Home and Away...: Because it's awesome

It is really just starting to sink in that there are only 4 more weeks before I start life over again in a new country. I am not intimidated by the change, but, having lived overseas previously, I know the costs involved (there are also benefits, but those are more pertinent to another conversation, at another time). The biggest cost for me is always trying to develop a new support base of friends and (adopted) family. What really brought that home for me was the visit by Andrew, Estee, Martha and Mel this past weekend.

Everyone trained/bussed (not a word, but deal)/flew down/up to DC to spend a few chaotic days squeezed ever so tightly in my one-bedroom apartment here in Dupont Circle. Outside of the precious few friends I have kept in touch with since middle or high school, Andrew, Estee, Martha and Mel represent the core of a group of friends who have been close to me the longest. We met during our freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania and I haven't once wished it were different. As I've said before and I'll say again (and again and again), a girl couldn't ask for a better group of friends. These people have my back (literally, between the lawyering, financial and nursing skills that this group represents, I have an answer to every problem).

Just knowing that this was the last time we were all together before I ship off to Buenos Aires really reminds me of how precious these moments are. It also reminds me that all the future plans I was making are now current plans, and I leave in a month (a month!!!).

Regardless, now that we've become (somewhat) mature adults and have moved to different states and countries, it has become difficult for us to all be together. Like Clark Kent and Superman, we are often not in the same room at the same time. So these get-togethers mean so much to me, even if all we do is sit on my couch to escape the heat stroke that is likely during these hot and humid DC summer days...

So, a recap is in order:

Andrew is the first to arrive. I might have beaten him if I didn't decide that a last-minute Happy Hour with Micita was the perfect idea. He informs me by text that it took him 3 tries to open my front door so he could leave his bags behind. The awesomeness officially began.
I arrive back at my apartment to find Andrew's TWO BAGS (what are you, a woman!??!) in front of my apartment door with a lovingly handwritten note informing my neighbors that these bags, these TWO COLOSSAL WOMAN'S BAGS FOR A TWO-DAY TRIP are for Ryan Janda, in apartment 4, and please don't steal them. I consider briefly leaving them in front of my neighbor's door instead, sans note, but am kind enough to bury them in the pile of electronics waiting for the movers in my living room.
Maggie and I go to the dog park. It is too late to go grocery shopping, so I drop the dog back in her crate and leave the apartment. Mel texts me to let me know she is in town and I give her Metro directions. The wrong directions, in fact. Good thing was that she was already out of the Metro at Dupont Circle, right by my house. I coerce her into getting back on Metro to go to the airport for Martha.
Mel will likely not feel this story is complete without the story of the homeless woman on the train. It just so happens that we sat down next to an older homeless woman who seemed to be trying to get to the Shaw/Howard University stop. Unfortunately for her, she was on the train going in the opposite direction. Unfortunately for us, we strongly believed she was on some sort of intoxicating substance (or she had severe mental issues). It took me about 20 minutes to convince her to get off the train and try to get on a train going in the right direction. She finally decided to follow us when we got off at the National Airport stop. We walked her over to the other platform and tried to leave her there, telling her to take the next yellow line train. Every time we thought she understood and started to walk away, she would all of a sudden gain some kind of consciousness and call us back. So I asked Mel to text Martha so we could figure out where to meet her, mostly because Mel needed something to do other than to look incredulous at the fact that we two were helping out a homeless lady (Mel would have preferred to call the cops, I believe; note to people who may one day feel compelled to help out a homeless person: do only what you feel comfortable doing. If it's talking to him/her, fine, do it. If it's calling the police, fine, do it. If it's just leaving the information for the nearest shelter, fine, do it. Interacting with the homeless is not a requirement and should not feel compulsory; the only thing I do not advocate is being openly disrespectful - no one should treat a person in an undignified way). Eventually, the woman wandered off, hopefully to find whatever it was she was looking for.
Meanwhile, Martha wondered what the hell Mel was doing at the airport. Basically, Mel hadn't decided to join us until that morning, so Martha was all, "Who are you and why are you at the airport?" Needless to say, we reunion-ed at baggage claim with our favorite Southern belle and returned her, whole and hearty, to the District.
Mel decided she needed pasta so I convinced my ladies that a jaunt to Posto was absolutely necessary. It was four blocks further than Mel wanted to walk (i.e. it was four blocks away from my apartment), but we made it without any major mishaps. Dinner was, simply put, *amazing.* If you live in the DC area and you haven't yet tried Posto, run, do not walk. It's that good.
As we were nearing the end of our meal, my darling Sean, one of my foreign service colleagues, and his friend Jeff walked in. Hugs!
Then Estee called to let us know that she arrived at Union Station and was taking a cab to us. We had coffee and it was glorious.
Then Andrew called to tell us that whatever Georgetown MBA function he had ditched us for was now over and he was working his way back to my apartment. So we made him sweat it out a little on my front steps, while we took our sweet time (i.e. kept Mel's turtle-like pace) walking back.
The air mattress. It doesn't even need complete sentences, it is that infamous. My friend Chasity loaned me this air mattress (thank you, doll!), but I hadn't bothered to check to see what I needed to inflate it. I naturally assumed that it just plugged into the wall. And you know what assuming does: it makes you think that using a tire pump to fill up an air mattress outside of your local gas station at 1AM is a good idea! Turns out the air mattress was battery operated. But we five ivy league grads thought the smart thing would be to use the Air Vac at the gas station to fill it up. Five dollars or so in quarters later and we determined we just simply didn't have enough change to ever get the mattress to a comfortable level of fullness. The good news is that one drunk guy walked by with his friends and was so totally appreciative of our ingenuity that we felt far less ridiculous than we would have otherwise - even despite the fact that some of us were in our pajamas (lucky for me, I was also the one with the camera, so...). After our first failure of the evening (Air Vac: 1; UPenn Grads: 0), we decided to take the longer trek to the 24-hour CVS for "elephant-testicle" sized batteries, also know as D batteries. Yes, my friends, I said "elephant testicles." Since there were cops outside the door to CVS, we didn't try out the batteries until we were in front of Starbucks, clearly a much more conspicuous location. Success! And now we know that when Mel and Andrew start pumping out little Asian babies that glow-in-the-dark, we have the air mattress to thank! Chasity, your next drink is on us...

