Barnes and Nobles, Where the S is Silent

I suppose that I knew I had an addiction.  They say the first stage is denial, a stage I remained in for about a six months before confronting my crisis.  One night, I finally admitted defeat and began seeking intervention.

It started out with just a page here, a book there, and progressed to the point of having an exorbitance of unopened books.  The defining moment came after spending a night out on the town.  Some people have their late night indulgences; Julia’s Empanadas on Connecticut Avenue is a popular one, finding a gem on eBay, another. I even knew of a man who purchased next-day plane tickets, only to wake up and realize he had missed the flight that he didn’t remember purchasing. But I digress.  On this evening, I returned home and found myself ordering books from Barnes and Noble.  Really? My late night hedonist tendency is buying books online.

With much work and restraint, I have cleansed myself of such a late-night folly.  As a consolation, I permit frequent visits to Barnes and Noble.  I have never been happier.  And who knew that trips to Barnes and Noble could produce such great encounters.

The first man I eavesdropped on was informing his friend that he recently became unemployed.  But his recent unemployment allowed him to spend his days at Barnes and Noble catching up on all the latest science fiction novels. If he’s lucky, I heard they are hiring skilled lightsaber-men in the Gelactic Republic.

And even better, I found a collectively rotund couple, pegged in their mid 50s, going through recipe books and toothily scribbling down the ones that appeared palatable.  At a time in my life where I feel my youthfulness fighting to escape from me, I am comforted to know that I haven’t resorted to this yet.

On another outing, I encountered a family of four, each sitting in a chair around a mahogany table, each reading a book.  This family outing quite remarkably resembled a family dinner, less the food and a bit more taciturn.  What a family adventure!

At this point, I am intimately familiar with the seasonal displays, similarities, and variations of each Barnes and Noble in DC Metro area.  If I eavesdrop on conversations at the Customer Service kiosk, I have found more times than not, that I could direct the patron to the appropriate section.  The only downside to having this wealth of knowledge as I see it, not that I’ve asked, is that none of these Barnes and Noble branches are hiring.

Beach H(e)aven

Memorial Day is a day that commemorates the men and women who have died while in military service.  More commonly, Memorial Day has come to symbolize the commencement of summer, with the opening of the pool and the extended weekend.  The holiday gives Americans the chance to sit in traffic not observed since last Thanksgiving, all in attempt to dim the effervescent shine of the sun’s reflection off the wintery-pale skin.

As such, Kyle and I had been invited to our college friend Kristen’s beach house on Long Beach Island in the quaint, traditional beach town of Beach Haven, New Jersey.  The plan was to be out of the apartment by 6am to avoid the parking lot of I-95. Perplexed by the sun edging its way into my tenebrous interior, I turned to my clock to realize that it was 9am.  So much for avoiding the traffic.

Our arrival perfectly coincided with the groups’ retirement from the beach.  As it turns out, sleeping through my alarm was the first blessing in disguise.  As the day progressed, each sand-snoozer’s hue transformed into tomato-patch red, not the bronze they had been desperately praying for.  I’m not talking about a tender-skin sunburn, I am talking about the kind that prohibits you from walking like a normal human and results in the zombie-swagger, arms elevated, legs apart to avoid all skin-to-skin contact; the intensity that merited medical attention.

That evening, the group displayed the zombie-swagger en route to the Hudson House, more commonly referred to as the Hud.  This house is the best dive bar on Long Beach Island.  A house in the middle of a residential development converted into a bar, it is like an old pair of shoes, slightly warn and tattered, but comfortable and dependable.  We pumped some money into the jukebox, sat down, and observed the surroundings.  I spent most of the evening observing the punch-o-meter, where men (and women) dumped dollars to demonstrate they were the alpha male of the mid-thirties bar crowd.

The second weekend blessing in disguise:  While the company in Beach Haven was honorable, my health was not.  Although I missed my chance to bake in the sun, I suppose God wanted me to commiserate with the group, and consequently, gave me pneumonia.  I am still waiting to discover the blessing.

Do We Dewey? Yes.

Dewey – v. laying in the sand, listening to the ocean waves, enjoying the convivial atmosphere, supping on everything, and encountering an eclectic group of beach goers.

