Mr. TwoBusy Goes to Washington

Oh, yes I did. I fled my family for three days, leaving them behind in a could of dust and jet fuel as I flew the friendly skies did whatever the fuck it is that US Airways does and made my way to Washington, D.C. for an extended weekend.

Now, not a lot of people realize this, but Washington D.C. is actually the capital of the entire country. It's true. Which meant that in between beers and margaritas and other beers, I somehow managed to get glimpses of the Capitol Building, various and sundry U.S. Departments of blahblahblah ("Oh, boy -- Agriculture!" (long pause) "Shut up."), the Washington Monument ("Hey, that reminds me... of me!" (long pause) "Shut up."), a union protest of some sort involving a giant inflatable rat, and the National Zoo (where I spent most of the time carrying around someone else's kid as I searched in vain for a tapir). It was highly educational and patriotic, and I highly recommend it as a vacation destination for other people fleeing their children.

What happened? What did I do? What did I see? Oh, your excitement is contagious. Here, let us share in the wealth and wonder of my experience.

* The Metro rocks, y'all. Honest to God -- you can go just about anywhere, and it's clean, and it's comfortable, and there are signs everywhere that tell you when the next train is coming (living in Boston, I can't tell you what a revelation this is. I had no idea such things were even possible.), and it puts every other form of public transportation I've ever taken to shame. After I arrived at DCA, I had to take the subway into the city to meet my friend Demoncrat, and I was a little apprehensive about the journey. Little did I suspect that the train station was literally connected to the airport, and less than 35 minutes after stepping off the plane I'd be walking through downtown DC, nearly getting sideswiped by some jackass in a Bentley Azure. Bravo, DC. Bravo.

* After arriving downtown, I lured my friend Demoncrat and one of his colleagues out for lunch, whereupon we had a coupla beers and I said all kinds of vaguely off-color stuff that the colleague spent the better part of the lunch ignoring. Eventually I became self-conscious about my apparently horrifying stupidity, stopped talking, and concentrated on my beers. That evening, some six hours later, I made some apologetic comment to MrandMrsDemoncrat about what a dick the colleague apparently thought I was, and how I was sorry if I'd been grossly offensive. Demoncrat's reponse: "Oh, I don't think he was wearing his hearing aid." Me: "What?" Demoncrat: "Yeah, he's pretty deaf. (brief pause) I guess it didn't occur to me to mention that." Me: "No, it was much better that I spent the entire day feeling like a dick. Thanks."

* Following those inaugural beers (please note my clever DC/political wordplay), we took the Metro out to Demoncrat's home, where we had another beer, and then wandered out to some really nice neighborhood and meandered around until we found this really cool bookstore and hey, look, it's got a bar and a cafe, and hey, look, it's happy hour! and then we may or may not have had a couple more beers. Then we slowly floated back to Chez Demoncrat and met up with his lovely Mrs. and made our way out to a very nice Mexican place where we proceeded to share some food and a lovely pitcher of very strong and very good margaritas -- except, of course, for the fact that MrsDemoncrat is kinda knocked up, which means that my onetime Best Man and I ended up throwing back something like 3-4 strong margaritas each. Which meant that over the course of Day 1, I had something like a half-dozen pints of beer and 3-4 really strong margaritas.

Good day.

* On Day 2, we ditched the knocked up Mrs to go see Knocked Up. Not to give anything away, but if you've already seen the movie... you might remember a scene in which somone tells the female lead, "Wow -- you really do look a lot like your sister." Now, when that happened, my friend snickered a bit, and I completely lost it -- just helpless, gasping for breath. But no one else in the audience made a sound. I don't know if they didn't find it funny, or if it just went over their heads... but for a full minute afterwards, it was just me in hysterics... and crickets. Which is a very odd sensation. The only other time I can recall something similar was when I first saw Fargo. Near the end of the movie, the very pregnant cop is walking toward the house on the lake when she hears this high pitched whirring sound -- and at the sound, me and one other guy in this very full theater just burst out laughing, because we knew exactly what we were hearing... it wasn't until 10-20 seconds later that the wood chipper actually became visible on-screen, and everyone else figured out what was going on. It was an odd sensation then, and it was an odd sensation again this past weekend.

Whatever.

