Cherry blossom time.

It’s that time of the year in DC where everyone wants to come and look at a bunch of trees flowering. It only lasts for about a week so we feel fortunate that Dave’s mother will be here for them this year all the way from the UK. She gets here tomorrow afternoon and Sunday morning early they will be going to go see the cherry blossoms at the tidal basin. I say they because I plan on sleeping a bit late because we have a birthday party to go to the night before and we all know how that usually turns out. I will get up in time to make brunch for about 10 people.

It was an interesting week. I ran four times, wanted to run today but just didn’t have the time as you’ll understand in a bit. Wednesday I had to go out to Ashburn Va. (aka…ASS–BURN) for work. We finally got the load balancer up and running from a big project I have been working on. That night we go to dinner with a friend of ours who is visiting from San Francisco. We have a good meal at Makatto and then decide that going to Halo is in order. Well, it being a school night, going to Halo is never a good idea on a week night. They have two for one drinks all night and they are HALO sized drinks. We go in and run into our downstairs neighbor and his friend. Well it got messy after that, I do remember having my hands down a couple of people’s trousers. My oh my. We got home around 12ish. I’m usually in bed by around 10. The most amazing thing about all this is that I actually got up and ran the next day. Mind you, it was only a three mile run and not the usual five mile one but I still did it.

So what do we do the next night? Well it wasn’t halo but it was another local gay hangout that just happens to be very “On” on Thursday nights. Duplex Dinner, decent food but nothing to write home about and great drinks which is something to write home about. And hot, hot guys everywhere you turn. We meet our friends Rob and Carlos there for dinner at seven. We end of leaving at eleven and I insisted on taking a cab home because I wasn’t walking home in that condition.

I got up this morning and just couldn’t run, I was too tired. I did show up at work a little bit late this morning. I wonder why? I did do a full body workout so I’m all pumped now.

Dave and I decided that tonight we will go to Whole Foods for sushi and then go the theater to see the History Boys and maybe have a glass of wine there. We want to get up and work out tomorrow morning and then we pick up Dave’s mom at the airport in the afternoon  and then Rick’s birthday party that night. So far a very full weekend and all I really want to do is sleep. LOL.

Monday morning blues.

Well I did it. I really did. I made Dave leave JR’s early on a Sunday night. We actually came home and had a good night’s sleep on a Sunday night. (SHOCK and DISMAY!)

I got up and ran this morning, no really, I did. I’ve been at work all morning feeling pretty good, except for the allergies which are still raging.

So we were actually pretty good this weekend. We had a party at Dan’s house on Saturday evening. We played a rather lame board game that was supposed to be risqué. Maybe for straight people in the mid west, or maybe their six year old children. Not so much for a bunch of gay boys who can’t say anything without it becoming a sexual innuendo. The booze and friends were good though. After about three times playing the game we decided to go to the Green Lantern and check it out. We shouldn’t have. All I can say is that It’s a very mature crowd that finds it perfectly ok to walk around in just a jock strap. We drank fast and then left. It was off to bed for us because we had the in-laws coming over for Easter brunch on Sunday.

Easter was fun, and a bit surprising. The first surprise was that the in-laws were there on time. I hadn’t even started cooking because they are always about thirty minutes behind so it caught me off guard when they got to the house two minutes early. There was church to go to before that so I think that might have been the defining factor for the being there on time. The second surprise was how pretty but cold it was outside. We almost decided to have a fire but decided against it at the last minute. One more thing to look after when you have a two year old running about. The third surprise was when they left early. We expected them to be with us until around sevenish but they left around three. We didn’t know what to do with the rest of the afternoon. That’s one of the reasons we ended up at JR’s.

We did another thing that we don’t normally do. We sat in our chairs and listened to music after brunch. Normally we have lots of other things going on and we never just sit. This was nice but I got to see Micky mouse make a run for under the dining room table again. The music was loud, Dave and I were talking and the mouse still came out to take a look around. We thought we had seen the last of him because none of the traps or the poisons had been tampered with. Seems that the smell of freshly cooked bacon just got to be too much for him and he had to come take a look. He stayed under the table as I was looking in disbelief and telling Dave about him, he ran away when Dave tried to get a better look at him. Time to buy more traps.

