I'm getting old...

Is it strange that I hang out at the Beer Garden but drink Diet Coke?  I guess I never acquired the taste for beer.  Regardless, I found myself at the Beer Garden Sunday night to celebrate my friend Chris’ forty-mumble-mumble Birthday. 

It seems like just yesterday we were bemoaning our lost twenties and now, all of a sudden we’re in our forties!  Reality hit me hard as I entered the outdoor patio of the Beer Garden searching for Chris.  I scanned the tables of young, frat-y looking douchebags and spotted Chris.  But who were all those old people he was sitting with?  Upon closer inspection, I realized they were mutual friends of ours, all of whom are within my age range - give or take a couple of years.

Shit!  My peers are all old.  Which makes me…oh, dear God, I can’t think about it.  Those frat-y douchebags were probably wondering what gramps and his group from the nursing home were doing out so late on a Sunday night.  Depressed, I treated myself to some gastro-therapy by ordering the barbecue meat plate from the grill.  That’s a huge plate piled high with pickles, sauerkraut, french fries, bratwurst, spare ribs, kielbasa, grilled portabellos and about half a loaf of bread.  Don’t worry, I shared.

Three old men at the Beer Garden

Road Trip to Ruin - Part Deux!

Read part one

During last year's trip, Juan’s gout got the better of him.  He and Val were sidelined at the hotel most of the weekend while Trish and I enjoyed the DC sites Judy Garland-style aboard the Old Town Trolley.  Even with yesterday’s Flintstone-sized steak and protein-heavy meals, Juan managed to stay gout-free, so we decided to christen Sunday, “Trolley Day.”

We were still groggy and tired from last night’s fire alarm and evacuation, but we managed to make it to the trolley stop by a respectable 9:30 AM.  Though early - at least for a vacation Sunday - it was already hot as balls.  Just watching the joggers run past us caused instant sweat circles to form under my arms. 

As we waited, Juan noticed a petit Indian girl furiously texting at a nearby corner.  He made an offhand remark comparing her to Divya, the character on Royal Pains.  Of course, as she walked toward us we realized it was indeed Reshma Shetty, the actress who plays Divya.  I think she might be our first DC celebrity sighting.  She’s not exactly Obama, but I’ll take it.

For the most part, Trish and I had a great experience on the trolley last year.  But there was one guide who felt it was appropriate and entertaining to air his dysfunctional family’s secrets to us between his descriptions of DC’s famous sites - super awkward.  We prayed he had since been committed to a mental institution or was at least now delegated to an office were he no longer is required to interact with the general public.  I’m not sure if either option actually came to pass, but happily, we didn’t come across him all day.

After rolling by the National Cathedral, Embassy Row, Georgetown and Foggy Bottom, we jumped off the trolley downtown to check out the Hope Diamond at the Smithsonian’s National History Museum.  Maybe it’s a girl thing, but what’s the big deal?  I mean, it’s bigger than your average diamond - about the size of a quarter (I was hoping for something closer to baseball-sized) - in a seriously hideous setting.  There were far more impressive pieces in the rest of the museum’s gem collection.  Oh well, it was still worth the trip to view the whole collection.  There was also a really interesting exhibit about race in America and an insect exhibit that Juan and I were totally into; the gals, not so much. 

We were, however, all in agreement over the delicious and totally cheesy red, white and blue cupcakes in the museum cafeteria.  In fact, for a museum cafeteria, the food was pretty darn good.  It was no gourmet Italian five-course meal like yesterday, but hell, I don’t think my liver could handle another day of non-stop food and drink anyway.  

