A January Weekend Update

The past weekend was a bit more hectic than most of our weekends, not counting rowing regatta weekends of course. Friday was our day off. Ann had scheduled appointments with our Dermatologist for our annual check -up. Our Doctor's office is downtown so we drove up to Pentagon City to catch the Metro into town. It was a bitterly cold day and the three block walk from the Metro to her office left us freezing. It turns out that the practice had been sold since our last visit with new partners and staff. We had to fill in the all new medical histories, etc. In addition they only had me down for an appointment and not Ann, but they manged to squeeze us both in. The exams were fairly routine. No suspicious looking moles or anything, but we each had something frozen. I had a very small mole on one of my fingers that was more a nuisance than anything and I wanted it gone so she obliged. An impressive blister has formed around it and hopefully it will clear up soon. One of the reasons I go the Dermatologist is that I have eczema. I've had it as long as I can remember. Its more annoying than anything and makes my skin very rashy looking in different areas. Since it can't be cured you just learn to live with it. Sometimes I can control it and other times it will flare up. I treat it with a long list of medications so leaving her office I carried an impressive quantity of new prescriptions. Heading home we Metroed back to Pentagon City where we had lunch at Sine in Pentagon Row. It's an Irish Pub type place and I enjoyed a Shepard's Pie along with some tasty Irish Red Ale. Almost as good as what I made.

Saturday morning Ann dragged me out of bed at 7:00 to walk the dogs. It was cold, but there was no wind so it wasn't too bad. We were scheduled to meet Daughter#2 for lunch. She had traveled up from Harrisonburg with friends to attend another friend's birthday down in the District. As we waited for her to call us and make arrangements, I started working on our 2007 taxes. I managed to get the software loaded and our Federal taxes done, but not filed by the time she called. We agreed to meet in Pentagon Row for lunch at Lebanese Tavaverna. We didn't arrive to almost 2:00 so it was more a late lunch/early dinner type get together. I'm usually not very adventuresome when it comes to food so I ordered lamb chops, potatoes and stuffed grape leaves. Where I'm conservative when it comes to food, Daughter#2 is not hence us eating at a Lebanese restaurant. However, when she arrived it turned out the birthday party celebration had taken its toll on her delicate digestive system and she wasn't up to eating much of anything. In fact she came home with us after we ate to shower and take a nap. She ended up staying the night to recover for the trip home the next day. We ended up the evening watching the Miss America pageant. Given daughter#2's tomboyishness and feminist leanings, I'm always surprised when she wants to watch shows like that. Miss Virginia did well making it to the finals before losing out to Miss Michigan.

Sunday I skipped my erg class to run Daughter#2 out to Manassas so she could hook back up with her friends for the ride back to the Shenandoah valley. She must have been feeling much better as she manged to consume a good sized breakfast. Upon my return from dropping off Daughter#2, her twin, The Son called and asked about lunch. This was about 1:00 and Ann and I had already eaten. He wanted us to drop by and get him set up to pay what few bills he has on line. So we loaded up the car with his paperwork, stopped at McD's for some lunch for him and traveled the few miles to his new place. We killed some time while he ate. He's been having trouble with his sliding glass door to his balcony not shutting properly. It won't close the final inch or so. The door has definitely seen better days. I manged to wrestle with it and finally get it closed all the way. I told him not to use it until we can get it replaced and if he had to go outside to smoke, go out the front of his condo unit. His place is slowing coming together. he and his gf painted one of the bathrooms and it looks good. We spent the rest of the afternoon going over his bills and getting him set-up to pay most of them on line. he also invited himself over for dinner. I think he was getting tired of eating left over spaghetti. He showed up around 5:00 and we cooked up some steaks as we watched the UMD vs Duke game. It was pretty exciting game until the last few minutes when Duke finally managed to pull away. It was entertaining though.

It was a bit of a different weekend for us and I'm sure we'll enjoy a slower one this coming weekend.