After the past few weeks of weather that appeared to beckon for Noah to start constructing a new ark, and thinking the sun might have entered retirement, I was charmed to see the clouds part.  Some of my friends from high school and I paraded to the beach for a relaxing weekend.

We spent most of the weekend Deweying, overindulging in the food department.  On Saturday alone, we dined at Sharky’s Grill, Thrasher’s Fries, Candy Kitchen, the Purple Parrot Bar and Grill, Rita’s Water Ice, The Starboard, and Grottos Pizza.

In order to offset the caloric intake, we made it a priority to get some exercise.  To start off, we played an intense game of corn hole.  The teams: Brian and Sara versus Peter and Zotter. The outcome: Peter and Zotter won 21 – 16.  The breakdown: Brian scored 15 points, Sara scored 1.

In our next athletic competition, we worked up a sweat playing a round of putt-putt at Shell We Golf.  The discount: My friend Peter got to play for free because it was his birthday.  My friend Julie also got to play for free because the store clerk thought she was permanently handicapped since she was deceptively sporting the forearm crutch as opposed to the traditional underarm crutch. The results: Sara ended up in last place, even behind Julie, who played the entire course while using a flamingo-like stance and putting one-handed. The analysis: I should have chosen Julie to be my teammate at corn hole.

Overshare of the weekend: While enjoying the sun and the sand, a bedraggled and unkempt lady approached and showed us the cool sea shell she found.  Over the course of the next few minutes she proceeded to whinge about the cards she was dealt, while simultaneously pining for companionship.  I'm sorry, you definitely sunk that battleship. Unprovoked, she revealed that she recently went through a sticky divorce, in which she only asked for child support, not part of her husband’s pension.  In addition to the child support, she received disability benefits from her former employment accident.  Which is why she talks languidly, because she is constantly on tranquilizers; not narcotics, because she has had a history of addiction to those in the past.  She was also pro-choice until her first abortion, but the emotion distress swayed her to be pro-life.  The one thing she didn’t share was her name.  Anonymity is probably better anyway.  Next, she impinged on my personal space, and with a dollop of sunscreen in hand, muttering some phrase about her concern for me getting burned, proceeded to run sunscreen all over my chest. No. Oh, wait. Yes.

This is My America: Real Men of Genius

I have traveled around the country, biking and climbing, hitchhiking and hijacking, and have found a consortium of people I believe unambiguously represent the best of the best.  Actually, that’s somewhere between a truth and a lie; all three of these Americans can be found in the DC Metropolitan area.

Left turn man. While driving around the streets of Arlington, I came to a stoplight behind a blackberry colored Honda Fit.  Our light turned green, the Honda Fit edged it’s way into the middle of the intersection to make a left hand turn.  Once he began to turn, he now found himself looking up at the red light for the cars in the lanes perpendicular to our green light.  So he stopped.  I politely honked.  He motioned to the law of the land, the red light.  I swerved around him.  No sir.  You should not have been given a drivers license.

Wendy’s lady.  I rolled through the Wendy’s drive through to order a Spicy Chicken Sandwich and a Medium Fries.  The lady at the window informed me my total would be $5.72.  I noticed that the Chicken Sandwich value meal only costs $4.69, and it also includes a drink.  I then asked the lady if she would throw in a soda and knock a dollar off of my bill.  I’m sorry, we can’t do that. No ma’am.  Then I would like to scrap that order and start over again.

Good Friday man. While strolling the streets of Georgetown on Palm Sunday I passed by a Catholic Church service.  Mass had just ended, and the churchgoers were scattering into the streets with palms in hand.  I observe a son point to the churchgoers and question his father.  The father then informs his son that it’s simply Good Friday. No son, do not fall for that scullduggery. Good Friday always falls on a Friday, never on a Sunday.

Slow N Bouncy

Joining a kickball team sounded like the quintessential thing to do after college.  It’s the embodiment of the social and the collegial with a tinge of young professional.

Premise: Play a casual game of kickball each Tuesday evening on the Mall, between the White House and Washington Monument.  Then proceed to Penn Quarter Sports Tavern for a competitive game of flip cup.

Our Team:  The team was created by three nurses with the intent of it being a team for fellow nurses, brandishing the creative team name DC Nurses.  As it turns out, these three nurses were the only three nurses that wanted to participate, so they crusaded to field an army of kickballers.  That is how I landed myself a spot on this team; I happen to know Jay, who happens to know one of the nurses…or so I think.