Friday we went to Duplex Dinner for dinner and ended up at Jr’s again. I again had to be the one of reason (I think) and get Dave to come home. There was a very good reason he wanted to stay and we’ll just leave it at that. I did sleep late on Saturday mainly because of the allergies. I could sleep for most of the day because of this crap.

I have a story about a co-worker and a dentist that I will tell sometime this week but it just doesn’t quite fit in with the blog above but I'll still leave you with this little something.

Washington in the spring time.

I love Washington, it’s become very comfortable for me and my partner. This is amazing in that we considered moving to Washington about a two year obligation with plans to move on to the west coast afterwards. That would have been eight years ago if we had followed through.

Everything we need is within walking distance. I walk to work, Dave does too. We have an airport that will take us anywhere in the world that is only about Thirty five minutes away. There are so many restaurants here, we could try one every night and still not go through them all in a year. And these are only the ones we can walk to.

We love it, but….

why is it all of the sudden I’ve started to get really, really horrible allergies in the last two years? I’ve never had allergies in my life, either that or I was just too stupid to notice I had them. Then “whammo” last year it started. I hoped it would be a one year kind of thing, but noooo.

So I thought I had bronchitis, and then realized it wasn’t as bad as bronchitis but just an all over tired, achy, coughing up chunks malaise kind of thing. In other words, what most of my other friends have been complaining about since I moved here, I now have it.

I’ve spent the better part of the last three days in bed. I have gone to work only to leave early because of how bad I felt. I did workout today because I was feeling guilty after not doing it for so long, but that was a really bad mistake. I feel worse now. I think the only thing to do will be to get some allergy medicine but I hate them, they make my skin crawl and make it hard to pee. Also certain aspects of my manhood decide to shrivel up and hide.

Let summer begin please.

Life at 41 now. ugh

!So, Lufthansa give me a 25 Euro voucher because I had written about the jerk on the plane on my trip back to the US on flyertalk.com. They didn’t need to but they did.

It’s a little lame though because it’s only for merchandise you purchase while on a Lufthansa flight. If it went toward a ticket I think I would have appreciated it more.

So we get back from our long trip to Cape Town at around 7ish pm on Wednesday, I’m at work on Thursday at 8ish am. It was a little bit rude I have to say. After being away for so long with nothing to worry about but what you’re going to eat with your fabulous wine after working out for two hours, coming back to reality wasn’t so nice. But reality didn’t last too long, noooooo. We keep the vacation going.

Why did we do this you ask? Well we had some friends from the UK come in on Thursday night to visit for the weekend, actually from Birmingham to be exact. So Dave picks them up from the airport and brings them home. We’re pretty sure they will be jet lagged and will feel like going to bed. We gave them options for dinner and they choose Duplex Dinner. We kind of pushed them in that direction because Duplex is the place to go on a Thursday night. It’s also the home of some of the strongest drinks in DC.

I was there until 12:30 that night. I made it into work the next day on time but I’m not sure how. The boys didn’t know what to do with all that alcohol in our drinks so they just drank more. One thing to know is that alcohol in the US is relatively cheep. In the UK you get a double, 50ml, which barely wets the ice in the glass and it cost about $12. Here you get about 4oz for $10 which is about 6 times more than the UK for a lot less money. And if you go to JR’s on Sundays it’s $2 double (American strength) vodkas. If you do this it usually ends up in tragedy and tears but I’ll get to that later.

So I go to work the next day and Dave takes the boys out to see the monuments. They didn’t get up until after ten. I had been at work for two hours at this point. Well we set up dinner with them at our favorite French restaurant around the corner. Somewhere along dinner I realized it would be a very bad thing for me to go out. We have a dinner party in their honor on Saturday with twelve people coming. I end up sending them on their way and I go home to bed.

Sometimes I do the smart thing.

I was up and at the grocery store at 9am on Saturday morning looking for all the fresh ingredients I needed. We had scallops with a savory vanilla sauce and parmesan crisps for the starter. We had halibut with a crab meat stuffing with asparagus and multi colored small potatoes for the main and we had a poached pear stuffed with pistachios and dates with small profiteroles and a scoop of butter pecan ice cream for dessert. It all went over very well.

