hot oil bath anyone?

WOW�Ok three-day weekends are awesome, especially when they start at lunchtime the Friday before. There is much to tell and hopefully I don�t leave out anything crucial.

Friday afternoon I met up with a former co-worker of mine to have lunch and discuss the fact that she hates her new job. There is a potential opening at my company working on the same project that I am working on and if she gets it, not only do I get a 1,000-dollar finders fee, but it would also spell trouble if we worked together again.

I meet this mother at the metro stop near Georgetown and we walk several blocks to a shopping center on the campus of George Washington University. There is a Bertucci�s within said shopping center and since she had never eaten there before, I let her know that it was a crime against humanity that she had not had their Margarhrita pizza with additional roasted garlic. Walking into the shopping center I noticed there was a rather large gaggle of gays waiting to be seated. This did not surprise me too much as being on a college campus while school was in session, it was only a matter of time before you ran into a posse of �family.� The strangest part is that after looking around, I noticed that we had suddenly warped into the �Gay Dimension.� I say the Gay Dimension because we were being attacked on all sides by the gays. It was craziness. Outside of a bar at night in Dupont Circle, I had never been surrounded like this, except for one time at the Gap. It was getting close to overload and we had to leave as soon as we got our check and paid. I love my people, I really do, but this was too much even for me. I was trying to have a relaxing lunch with my friend and instead the gaydar was firing off left and right and my head almost started smoking and I�m surprised the building didn�t catch fire. We high-tailed it out of there and I went back to finish out the day of nothingness and my friend went back to her crappy job that she is trying to get away from.

Note: Any single gays in the D.C. area who are tired of hanging out in Dupont should check out the Bertucci�s in Georgetown for some lunchtime �take out.� This could be old news to a whole bunch of people or it could be that this was one of those strange anomalies. Perhaps that is what inspired me to start reading a book on the Chaos Theory this morning.

After work was over, I got in touch with a friend of mine that was supposed to be coming into the city on Saturday for an evening of fun and merriment. The plan was that Dr. C and I were meeting him after we went to the National Gallery in the morning with my parents. That plan however was altered when I was talking to him over IM and he said that he was just going to leave and come over straight from work on Friday. Spontaneity like that kicks ass and it made for an awesome debauchery soaked evening. Drinks were had at Dr. C�s and I made a few calls and suddenly we had a good group of people heading out that night. The snag was that the plans to meet my parents at the gallery the next morning were still on so I was hoping for an evening that didn�t last too long. Anytime you want to not have a good time and go home early, it turns out to be one of the better nights you�ve had in a good long while and you close down the bar. I walked out of the bathroom and suddenly all of the lights had been switched on. That alone was enough to freak me out, and then I look down at my watch and notice that it�s 3:00am. OOPS!

A good friend of mine works at this bar and he hadn�t seen us in a long time. This means that the drinks came twice as fast, twice as cheap, and twice as strong. Hooray!!! We danced, we sang, and we were the most popular people there. Surprised? No.

9:00 was a rude awakening, especially knowing that I was going to have to drag my ass out of bed at that very minute and get ready to head back into the city and meet my parents for a morning of art and leisure. There were a couple of new exhibits and Dr. C and our friend rarely go to the gallery. I had been dragged to the National Gallery ever since I was 5 and our family was stationed in VA. It was never a pretty picture when I saw my mom reading the Weekend section of the Washington Post. I always new when I saw that there would be a metro ride in my future.

So, we finished looking at all that art crap and then we headed back to Dr. C�s to gather our things and switch locations. We were bound for my apartment in McLean to do laundry and bask in the beauty that is cable television. While the laundry was drying a trip to Borders was launched and next door to the Borders shopping center in Tyson�s Corner is a complex that houses Gucci, Hermes, Tiffany, Louis Vuitton, and some other high-end shops. The parking lot went something like this: Range Rover, Mercedes, BMW, Saab, Audi, Jaguar, Honda Civic. I�ll leave it up to you to decide which car was mine. Having never been into the Hermes store in Tyson�s, I convinced my friend he had to go in with me. Dr. C refused to go in and heads over to Borders. The store itself was smaller than I thought it would be, however I think I was spoiled having first been to the Hermes store in Paris. I did found a white cashmere sweater that I must have. Unfortunately, I�d probably have to sell a baby on the black market to afford it.

We head back to the apartment to make some dinner and watch mindless television. Dr. C made awesome southern barbeque and I was in charge of frying the okra. I love me some fried okra with tobasco so I set to work heating up the oil, preparing for the fry fest that was about to happen. It all turned out really well, however my first attempt to pour the still hot oil into a container resulted in me spilling the oil all over myself. If you have the opportunity to get hot oil spilled on you, I suggest you politely decline. I picked up the wok that had all the oil in it and the handle on it was on some sort of free-rotating device and the whole thing just started tipping and before I knew it I saw a whole bunch of amber liquid pouring in my direction. I�m not sure I can recapture the look on my face, but I�m sure it was similar to the look one might have if he/she has just discovered that they were just about to get hot oil poured on them. The best part was after I saved the rest of it from falling, I still had to walk over the puddle of oil that was all over the kitchen floor. I was praying that I would not slip and fall back into it. Thankfully that didn�t happen, although I did mange to step in it and get one more burn on the bottom of my foot. The okra was good though.

Sunday was spent sleeping in and generally being lazy bums until we decided to go and see Kill Bill. That movie was bloody, Jesus. However, Uma Thurman kicked so much ass that I do not even know where to start. Mother was pissed and I pitied every fool who got in her way. Now Feb. needs to get here STAT so I can see part II.

I drove our friend back to his house in Waldorf on Sunday, which is about a 35-minute drive from where I was in VA. From there, I drove to Annapolis, which was another 40-minute drive. I drove to Annapolis to drop my car off so it could be worked on Monday. One might ask why I didn�t just drop it off at the Honda dealer in McLean where I live. A good question, however even though it�s a standard service, there was a 120-dollar difference in price. Upon hearing that, I figured I could drive and see my parents all while saving some $$. I then turned back around and drove back to VA. I had enough driving for the day and I can�t say anything else fun happened.

Monday I picked up my car from having its service done however I arrived an hour early and had some time to kill before hand, which was spent going to the Annapolis Mall. I hate malls.

It�s now Tuesday, I�m back at work and it still sucks in case anyone was wondering. Four-day weeks are cool though. I just have to start packing my stuff and throwing away old clothes, etc. to get ready for the move in Nov. I�m bound for Alexandria; closer to work, cheaper commute, cheaper rent, and living with Dr. C. The last item in the list puts the biggest smile on my face so hooray for that! Hopefully I pour some more hot oil on myself and have funnier stories to tell later on during the week. Perhaps it can be a �VO-5 hot oil treatment gone wrong.� You never know.

e.