The Four-Day Weekend

Lately, I’m off work more that at work, and this seems a fine setup. Even better than the visitor I was expecting for the Labor Day weekend, I had an extra day off to make an already long weekend even longer. I celebrated by hopping in bed real early on Thursday night to allow myself enough sleep to be rested when my alarm sounded at 4:45 am Friday morning. Hello, coffee–my first order of business. When I was awake enough to recognize oncoming traffic but still asleep enough to think tackling a 20-mile run was a good idea, I set out for my nearly three-hour run. Then I felt sick for that exact amount of time. And minus the joy I found in a phone call with an old college friend, I have essentially recapped the first day of the weekend. At some point, I did managed to clean the apartment, which was actually harder to motivate myself for than the run. I cannot explain.

I was up before the sunrise again on Saturday because Boyfriend signed us up to donate blood at 7:00 am. As life would have it, my iron was low despite the pill I pop every single day without fail that accounts for 316% of daily iron requirements. So much for medication, saving lives, and sleep.

So enter my friend, H.C.O.H. She was metro-ing her way to our home as we worked our way to the same destination from the Washington Nationals Blood Drive. At least I wasn’t alone in getting up before the sun on 'sleep in Saturday'–our playing field was even. Her early arrival called for coffee and bagels over conversation galore. From bagels we continued to Georgetown for ice cream at Thomas Sweet, with never a lull in our conversation. After ice cream, we made our way back to my place to gear up for college football. Our Clemson Tigers were taking on my brother's Georgia Bulldogs, so we headed to O’Sullivans, the local Clemson Bar, for viewing. The first half was fun. The second half was all kinds of disappointing. When you lose your first game, you most likely lose me as a fan for the season. My ever unhealthy relationship pretending the Clemson Tigers will ever be taken seriously continues. 

Sunday, I ran. Are you sick of hearing about running? This isn’t a running blog, I know. This is a play-by-play of my life blog… and right now, running is my entire life. Wah. So I ran, later than normal, in much more humid than normal conditions. My legs were exhausted from Friday’s go. But at least I only had eight easy miles to complete. And donuts were in order post-run. We started our walking tour of Washington, D.C. at Golden Brown Delicious. The donuts were good but not great. For D.C. natives and visitors alike, I recommend Astro Donuts; I'll be sticking with them in the future. We ventured further up Connecticut Avenue to Filter Coffeehouse & Espresso Bar. Filter, much more so than GBD, let me down. At least I resolved that, sigh. Then we walked and walked and walked to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to the Lincoln Memorial to the Korean War Veterans Memorial to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, around the basin to Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial–pausing briefly to admire his charming puppy and wife, Eleanor, onwards to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, to the Washington Memorial, backtracked slightly to National World War II Memorial, and finally trekked to the U.S. Capital. That’s a least a millions pounds sweated. 

Next up: Margaritas. And we earned them! We headed back to my neighborhood for some of the absolute best at Fuego. Here we were not disappointed, expect in ourselves; we couldn’t devour nearly the meal we deserved. Refueled, we talked and talked until bed at midnight. It was another long and late evening and I managed to complain not once. Maturity. 

On Labor Day, I remained absolutely motionless. I cancelled my run. I opened a box of Milk Duds, and I watched six episodes of House of Cards, a record for me in the binge TV department.

Time to get back to work.