Cooking and plating for twelve can be a bit overwhelming especially in my small kitchen but luckily Tony was there to help too.

So we finish up dinner and then find there is another party to go to. I volunteered to take the boys because Dave had done it the night before. We end up staying at the party until 3am. Boy oh boy. We ended up taking a cab home, firstly because it was raining, secondly because it was too far to walk from that neighborhood and thirdly because we were too drunk to walk that far.

Got Home and passed out.

Only to get up on Sunday and make it to the 3rd annual Saint Tragic’s Day brunch at the beacon bar and grill. $30 for all you can eat and all you can drink. There were 20 of us there and I think we must have gone through at least 4 cases of cheap Champaign. It all started at 12:30pm and didn’t end until 4ish. The boys from Birmingham said at brunch all they’ve been doing sense they got to DC was drink. And it was mostly true. At this point they boys need to get back to the house and pack for their plane to Los Vegas. I decided to stay with my friends and go to JR’s. Really bad Idea.

It always seems like a good idea at the time but if very rarely is a good idea. What I remember of it was great fun. I did get home around 9ish. Dave took a friend to dinner.

I did make it to work on Monday. Got home and went to bed early. Made it to work today too, but……

I now think I have bronchitis. My bald spot hurts, when that happens I know I’m sick. That and the fact that I’ve been coughing up nastiness for two days.

Too much excess for too long. This all started the Thursday before we left for Frankfurt when I went to see the Spice Girls. It’s time to calm down for a little bit.

I might right about the trip to Cape Town too but I’m not sure I want to bore you with all the food and wine stories. Until next time.

What a Jerk!

I was coming home from FRA to IAD in FC on LH 418 yesterday. There are five of us on the upper deck, quite nice. We have a youngish male FA who seems a little bit wet behind the ears but noting horrible. One of the things he didn’t do that I’ve had other FAs do in FC was come around again with the Champaign again before taxiing, I did ask and got some more but didn’t really think I should have to ask. I’m ok with this at this point because I see he’s trying and it might be one of his first times doing this. I figure they know it’s a light load in FC so they can let him train with the five people there. To me not a really big deal.

But to the guy behind me, OMG!!!

We start Taxiing and all of the sudden I hear a very loud (yelling) conversation between the passenger and the FA (really at the FA from the passenger). Seems the young FA had tried to do his job and take the passenger’s (we’ll call him BUJ (big, ugly and jerk) from now on) nuts and glass. You would think it was the end of the world for BUJ!

He yelled something about how the FA should be working coach instead of first class and that he wasn’t fit to be serving in first class. All very loudly so that everyone could hear it.

I was in shock, I’ve never heard anyone talk to anyone else like that. Especially in the pitch and tone that was used. There was venom and hate in everything BUJ said.

One of the reasons I like FC on LH is because it’s easy and relaxing and I don’t have to deal with stress. This altercation caused me stress. I was happy when it ended and it looked like BUJ had gone to sleep.

Dinner service commenced and it was all fine. I did have to ask for more wine again but once he figure it out I didn’t have to for the rest of the flight. (Another perk of FC is a never end wine glass if you want it). I then watched a movie.

And then BUJ did it again!

I was watching the movie when I thought that’s a strange sound track coming through, sounds like someone yelling. I then take my NOISE Canceling head set off to listen to BUJ completely bitch out the head purser for, I would say, about 10 minutes. I was close to getting up and telling BUJ to shut the **** up, you’re ruining my flight.

He then passed out for the rest of the flight, thank god.

There was absolutely no reason for this behavior. My travel companion said to me after the first bit of yelling that he knew everything he needed to know about BUJ from the outburst and that he wasn’t a very nice man.

There was a bit of justice at immigration at IAD. Our flight was late and we all showed up between shifts so there was only one person working US citizens. I was close to the front so I got through relatively quickly and got my luggage right away. BUJ was quite a way back in the line and looked like he was about to have a stroke he was so unpleased.

Where do these people come from?