Our second annual Christmas mini-break in DC with Allie, this one slowed down by my health, somewhat.
Sunday, December 22
I dropped the girls off at 2:30pm for tea at the Tavern at the Henley Park Hotel. They reported that the tea was very pleasant and seemed to be all they needed. Good, because it was half the price of top-end teas at the Willard or Mandarin.
While they were at tea, I drove the few blocks to check in at our hotel, The Darcy. We had a king suite which gave Allie a separate room on a pull-out bed. The Darcy is another rehabbed DC hotel, similar to the River Inn where we stayed for our previous Christmas DC break. I got the room settled and rested a bit until the girls walked over after tea. We all took a break for a few hours, watching Star Wars (episode 7) on TV. We had just seen the finale episode 9 in the theater the day before, so this was a good refresher.
Without going into too much detail, I’d been having ongoing issues with my stomach for much of December which had an impact on these few days. I couldn’t walk very far and ended up resting quite a lot. So, rather than going out to explore the neighborhood and nearby Dupont Circle, we stayed in the room until dinner time.
I’d made a reservation at The Estuary at the Conrad Hotel because it was run by the Voltaggio brothers and I figured we could order a variety of small plates. It turned out to be a nice, not too fancy hotel restaurant and a good choice. We ordered a selection of six plates, including shrimp cocktail, grilled octopus, tuna crudo, roasted broccoli, egg yolk gnocchi and griddled flounder. They also produced an amuse bouche of a sort of raspberry sorbet and Old Bay breadsticks with cheese. All were delicious, and even Barb enjoyed the exotic flourishes on each plate. Each dish was an example of making odd-sounding ingredients, flavors and textures turn into something familiar and satisfying.
We enjoyed each dish then realized we did not have the griddled flounder. We checked with the waiter who went back to the open kitchen and discussed it with the chef. Time passed, other dishes came out for other tables and we noticed the staff tasting several other dishes that did not make it out of the kitchen. Eventually they served us some fairly nondescript little flounder filets with a quenelle of something that didn’t have much flavor. The waiter explained they were missing the tuna prosciutto that should have gone on top and would not charge us for the dish. It was an odd ending to the meal but we were happy not to have been charged. The waiter then proceeded to give me two incorrect checks before finally getting it right.
Monday, December 23
We included breakfast in our package so ventured downstairs where we ordered from the a la carte menu. Everything was quite nice though I didn’t have a great appetite at that point. We went back to the room where Allie and Barb both had to work for the morning — well, Allie had to…Barb just did. After Allie finished a conference call at 11 she was off for the rest of the day. Barb was looking forward to spending the day lounging in the hotel room catching up on reading, so we left her to it.
Allie and I ventured to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, largely on the recommendation of Allie’s GCS buddy, Jordan Claytor, whom Allie had just seen on Saturday. Jordan is getting a PhD in paleontology and worked for several years at the Smithsonian. He urged us to see the revised fossil and dinosaur display at the museum.
The revised display room is nice, though I can’t say I know what they really changed. They’ve certainly added more touch screen displays which were mostly monopolized by kids. We meandered through, Allie going much more quickly than I. After about an hour she tracked me down and asked what I liked. I mentioned that I would like to have seen a display that showed plate tectonics over time and she led me right to a screen that I’d missed entirely. It was good to have her as a guide.
We spent another hour or so in other galleries, especially the minerals. Eventually, I ran out of steam and we decided to head back to the hotel. In general, this little trip proved to be a fast-forward look at my life in (hopefully) 20+ years when I can’t really walk all that much, can basically rouse myself mainly for meals, and even then not have much of an appetite. It was also a preview of Allie taking care of me which she did sweetly. That’s about the only part of it I’m looking forward to, but I don’t know how long Allie’s patience might last. I don’t want to push my luck.
We rested back at the hotel for the remaining afternoon. Again, we aborted any thought of wandering around Georgetown before dinner even though the weather was mild. We made it to the restaurant Chez Billy Sud in time to meet Allie’s DC friend, Jeff, who joined us for dinner. I chose this as a well-rated French bistro with good steak frites for Barb. We shared escargots, Allie got French onion soup as an entree, Jeff got fish and I got duck. All of it was fine, if not outstanding, and we had a good evening. Contrary to Allie’s hopes of getting drinks afterwards, Jeff headed off to New Jersey with his erstwhile boyfriend after dinner. We all ended up back at the hotel for one last quiet evening.
Tuesday, December 23
We partook of one more breakfast together then checked out and headed home by noon. It was not quite the fun break in DC that I’d planned but everyone seemed to enjoy it in a low key way.
To round out the Christmas festivities, we got home in time for me to make the mashed potatoes for tomorrow’s dinner while Barb made more apple bread. We then headed down to Virginia for Christmas Eve with the Diamonds. I negotiated with Barb for us to leave after dinner and before the carol singing. I was hurting, but made it through.
On Christmas Day, we opened gifts in the morning (I got lots of underwear which ended up being very useful). We had a little fun putting Manny in a Christmas shirt which he actually kind of enjoyed.
Dan and David came by for a nice visit in the early afternoon. After they headed out, we got started on the Christmas Dinner in earnest. Leslie and Emery arrived about 5:30pm and we had a good roast beef meal together.
Allie stayed the next day but had to work. Meanwhile, I headed off to the doctor to find out what was going on with my butt. That’s another story.
I took Allie to the airport that evening for her 10pm flight back to Boston. It was delayed, as always, but she landed before midnight. Merry Christmas, one and all.
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