It's Officially Spring, Right? - Part 2

Need to catch up?  Here's Part 1.

When last I blogged, I'd traveled across the country to the greater DC metro area to see Toni, Robert, and Juliet.  We'd just arrived home after seeing a great show - Brain Candy Live! - and we were tucked up all snug in our respective beds.

Friday, March 10th

It took me awhile to fall asleep the previous evening (thinking about Harley coupled with my issue of not sleeping well the first night in a different place), so I slept in a bit on Friday morning, finally rousing myself only when I started smelling something delicious baking downstairs.  As I've probably mentioned before, Toni's an ace baker, so I knew something good was occurring in the kitchen beneath me, and I was right on point - a yummy cinnamon coffee cake!  Score!  I joined my hosts downstairs to chill on the couch for awhile as we planned our day.

We'd been hoping to get tickets to see the new African-American Smithsonian Museum (I'm a sucker for pretty much any museum, and Toni helped design part of it, which made me extra keen to go see it), but they were already taken for the day (while all the Smithsonians are free, the A-A Museum is super new and really popular, so you do need tickets for it).  We already had a girls' night planned in DC, so we were fine with hanging around the nearby downtown area of Alexandria instead, as opposed to having to drive into the larger city twice in one day.

After lounging for a few hours, we all got up and moving, and we headed into downtown Alexandria for lunch and wandering.  Toni had a Groupon for a place called King Street Blues, where they'd eaten several times in the past.  It focused on traditional southern/comfort/BBQ, and we weren't disappointed.  We all ended up with BBQ based options, and our meals were quite good.  After lunch, we decided some window shopping was in order, so we headed out.

Before we departed the restaurant, however, Juliet and I made a stop at the giant gumball machine just inside the door.  I haven't yet outgrown my childhood desire for candy inside machines inside restaurants/Wal-Marts/tire shops, and while I normally go for Hot Tamales, gumballs are a close second preference.  Chris seems firmly convinced I'm going to get some horrible disease from one of them someday (and he's probably not wrong), so he normally steers me away.  However, since he wasn't here with us, it was fair game!

Uncle Chris can't stop us now!

Over lunch, we determined that a local art mecca I'd previously visited, the Torpedo Factory, was still open (it's been around 15 years since I've last been there, so it may very well have been shuttered since then), and we all wandered down to check it out.  Toni and Robert, despite living in the area (around 4 miles away) had never been there, and it seemed like a good place to look at all sorts of art and potentially get some early birthday/Mother's Day shopping done.  

In my shopping/art fueled haze, I didn't take any pictures there, but here are some handy ones from the interwebs to show off the facility:

The exterior...

...and the interior.

There's so much art to look at - three floors, in fact - and each artist has his/her own space, although some will pair up and share the area to help defray the rental cost.  Most of the booths actually had the artists there working, so you could chat with them about their processes and see what they were up to.  It's a really cool place, and I highly recommend a stroll through, particularly if you're into art and history.  It was a working torpedo factory back in the day, and there's exhibits and information throughout the space to discuss this.

History!

After we finished up at the Torpedo Factory, we headed back to the car, leisurely strolling (and stopping at a local sweet shop for chocolate reinforcements to take home), all of this weird white crap began to fall from the sky.  My reaction:

"Aaaah!  This is cold and wet

and bullsh*t!"

I even took a video of it.  Prepare to be underwhelmed:

I call it,

"Florida girl in the snow."

We made it back to the house without issue where we ate our snacks and chilled out for a few more hours.  Eventually, it was time to get ready for our girls' night!  We got all gussied up and ready to head out.  Although Toni and I were initially planning to take a cab to the restaurant, Emily, Toni's cousin and another member of our party, very graciously offered to drive us there; while we didn't want to inconvenience her, we were certainly happy to take her up on the offer.  Jen, another of Toni's friends and the remaining member of our quartet, joined us at Toni's to wait for Emily to arrive.  Once she did, we hopped in the car and started the journey into the city.

We ended up being a bit too late for our 6:45 reservation at Circa, our restaurant of choice, but the manager helped us secure four seats together at the bar, where we ordered starters and waited to see if a table would open up in the actual dining area.  The manager was gracious about the situation, and offered us complimentary champagne to start our night, which we gladly accepted (and which I accepted two glasses of, since Emily is currently pregnant and can't indulge.  Hooray for pregnant people!).  We split a few appetizers (the antipasti platter and mushroom flatbread), and they were great.  

Since the space was pretty packed all night (Friday night, after all), we ended up having our entire dinner from our bar seats, but that was fine by us.  We had a great time talking and laughing, as well as eating and drinking (I had the lobster ravioli for my main, and it was freaking delicious.  The waitress tried to clear my bowl with one bite left, and I almost took her life.  Don't do that, lady).  It was really great spending time with all of the ladies, and I truly enjoyed getting better acquainted with Emily and Jen, as they're both smart, funny, lovely people.

We packed up and headed out, but not before making friends with some folks who Emily and I had been eavesdropping on for the latter part of the evening - two very befuddled (and married) guys and a really drunk, b*tchy girl who was hitting on both of them seemingly purely to get free drinks.  When we engaged them in conversation, she then attempted to do the same to me, and even I weren't a happily married heterosexual person, someone that mean really wouldn't be my type.  For reals.

Emily drove us back to Toni's, where Jen departed in her car, and Toni and I wandered back inside to tell Robert about our evening (and watch basketball, I think).  Right before we all headed up to bed, we realized we (of course) hadn't taken any pictures of the night, so we snapped a few while our makeup was still relatively in place:

Toni and I

Robert standing in for Jen and Emily.

The resemblance is rather uncanny.

After a quick goodnight call to Chris (hooray for evening time zone differences!), it was off to bed!  On the next blog, we start our cider tasting adventure!

Later!

Amy