Angela Tung Oversharing on the internet since 2005.

And lounging with the morning off.

First off, I wasn’t home for more than an hour last night before I got two mosquito bites. Wtf? Where do they come from? Don’t the buggers realize it’s fall?

Last week I tried returning the too-small, too-funeral-y dress to the little boutique on Avenue B. I knew there was a chance they’d only do store credit, but that was fine by me. What I wasn’t expecting was that they only did exchanges, and I’d pretty much have to pick the new item right then and there.

Of course I wanted to get something of the same value, preferably two on sale items. But there was nothing I loved. The owner of the store was there and she helped me again with choices. I was trying on a couple of things when she called out, “How about that gray sweater dress on the mannequin?” I’ve never worn a sweater dress and was hesitant, but said sure why not.

It was totally adorable, very soft and warm. “It’s cashmere,” the owner said, and she the other girl there agreed that it looked cute on me (they were not vocal about the other things I had tried on).

I agreed. The only problem? It was another $100.

Who goes to return a $190 dress to come back with a $300 dress? Me, that’s who.

I didn’t feel any buyer’s remorse, funnily enough, I guess because I really love the dress and can picture myself wearing it often.

We left for DC Saturday afternoon, and it was pretty much a comedy of errors. We rushed out right before to go to the post office, and when we came back, I was dripping with sweat and changed my whole outfit. Okay, already exhausted. It was raining and disgusting out, but we managed to snag a cab, but as we were walking into the station, MB held up his hands and said, “Oh no!”

“What?” I said.

“My suit!” he cried. He had managed to remember all the musical stuff he wanted to practice – travel guitar, recorder, books – but forgot his suit for the wedding.

We went into Border’s to find me a place to wait with our stuff while he’d race back downtown. Unfortunately the cafe was full so I said let’s just go into the station, but as we were going back down on the escalator, I saw an empty bench.

“Let’s go back up,” MB said.

Now. In the movies and TV, people go back up going-down escalators all the time. They seem to do it with little trouble. Well, lemme tell you: it’s HARD. Of course as you’re walking up, the escalator is moving down at the same or faster pace, so you’re basically staying in one place. So genius me figures, “Oh I just need to go faster, even with this heavy backpack!” And what do you think happens when you try to race up a descending escalator with a heavy backpack? You trip and fall.

I thought I was fine, just banged my knee, but then my knee started bleeding through my pants. “I’m so sorry,” MB kept saying over and over. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

I didn’t know what I was thinking, convinced that I’d be able to go up a down escalator.

In the end it wasn’t a big deal. I was able to change my pants and slap on a bandage (luckily I was stocked up), and while we missed our train, we hopped on the next one for just $30 more each, and with MB’s suit in tow.

We got in around 7:30. Our hotel was very nice, but I didn’t pick such a good location. When I was first planning this trip, I thought we’d have time to tool around the city, and heard this hotel was good because it was nice and also near the metro. True on both counts, but we didn’t have time to do any sightseeing and so it was pointless to be at a place not close to either Union Station or the wedding site. Ah well. At least it was a reasonable price and there were tons of restaurants nearby.

We ate a good but overpriced Italian dinner, took a little walk, then were in for the evening. MB needed to practice and study, and I was just pooped and looking forward to lots of TV.

And also a nice cup of tea. (I know: I sound 80.) The hotel website said all the rooms had coffee makers. Ours did not. We looked and looked, and couldn’t find one. I went down to see if I could get tea to go from the bar, but they wouldn’t sell it to me. “We don’t want people walking around holding hot beverages,” the bartender told me, not unkindly.

So I mentioned the missing coffee maker to the concierge. He said it should be under the TV. Looked again. No coffee maker. I called housekeeping.

“It should be under the TV,” she said.

“I looked,” I said calmly. “It’s not.”

“I’ll send one right up.”

Tick tick tick. Forty five minutes. I called housekeeping again.

“It should be under the TV,” I was told once again.

“It’s not,” I said, through gritted teeth.

“I’ll send one right up.”

“Well, I called 45 minutes ago.”

“I just got here, ma’am.”

How is that my problem?

At this point, MB said screw it and ordered a tea tray plus fruit via room service, which actually turned out to be very nice. A whole slew of gourmet teas, beautiful fruit with tasty walnut cake. Luckily he did, because when they finally brought the damned coffee maker, that was all they brought.

Coffee maker. No coffee, no cups, no tea.

Am I crazy or don’t hotel rooms come with the whole shebang when there’s a coffee maker? Coffee filters, cups, cream and sugar, tea?

Lame asses.

Anyway, the wedding was very nice. The ceremony was in a lovely, simple chapel. You could tell that it was quite old. The reception was at a hotel/college campus nearby, and I realized we should have just stayed there. But someone I talked to said it was sort of noisy with rowdy college kids. We all had a great time dancing and SG’s son is just adorable. I kept wanting to squeeze his cheeks.

Afterwards we ended up back at Union Station hours before our train at 8:45. So we decided to hop on an earlier one, the 6:20. Waiting to get on the train, there seemed to be a million people, but once we were seated, it was pretty relaxing. I actually fell asleep.

Today I’m glad to have just half a day at work. Last week was insanely quiet. My boss just got promoted to a different position – I’m happy for him but sad to be losing him as a boss. He was really great. But it will be a few to several months before someone new comes in.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 29th, 2008 at 7:35 am and is filed under friends, rant and/or rave, weekends. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.