well, as it turned out he brought a bowl of rice and put it in front of her. I was sitting across from her and, having been informed of the exchange, took her rice. As the bowl was still in my hand, the waiter whisked by and scooped it up from out of my hand. What?! Is this a joke? How rude can you be? It was a prickly situation, and the end of dinner consisted of the waiter standing immediately next to the table indiscreetly attempting to get us out of there as quickly as possible. Remember, gratuity was included! But that isn't supposed to mean that the service is atrocious. At least the food was good and Shaked and I did not get into a physical altercation with this gentleman. We proceeded to a hot chocolate shop where the machine which makes their hot chocolate was broken. Shaked was disappointed. Everyone else got milkshakes. The evening ended watching Disney's Hercules at Rachel's with Jason and Missy. We wanted to play Werewolves, but couldn't garner enough interest.

Sidenote: Missy claimed that I have an hourglass-shaped body. I would like to dispute that claim here and now. I have nothing approaching an hourglass shape, and I'm not sure what exactly it says about Missy that she thinks otherwise. Rachel and Shaked agree with me! Missy is, as always, an odd one.

The next morning we reconvened for brunch and Shaked fulfilled her desire for hot chocolate. Also, Rachel fulfilled her desire to get Diet Coke spilled on her head by making sudden movements as the waiter brought Missy more soda. After the spill on Rachel's head, Missy selflessly said "Don't worry, my dress is fine." We went to VegFest where I made disparaging remarks about PETA and vegetarians. Par for the course. Shaked and I then proceeded to Georgetown and, on a whim, rented a kayak. Because this was not a planned nautical adventure, we were both wearing jeans which were immediately drenched in water from the Potomac. After kayaking (it was my first time!), we walked back through Georgetown to Trader Joes and did some quality wet-jean food shopping. I will also note that in one of my less-proud moments I may or may not have hit Shaked on the head with a kayak paddle. Not hard, but still. Karma caught up with me, however, and gave me a sunburn.

Later that evening, after we visited the National Portrait Gallery, Shaked and I met up with Gavi and Jason at Damien's party. We were just dropping by for a few minutes, but in that limited amount of time I managed to make a girl hate me. Admittedly, I was being snobby, but she was being stubborn. And she was ugly. It was about burglaries - how bad can I really feel? Alright, it was my fault. Mea culpa; I was wrong, and I instigated. But still...I don't care. Then we went to U Street to meet up with Alena and her friends and I nearly fell asleep on the walk home.

On Sunday, Shaked and I went to Eastern Market, saw Jackson Pollack (actually he was named Jackson Collins, I believe, but we both heard incorrectly at first), lots of amusing posters (the CIA recruiting women: "We are looking for a few good women"), and a creepy looking women telling fortunes. On the way back we went past the Capitol and ran into the 9/12 Tea Party rally. Wow, that was interesting. I don't think we successfully blended in among the crowd. Shaked took to counting non-white people. She pointed out a grand total of two. There were tens of thousands of people there. It was an interesting, amusing, scary experience. Shaked decided it was time to leave when we saw a man holding a sign saying something to the effect of "We won't burn the Koran when they won't burn the American flag," and I wholeheartedly agreed to leave. I kept wanting to talk to the people there to ask them what their conception of a proper government was. Do they have ideas to create jobs? Why do they feel that Congress' taxes are unfair? I half wanted to engage in a legitimate political dialogue with them, but there were too many of them and I was definitely a little scared. No visible guns though! Or racist or sexist signs, so I cannot legitimize those rumors. Oh tea baggers, you silly gooses (geese, would really be correct). I love that half the movement is just dressing up in American flag paraphernalia.

The rest of Sunday included meeting Rachel at the zoo where I had no shame in being afraid of snakes, doing minimal amounts of actual "work," and meeting up with lots of people for dinner. At dinner Jason and I had an accidental date - sharing a pizza and a carafe of wine. Gavi loved it. Monday brought classes (thumbs down) and Shaked's departure (thumbs much further down). It was great to see the visiting Shaked, Missy, and Braver. Now I have to face the harsh reality of school for which I have not done any work for three days. Oops. It was worth it though. Now if only I could find a job, a note topic, and some motivation...