Oh the Places You'll Go: Washington DC

I was off to DC for my last work trip of the year, a two day training on an incredibly useful but only semi-frequently used tool in the work toolbox. I'd been run through my paces on it, but the combination of lack of intense training, only occasional use, and the fact that it doesn't exactly suit my mental patterns left me at a loss. I arrived a day ahead, because the conference started early thursday am, and took advantage of the opportunity to have drinks with Josh Lyman and dinner with Desperately Seeking NY.

The trip in from the airport was lovely - a fresh snowfall coated the monuments and parts like royal icing, and things seemed just a little quieter and more majestic. Gentleman that he is, Josh took me to The Ritz for manhattans and dirty martinis. Although he asked for his on the rocks, it arrived straight up, and his balance was impeccable.

After drinks, I went back to meet DSNY in my hotel bar, which was serving a drink once popularized in SATC - unclear what it was doing in a DC hotel several years later, but it tasted good. DSNY and I met up with a friend of his from grad school at Meskerem, where ironically, I'd also been for dinner with a friend from the JET program many years before. The food and honey wine were just as good as I'd remembered. After dinner, we moved to a dive bar for beer and an unexpectedly heated conversation about affirmative action (the short story is that the friend subscribes to the Chief Justice's opinion on the matter). I really need to stop doing that.

The following day was a whirlwind of capital gains tax, flip unitrusts and life expectancy charts. Mercifully, I had dinner with Josh to look forward to. After barely coming to a decision on location, and fighting the lighting of the National Christmas Tree lack of taxis, followed by traffic woes, I made it. Josh had a prime location at the bar at Ten Penh, and got me an Emperor's Geisha (raspberry vodka, cassis, passion fruit puree and sour) post haste. We moved on to dinner - bbq glazed pork ribs, red thai curry shrimp, szechuan glazed eggplant (can't possibly recall what Josh had to eat) and Saigon cinnamon sugar dusted doughnuts with bittersweet chocolate pudding for dessert.

Hopped back into a cab and headed for home. Another day of complicated estate planning calculations, and it was back to NY.