A DC Saturday Adventure

Saturday's entry on a Sunday morning

Yesterday I planned the treadmill in the morning first thing but didn't. Before I realized it, time had come to thinking about starting to get ready so I got a shower, got all figured out how I was going to get to DC. Doug and I talked about if I should metro or drive. I was leaning towards driving since it was a Saturday morning, and probably would be easy parking once I got down to 14th street maybe. He said that from what he'd been reading, the DC streets and sidewalks were covered in ice concrete, or "Icecrete" as people have been calling it. It is unmovable, solid, and everything is hard to deal with in town. Metro it is! So I  headed out at 10am thinking I would get there well before the 12:30 start time. 

I got there at 1. It was not as bad as Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, but it was DC Winter frustration. 

As I drove down the highway, someone recently lost control of their car in Montgomery County and the rescue teams were there, blocking the right lane off. It was around the bend so no one in the right lane could SEE the situation and get over so that was a challenge. We got past the accident as the ambulance was leaving and a couple of tow trucks were trying to figure out how to get the car out of the trees. 

Truth be told, I hope they did because it was a sight, and someone driving fast would have come along and seen it, and it would have been a big distraction. There was a crew dropping salt melt and things on the lane. I guess it melted just enough and froze solid again in that area. 

Wicked dangerous! 

After getting past there, I got to Shady Grove metro which is the closest metro station to me. It usually takes about an hour to get there if traffic is moving nicely but we were way over that. I parked, ran to the entrance, charged up my metro card, and waited 10 minutes. 

Everything got better for a while, the train was moving, things were good. But when we got to until we arrived at the Van Ness metro stop we were informed the trains were single tracking due to work being done, so we waited another 10 minutes. I'm sitting there, envisioning arriving after Henry is completely done with his songs. Well, I'll be on time for lunch!

Finally. Moving again! We got to Gallery Place where I was hopping on the green line, and they were only going to McPherson Square, 2 stops away from where I wanted to be. Something about electrical problems ahead.

Now, mind you... NONE of the single tracking or power issues were mentioned on the Metro website or the App. Which I used in order to make my decisions on how I was going to go from point A to B. 

I'm standing in the metro station, looking at my watch, already 15 minutes late. The fuck. 

Okay, pivot. Let's walk. Google maps told me it was a straight shot north, and should take 23 minutes. I bet I can do it in 20. But oh no, oh God, OH GOD it is so cold and windy. WINDY!!! The wind was taking layers of skin off my face. And um, yeah. Um. The sidewalks. The sidewalks are covered in large boulders of ice. There's nowhere to walk. I watched a guy trying to walk his dog past the convention center. 

Nope. Uber. Let's Uber. 

I fire up Uber, which. I cannot remember the last time I used it. Oh... of course. Let's install an update from Google Play. Oh yes, let's reverify our identity with texted codes. And yeah. What's your password? Don't remember your password? Here's an email to reset your password. Okay! Password reset. Finally. 

The uber was requested, it said he was 5 minutes away so I ducked into the Subway sub shop (to clarify so no one reading this who speaks different mass transit language thinks I ducked into the Subway aka the Metro) to keep warm. 

The guy literally showed right up. He got me up to my destination. 

I only missed two of Henry's songs. Not bad. Not bad at all. 

They played until almost 2pm. There were several kids missing so others filled in for them. Henry plays with the teen group even though he's just 11. And the teens are super impressive. The singers could use a little how to rock and roll and have some stage presence lessons but other than that it was wild watching these kids perform. 

Henry did great, sounded great. Flubbed a little bit at the end of a Talking Heads song and kept playing when the song was over, which was kind of cute because it was like he was in the zone and rocking it all out and unaware of the rest of the band. 

After, Sara had made reservations at a restaurant so we could celebrate Hen's birthday with Sean's family. Usually Sean's family comes to things and they don't go out to eat with us after but this time they were in. We had a blast, I really like Sean's brother in law. He's great to talk to. And their toddler is really cute. Her language skills are amazing. She's 2 and speaks in full sentences and just talks to people like a grown up. She's super into the solar system right now and told me the sun is too hot to step onto so we can't go there. 

I started to think about what I was going to do in order to get back to my car. S&S live close to where we used to live at the other end of the red line and I thought about driving over that way to park just to get the ride home with them but opted to do the west end of the red line instead. 

I could uber to a red line station. My original plan was to walk back to the green line stop that I was headed to in the first place but no - there's probably no way I'll get from that stop to a red line stop to get home. 

Sara said, without me asking, that they were going to drive me back to my car. I told them that was crazy, out of their way, but she said her office is right near there and getting home from there is no problem. Sean agreed. So we went, and for some reason the GPS sent us through Georgetown instead of some smarter way, and straight to a bridge that is closed and under construction. Kind of a shit-show, and an unwanted detour around Georgetown, which was so poorly plowed, with people trying to parallel park giant SUVs the size of aircraft carriers, and all kinds of shenanigans. 

They got me up to my car a little after 5pm and the ride home from there was a piece of cake. 

One must have an exceptionally strong constitution in the first place to deal with getting around DC. And yesterday was a perfect example of that. Thankful for Sean and his skills in the adventure. 

When I got home, Doug had done a goodly amount of tidying up. The boys had not made dinner or anything so it was decided there would be pizza. 

I brought home pastries from our restaurant where we had lunch and I overbought. But everything looked so amazing that I could not resist. 

Digits below. No pictures of Hen playing because we were too far away for good shots. But he was great. So great. I love seeing him improve and evolve as a musician. 

digits

exercise: 11/12 hours.  Missed 5pm driving in the car. Treadmill: 22 min/1.38 mi. 10k+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

8:30am: 132
xpm: n/a
xpm: 114

food & meds:
8:30am: jardiance+phentermine
9:45am: Protein shake
2pm: met+glip
3pm: French Onion Cheeseburger: double burger patties on brioche bread, topped with gruyere cheese, and a small bowl of french onion soup onions (w/a little soup in the bowl). side salad. I wasn't going to eat the roll, but I used it to dip in the soup and have no regrets. Several of Henry's french fries
7pm: buffalo chicken bites
9:30pm: met+glip
no beer/wine