* Later on, we went to RFK, met up with my friend Angus and saw the Nationals/Rockies game which was... well, it was. Small crowd, lousy stadium, two very mediocre teams... I'll have to come back next year when the new stadium opens to see what DC is really capable of delivering in a sports environment. The real excitement came afterwards, when Angus and I were trying to leave the RFK parking lot. As is the case virtually anytime you leave a "big" event, all traffic gets routed a single way (regardless of what way you actually want to go), and so Angus and I found ourselves pointing the wrong way -- headed over the Anacostia River and into a part of DC that Angus promised me we didn't want to get lost in. So, we pulled into the left lane of this 6-lane road and waited in a line of cars to make an illegal left turn. After a minute or two, we were the 3rd or 4th car back, and as we prepared to move I noticed a DC cop car pulling up slowly behind us to the right. I was expecting him to start flashing his lights or use the bullhorn to tell us all to clear out and move on, when suddenly the patrol car stopped and the cop got out.

In a split-second, the car behind us pounded the gas, jumped the 10" median strip - losing all kinds of pieces of his undercarriage in the process - and went screaming off in the other direction. Another patrol car was coming up the road from the other direction and immediately went flying after him... at which point I glanced back over to the first cop and saw that he had his hand on his gun holster, like he was going to take a shot at the fleeing car. Fortunately, he changed his mind, jumped back into his car, bounced over the median and took off in hot pursuit.

High point of the entire trip, right there.

* I spent the night 2 in the wilds of northern Virginia, abusing the hospitality of old friend Angus, MrsAngus and BabyAngus, who I must note is one freakin' enormous slab of beef. 18 months old and 33+ lbs? Goddamn.

* Day 3 offered a mellow flow of kickass french toast (thanks, MrsAngus), taking BabyAngus to a park (where I made not one but two diving saves as he walked off a climber/slide apparatus, showing off the strength of my Dad Fu), and then making our way in to the National Zoo, where we saw large mammals, lots of monkeys (apparently a BabyAngus favorite), no tapirs, and then - in the Bird House - some of the most profound and enormous ass cleavage I've ever encountered. It was a rather large woman who was crouched down in the Indoor Flight Room, where she was attempting to take a camera-movie of the Western Crowned-Pigeon of New Guinea. Granted, it was a pretty cool bird, but such was her stance that her depthless butt crevasse was unveiled in its full, unfettered glory to any with the misfortune to glance her way. I was one such poor soul, and I found myself unable to tear my eyes away. Sometimes you stare into the ass cleavage... sometimes the ass cleavage stares into you. It was hypnotic. When I was finally able to look up, I noticed MrsAngus sharing the view, biting hard on her lip to keep from busting out laughing. "What a remarkable view," I said to her. "I don't think I'll ever really forget this." And then she turned bright red, smacked me in the back of the head, and walked away before any real harm was done.

I love MrsAngus.

* And then I came home, and died. The end.

Comments

[jonniker]

Hey, I didn't realize that was this weekend! I thought it was next, for some reason. I would have wished you well/asked about it, but it sounds like it was delightful as is. I love DC, I really do. And the Metro! Yes, the Metro!

But did you otherwise like Knocked Up? The scene where I believe I was the only one laughing - full-on, heaving hysterics - was when Paul Rudd needed to find another chair because it "had better energy." God, if that didn't SUM FREAKING UP a mushroom trip right there, man oh man. And yet: no one else laughed. Not even a little. And I was out of control, heaving with laughter, sighing and crying, I don't know why.

[TwoBusy]

That was definitely a good scene, but the two that killed me were the "just like your sister" line and the bit about the thing that wasn't a stuffed animal that looked like a... uh... stuffed animal. Just lost it both times.

[claire]

A high-speed police car chase always makes for a good vacation. That's what i say.

Is there some kind of Tapir obsession that you're alluding to, here?

I was hysterical with the chair scene, too. I thought that was brilliant. I love the Freaks & Geeks group - so, so funny.

[claire]

Oh and also your last comment on my blog? I KNOW.... gah. I've been off the map for like a month.

(If i had found an email address over here, i would have sent and email instead of this. But it seems like you don't want your adoring public contacting you. Hmm. I'm not sure what to think of that.)

[TwoBusy]

Adoring public... heh. There's you, there's Jonniker, there's... maybe 3 other people. And then we're back to the crickets.

[The Velvet Blog]

There are a couple of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 moments that leave me gasping for air every time I see them--it's a weird feeling.

[Above Average Joe]

the pics of the new Nats park look good. After sitting in Fenway last Sunday, you start to loose that "beautiful-old-ballbark" feeling (along with the feeling in your ass) and wish they would build a new one.

[TwoBusy]

AAJ -- exactly. I mean, Fenway's magic... but after you spend an afternoon at, say, Camden Yards, you start to see why a new ballpark wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Especially if they could navigate the red tape to actually put one somewhere on the water...