wild weekend

Three day weekend… FUN.
It started one day early actually, with a work happy hour at McCormick & Schmick’s, seriously cheap eats (and not little tiny happy hour portions, real dishes of food) and good margaritas. came by too, so the work and social lives mingled for a bit.
Friday was a quick “is anyone even here?” day at the office with birthday cake, *mmmm*. Then we went to see “Soul Plane” in the afternoon, which I’m glad I paid matinee prices for. It was a funny movie, but with the usual offensive, “we know that blacks find this funny, so we’ll use these jokes no matter how bad it makes us look” humor. Then again, it was probably mostly written by white people, like a lot of Chappelle’s Show.
That
evening I indulged myself and we went SHOPPING. I hadn’t planned on buying anything at all, just looking, since shopping means spending money and acquiring *stuff*, but it felt good to spend money after a long while of not spending any. I didn’t get a whole lot, just some shirts and sunglasses and it’s probably the least I’ve spent on clothes in some time, but still… saving is a good thing. Not that I have a savings account, since it makes no sense to put money there at 2% interest when my credit card debt is rising at 10% interest. Though I am finding an odd cosmic attraction to blue dress shirts. The ones I can find in my size and on sale are always blue. Not that I don’t look good in blue, I quite fancy blue… but if I put them all together in my closet, it’s like a spectrum of blue.
Saturday was Patriotism Day, with a few side trips to see apartments. I went to see one place that morning and it just wasn’t giving me the vibes. I’m not in a desperate state at all, so I feel like I still can be a little choosy.
Then we went to the Mall to see the hoopla about the National WWII Memorial dedication ceremony. It was actually quite nice, this will (hop
efully) be a once in a lifetime thing for me to see, and they really did a good job getting everything set up, even in the non-ticketed area, there were plenty of chairs, and they were handing out free bottles of water. Thankfully the weather was much nicer than they expected. I took some pictures and even some video with my camera to see how well it would come out. I was impressed by the quality, but it was a pretty huge battery drain.
We left again to see another apartment, and they were lovely renovations, but a little small on kitchen size and the area didn’t thrill me. We made it back to the event in time to hear Brokaw, Dole and Bush’s remarks.
That night we went to the West Lawn of the Capitol to see the dress rehearsal for the Memorial Day Concert. It was good and a little less crowded than I imagine the real event is. Only Tom Hanks didn’t show up, but oh well, we still saw Ossie Davis, Charles Durning and Alison Kraus.
Sunday and Monday were pretty run of the mill days, the weather took a turn for the gloomy, so we didn’t do a whole lot. Watched tv, played games, had a horrible experience at Outback Steakhouse, I’m still debating whether to write a letter to them about it… And got a lot more packing done.
I still don’t have any strong leads for apartments, but just this morning I’ve arranged (or attempted to) at least two visits this week. One place is a little out of my price range, but it’s a 2-bedroom basement place on Cap. Hill, and the other’s a nice looking place in Columbia Heights on the 7th floor, so that’d mean light and a view… but no washer/dryer. 😛