DC Wedding
Pipeline has been silenced the last three weeks due to travel, first to Connecticut and DC for business, then back to DC for our friend Tom's wedding this weekend. It was a grand time, with lots of opportunities for both Jane and I to see old and new friends together, at what happened to be one hell of swank wedding. Plus, DC's a good town to be in if you've decided you're going to have a fun weekend and not worry too much about the budget. Well, it's bad for your budget, but you will eat, drink and travel around the city conveniently while you are there. And it's a great walking town, above all else.
Friday night I got very sick due to me drinking too much, then the groom buying me Jagermeister shots I still don't recall on top of that. My phone records indicate I called Friend of Pipeline Brad at about 2:00 AM, and then again at 2:05 AM, but I have no memory of the calls. I can't imagine he was happy about the first call, and probably less enthusiastic about the second. Cell phones have really taken the risk of drunk dialing to the next level. I realize I'm about 10 years behind that observation, but that it seemed especially true when I looked at my call log yesterday.
The next day, I realized I needed to fill my stomach back up. Or, as I like to say, "build a foundation". I wasn't able to do that until about 3:00 PM the next day, when I made the decision to order a cheeseburger via room service. I chose that because as a meateater, I believe a beef foundation is really what kickstarts the stomach best. (At least, I believed that as of last weekend.) With my beef foundation laid, I could venture out evening and assault the loaded open bar at the wedding. Unfortunately, I was out of sorts all the way till dinner, so for me it was basically an open orange juice, Coke, and water bar. But that's fine, because I often wish for one of those.
The meal was the best fucking steak I've ever had, or at least in the top two. And cooked perfectly, almost cold and pink in the middle, and no need for a steak knife. I savored all of mine and lucked out when Jane bequeathed some of hers to me. I had so much steak, I barely ate any of the other items. Unfortunately, adding 12 ounces of beef to a 1/2 pound cheeseburger turned my beef foundation into a beef fortress. (At the end of the night I ordered another 1/2 cheeseburger at a bar, without even realizing I had done it. Ultimately I ate it, too.)
Betraying my expectations, I never did feel good enough to start drinking again, and I began to feel hostility towards the open bar.and other revelers. Because you see, it wasn't my fault I got so sick the night before. Tom shouldn't have given me those Jager shots. Not my fault. But then I met up with Pat, a friend at the wedding who flew in from Alaska. He and I talked and after that, I felt better and really had a great time at the wedding.
We stayed at the Mayflower Hotel, which is a supercool place with some history to it. I read all of the plaques outside the ballrooms and meeting rooms while well on my way to drunkeness Friday night. In one room with a domed ceiling, Winston Churchill once made an embarassing gaffe when he told an off-colour joke to a woman beside him. The acoustics of the room made his faux-pas clearly audible to everyone in the room, which came to an embarrassing hush upon hearing Churchill's amplified voice. Well, you can't read a story like that without looking into the room. And upon seeing the room well-lit and void of people, and then seeing that curious domed roof, you would of course be tempted to walk down into the room and see for yourself how an off-colour joke might sound when told in such an historic place, as I was.
I walked in and pulled over a chair left over from whatever conference or meeting had been in there that day. I sat down under the dome and said, as though whispering in Churchill-ease into the ear of the prim Washington Society lady sitting beside me: "Pardon me, madame, but do you know what people in West Virginia do for Halloween?" And I have to say, it didn't seem all that much louder to me. In fact, I could barely tell a difference at all. Churchill must have been talking extremely loud if the whole room really heard what he said. But, he was probably drunk, and he was like seven feet tall, so it's possible.
Another plaque indicates there used to be a restaurant off the lobby called the Carvery, and that J. Edgar Hoover ate lunch there nearly every working day of his 34 year reign as FBI Chief, and not only that, he also ordered the same thing for lunch every one of those days, too. No mention of what that was, though. Seems like if you're going to tell the story, you might as well take it all the way. With a name like the Carvery, I'm guessing J. Edgar also liked to have a beef foundation.
The Mayflower was top-notch in every respect, offering a great bar and restaurant, unique rooms, some history and elegance, and a tasty $33 room service cheeseburger.
Good hotel, good food, good drink, good friends, good wedding and good town. Great weekend.
10:33:49 PM 
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