Saturday is really quite a blur in my mind. This day could probably best be described as "couching." I remember making brunch for everyone, walking the dog, getting froyo and ice cream, and exchanging some shoes at Johnson & Murphy's, but what I remember most clearly are two things: 1) debilitating humidity, and 2) the couch.
Saturday night, it was just me and the ladies. Andrew (slacker) ditched us for other, more important friends, while I dragged the girls out to VA for a going-away party for a colleague of mine who has now shipped off to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Much of the evening was spent moving from one group of people to the next, chatting and working the room, but we also managed to have a few key moments worth remembering. One is that my Penn friends met one of my GMU friends and his fellow GMU friend. Let's just say that "come sit on my friend's face" is not the best introductory text, nor is "Smell ya later!" the best farewell text (although, to Gaurav's credit, we did continue to tell each other to smell ourselves later for the rest of the weekend). Another is that Micita is now thoroughly impressed by Mel's networking skills when Mel walked up to 2 marines with Micita, started a conversation, and then totally walked away, leaving Micita surrounded by marine yumminess. Everyone needs a Mel, I'm tellin' ya. We also attempted to go dancing at Cafe Citron, but were not cool with the lack of breathing room on either floor so we returned to my apartment, where Mel could puke in the relative privacy and comfort of my place. It was a very posh affair.

Sunday, da-dah, da-da-da-dah...We were supposed to meet with Jeff and Liz at Busboys and Poets for brunch, but we received their cancellation text after we had already seated ourselves so we ate without them. We enjoyed our communism with a side of eggs/toast/grits/whatever.
Then we started booting people out of the District like it was a fire sale. Mel got tossed first, needing basically all afternoon and all night to train back to Hartford. There was maximum groping (she is oh-so-grope-able!).

At some point, we also tossed Estee and Andrew, who were both Bolt Bussing it back to NYC. It was 2 for the price of 1, and then it was just Martha and me and Maggie. The apartment seemed so empty.
Mostly, Martha and I relaxed for the next 2 days. She got in some reading for primary care nursing, while I continued to do whatever it is I do to prepare for departure. We got some beautiful weather with low humidity, Martha took care of my Tempur-pedic delivery (without the foundation, of course, as it would not fit through the door), I had myself a meeting with one of the craziest people I have ever met (but I can't divulge names on the internets), and then we treated ourselves to a sangria happy hour replete with boys, a bartender that looked like a 1980s porn star, paella, a recurring and malfunctioning fire alarm that urged us all to leave the building, and tapas.

We certainly tried to add culture to our DC visit, but it just didn't happen. Instead of things like the National Zoo, the Museum Walking Tour, and the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, we now have memories that revolve around air mattresses, elephant testicles, smelling people later!, sangria, and couches. Not bad, my friends, not bad at all.