Stories from Our Nation's Capital

This weekend we visited our friend Kari in DC. It was a weekend full of non-stop frenetic activity:

Jazz at the Sculpture Garden

(Kari, channeling his inner hillbilly)

Basketball

(See? White Men Can't Jump)

Blueberry Picking

(We picked like 12 pounds of blueberries. And I'm not kidding.)

And The Panda's Birthday Party

(Kari was the only one without a panda sweatshirt on.)

Actually, this activity listing is a bit disingenuous. There certainly were several activities we didn't do. For example, we didn't exactly celebrate The Panda's birthday - we waited around for a while with some scarily fanatical Pandamaniacs before we decided to bail. And, despite repeated references to the newly opened "Portrait Gallery" and the "Building Museum," neither appeared on our itinerary.

And, for once, I wasn't the one to punk out on going to a show.

But on Sunday morning, when Kari stated that he was feeling "pretty mediocre," we knew that our efforts at cheer, though sincere, were falling short. Indeed, there was only one cure: Eastern NC-style barbecue. This remedy lead us to the only such establishment in the DC area, and to perhaps one of the most bizarre dining experiences I've encountered. A few of the quirks:

- there was a Sunday Brunch buffet; unfortunately, portions were doled out by the inept, if cheerful, Eastern European server who handled the entire dining floor;
- after Kevin requested more water (perhaps to fill the empty pitcher on our table?), our server brought him an unopened half-liter of bottled water;
- although we were the only customers, our food took a solid 20 minutes to reach us;
- our server insisted that Kari hadn't ordered Cole slaw (when he so obviously had).

But perhaps the most entertaining portion of the meal was when our server returned to the table with our check. She handed us an indecipherable piece of paper and said, "it's thirty dollars." I have to assume there was some rounding up involved. And, the coup de grace, our server kindly requested a cash-money tip.

It was at this point I wondered if perhaps we'd traveled through some wormhole and actually ended up in Eastern Europe. It would certainly explain the sensation that everything we said was lost in translation. Really, the entire dining experience reminded me of being in a foreign country, in which you really just roll with situations without pause for reflection. You know: "oh, perhaps the culture here is for one free glass of tap water, and then you have to pay for it," or, "oh, perhaps it's typical to just make up prices to charge customers."

So why didn't we complain? Ask question? Raise our fists in opposition? Because the barbecue was good, and it's hard to get that shit outside of NC.

There is one additional sad series of events to report from this weekend. It involves Trivial Pursuit, and lost games, and the fact that Kevin Ross, of all people, smoked Kari and me TWICE. The second win was particularly painful, as Kevin racked up nearly all of his pie pieces within three turns and then struggled to finish it off for two hours. But, he won, and Kari won, and I lost, lost, lost. Sigh.