We got dressed for dinner and Ubered to Fiola, a prix-fixe
restaurant on Pennsylvania about 10 blocks from the hotel. It’s a fancy
restaurant with great food and incredible service. I think there were as many
staff as diners, and the dining rooms were full. As we ordered drinks, I leaned
over to Donna and said, “Bernie Sanders is here,” and glanced in his direction,
over her left shoulder.
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| Wilford Brimley, the Quaker Oats TV guy |
Now, I see celebrities all the time. At our church in tiny
Clarksville, Maryland, for instance, I regularly see:
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| Bill Gates |
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| Kevin Costner |
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| Joe Girardi |
Granny, the cartoon owner of Sylvester the Cat
and Tweetie Pie (I know she is the real Granny, because she sometimes gives the
readings, and her voice, as well as her countenance, right up to the little
white bun on the top of her head, is spot-on)
Donna doesn’t share my keen eye for celebrities. At the
restaurant, with her usual skepticism in such cases, she gave me a “yeah, okay,
Mr. TMZ” look before taking a discreet peek at the party of four in the corner
of the room, two across and one over from ours.
She looked back at me and said, “Okay, he looks a little like
Bernie, but his hair is combed.” True enough. Between courses we would observe
his mannerisms, how he gesticulated, how he moved. We couldn’t hear him, but he
spoke to his tablemates the entire time we were there. Maybe he was planning to make a sizable contribution to the Clinton Foundation to thank Hilary for her decades of service. Or maybe he was thinking that President Trump really is making America great again. Maybe.
As the night went on, Donna
grudgingly concluded that yes, I was right, it really was the Bern Train. We
finished our extraordinary meal, emptied our bank accounts, and headed home, me
with a smug little smile.
The next morning, a frigid Sunday, we relaxed in our room and in
uncharacteristic extravagance, had a pot of coffee, croissants and a newspaper
brought to the room. What an indulgence! Sitting in bed with a hot cup and
doing a crossword puzzle instead of tending to the thousand errands, chores and
obligations of a regular weekend morning.
We managed to make 10 o’clock Mass at a little church a stone’s
throw from our cozy room, in a church that dates from 1794. It was originally
built for the masons who were constructing the U.S. Capitol and White House.
The history here just blows me away. The priest gave a terrific homily of which
I remember just about nothing, but in the moment it was uplifting and
inspiring.
After Mass we stopped in a very millennial-friendly café for
brunch – kale-based smoothies, organic and free-range food, nose rings, and so
forth. We fit right in, and our meal was pretty good.
We started on the first floor, where there was an exhibit of Pulitzer
Prize-winning photographs. There were famous war pictures, including of the
Marines planting the flag at Iwo Jima, the South Vietnamese security official shooting
a suspected Viet Cong, and V.E. Day in New York, where women were kissing sailors
with abandon.
There were photos that depicted all that’s good with humanity, and
much that’s not.
From there we ascended to
the sixth floor and worked our way down. We saw exhibits of John F. Kennedy,
who would have been 100 this year; exhibits of printing presses and radios and early
portable computers (one, a TR-80, from the early 1980s, was a favorite of
reporters because it was small, you could actually type a story remotely and
send it via modem to your office; mine from my cub reporter days is in an upstairs
closet somewhere).
There were exhibits of early newspapers (there has been mudslinging
and media bias for centuries), exhibits examining the balance of privacy vs.
security, and more. Two particularly cool exhibits were of the Berlin Wall
(with actual slabs of the concrete barriers and an actual watch tower), and of
the FBI, and how it solved cases ranging from the gangsters of the 1930s to the
Unabomber to the failed Times Square bombing plot of 2010, complete with the
actual SUV the terrorist had loaded with gasoline, fertilizer, propane tanks,
and dozens of firecrackers with the hope of detonating it to kill hundreds.
We spent about three hours there and, if we hadn’t have been worn
out, could have spent a couple more. But it was time to go back to the hotel
and relax before dinner, which unfortunately was at a much lesser restaurant
than the night before. We returned to the hotel and called it a night.
The next morning we indulged in room service coffee again, then started
collecting our things. We visited the Old Ebbitt Grill for a second time –
after all, what’s a few hundred more calories after a weekend like this one? – then
returned to our room, finished packing and came down to the beautiful lobby to
check out.
One thing I have learned in my travels is to bring a sizable fold
of $5 bills. Everyone has his hand out for a tip. As we made the walk from the
front door to our car, the bell-hop, the guy who got our car, and the guy who put
our luggage in the car, all were due a tip. I was, to paraphrase, dropping Abrahams
like John Wilkes Booth.
What a magnificent way to celebrate being married to the girl of
my dreams. I look forward to our next anniversary.
Below are a few more pictures from our weekend in D.C.
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| Not Lafayette, in Lafayette Square |
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| Not Lafayette, in Lafayette Square |
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| Not Lafayette, in Lafayette Square |
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| Lafayette, finally, in Lafayette Square |
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| Iranians protesting in front of the White House |
Loved the dropping Abrahams line...!!!! And a reporter?! You never cease to inspire me! You truly are next in line to toast Dos Equis.
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