Our First Week:  Collectively, our team’s kickball skills were underwhelming, and our team suffered an abysmal defeat.  There is a less than probable chance that we could have salvaged some of our dignity if there was a slaughter rule in effect.  Having checked our kickball skills at the door, I thought that flip cup might be our strong suit.  Wrong, I forgot that DC Nurses don’t sport suits.  We challenged our opponent until they got tired of winning.

Our Second Week:  Perhaps we brought an added intensity to the game in celebration of Cinco de Mayo, but in week two we avenged our loss*.  We ran up the score and cheered boisterously, so much so that the referee christened us relentless.  My friend Katie appropriately replied. “Sir, if you had seen us last week, you would understand” to which he replied “I did, we destroyed you last week.”

*Caveat: Our team was forced to forfeit because of regulations stating that a team is only eligible if there are at least four girls.  Our team had two.  Really? The team named DC Nurses couldn’t field more than two girls?

Horse Races > Polo Matches

This weekend represented the annual flocking of the masses to Charlottesville for the annual event known as Foxfield.  I was so eager to catch up with all of my college friends that I had to remind myself to be less animated.  The weekend is a marathon, not a sprint.  All in all, it was a smashing success filled with blue skies and camaraderie, Take it Away and the Virginian, less Brain and more Garvon.

After the weekend, my friend Christine and I ate dinner with my parents, who were, I believe, more excited to see her than me.  Father Gavron, the soothsayer, gave us insight into our futures.  When he and his buddies get together, they inveterately exchange stories from their more youthful days.  Christine and I made eye contact and exchanged a nostalgic heartfelt glance, as we realize that 82% of our weekend was dedicated to that; “Remember that time when…”

For example, there was that time that Christine and I were at a recruiting dinner for a company for which we were interviewing.  We were discussing how we had a thriving symbiotic relationship.  I didn’t have a bowl so I always borrow hers.  She didn’t have a lighter so she always borrowed mine.  Noticing the looks of horror and dismay on these prospective employers’ faces, we realized that our word choice gave an uncanny allusion.  Immediately we interjected.  She borrows my lighter to ignite the grill.  He borrows my bowl for his cereal.  Needless to say, they deemed me unqualified for employment.

With the weekend under my belt, it’s back to the mundane.  Although for the past few months, I have been trying to develop a get-rich-fast scheme, all attempts futile so far. But I’m pretty sure I stumbled upon the billion dollar deal while in Charlottesville, I just have to work out the logistics.  Essentially, I plan to bottle up the mirth and gaiety of Foxfield and sell it for a pretty penny across the United States.  I mean, who doesn’t like a beautiful day at the races with 30,000 of their closest friends in a bottle?

Golf on Grounds?

Besotted with everything Charlottesville, I was highly anticipating my return from the more than two month drought.  The plan was to attend a banquet Thursday evening and spend the rest of the weekend living the dream.  The black tie affair on Thursday set the bar high.  The event proved to be the perfectly anticipated muddling of pomp and circumstance, debauchery, and licentiousness.

The following afternoon, Valerie, Erin and I traveled to Birdwood for a little golf.  I haven't picked up a club in approximately five years, but was excited about the prospects of playing nine holes.  Thankfully, Valerie and Erin persuaded me to stick to the driving range.  The three of us split a bucket of balls and so began the entertainment.

Erin informed me before she took to the tee, that her goal was usually to drive the ball past the first hill.  Befuddled after scanning the horizon and spotting no hills, Erin clarified the definition of "first hill"; more commonly known as the end of the tee box.  As it turned out, this was a realistic goal for her, clearing the tea box more than 50% of the times she made contact with the ball.

I, on the other hand, had a more confident gait.  I forwent the drivers and started with the iron.  I can't be certain where my first shot went.  I can only assume that it followed a similar trajectory as the mound of earth I sent flying into orbit.

Departing comment: While loitering on the Lawn, a couple abandoned their infant sprawled out on all fours.  The infant crawled over to me, and proceeded to eat fistfuls of grass.  Ten minutes later, when the parents returned to their unattended infant, I informed the mother that her child ate a lot of grass (refraining from informing her that I thought she was off to a bad start at motherhood).  Her response; "Maybe she's a vegetarian." Touche.