The museum entrance was jam packed with sweaty tourists waiting to get frisked and metal-detected by the time we headed out.  I guess the rest of DC had finally recovered from its Saturday night revelry and accompanying collective hangover.  To avoid the likely crush at the other Smithsonian museums, we opted instead for a relaxed trolley ride around the "orange loop," which would take us on a leisurely tour of the downtown sites.  Unfortunately, the ride was neither relaxed nor leisurely.  Like the museum, the trolley was soon filled to capacity with hot, sweaty bodies jockeying for window seats on the non-air-conditioned trolley car.  Adding to the misery of sticky seats and overheated bodies pressed tight, we were soon sitting in traffic, baking in the sun with nary a wisp of breeze.  We did, however, have front row seats to a gnarly bike accident that seemed to be the cause of all the traffic.  Lucky us!

Oh, I also forgot to mention the annoying southern wenches who made life hell for us and our poor driver/tour guide.  To avoid having us sit and bake in traffic, our guide made a huge detour that took us well off the regular route, but at least kept us moving.

Wench 1: (gesturing to a random gray building with a trace of condescending attitude and southern drawl) What building is that?
Guide:  (politely) I'm not sure.  This isn't my regular route and I wouldn't want to give you false information.
Wench 2: (full of attitude, reciting from a sign in front of another random building) That's the Department of Blahdity Blah's Building.
Guide:  Yes, I see.  Thank you.

We continue.  Yes, there is a long stretch of silence.  But the traffic is crazy and the driver is obviously concentrating on not getting us all killed.

Wench 1: (loudly and obnoxiously to the whole trolley car, annoyed that the driver isn't entertaining her) The building over there is the National Blah Blah Building.  We ate lunch there yesterday and if anyone wants a reasonably-priced meal, you should check it out.

Guide: (still polite) Thank you for that.  I apologize, but as soon as I negotiate this traffic and get us back on the route, I'll commence with the regular tour.  Thanks for your patience.

We finally get back on track and the tour guide starts his regular spiel.

Wench 1: (interrupting our guide - her overly friendly southern twang amplifying her condescension - she throws out a historical tidbit that she is sure he won't know in order to prove that she is indeed a total bitch)  Isn't it true that this area was mainly used as grazing land for livestock?
Guide: (calmly and without missing a beat):  You are correct.  In fact...
He then goes on to give a detailed account of the agricultural history of the particular area the wench was referring to. 

That shut the bitch up. 

Lest you label me a judgmental, north-biased asshole, bear in mind that throughout the entire trip these wenches continually hemmed and hawed, sighed loudly and dramatically fanned themselves to make sure we were all well aware of their discomfort and dissatisfaction.  If you can't stand the heat, ladies, get the hell out of the trolley.

Anyway, we finally disembarked after leaving a nice tip for the driver for putting up with the wenches and jumped on another trolley back to the hotel.  It had been a long day and the unbearable heat coupled with the even more unbearable southern wenches drained us of any motivation to continue sight-seeing.  The sky threatened thunderstorms, so we chose to lounge and nap in our hotel rooms for the rest of the afternoon.

Is there anything better than turning up the AC, stripping down to your underwear and just vegging out wrapped up in a big 'ole soft comforter?  Methinks not.  Anyway, when we finally rose from napping, it was already well past dinner time.  Juan and Val's room was empty so we assumed they had already headed out for a romantic dinner somewhere.  Trish and I, however, opted for a luxurious room service feast and trashy TV.  Why bother getting dressed when the food can come to you, right? 

Turns out Juan and Val just ran downstairs for dinner in the hotel restaurant.  When they got back, we decided to stay in the rest of the night and rent an in-room movie, Skyline.  I gag a little just typing the title remembering how wretched the movie was.  Poor Donald Faison.  Either his agent sucks or he has some crazy-expensive drug habit he needs to keep funding.  

As has become our tradition, we ended our DC trip with the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet in the hotel lobby, the resulting heartburn a lingering memento of our travels.  With July 4 falling annoyingly on a Monday, I decided it best to jump on the Acela train and head straight back to NYC rather than sitting in traffic with the sibs back to NJ and then fighting the fireworks traffic on the bus back into the city. 

I was safe and sound and back in Queens by 5:30 PM.   I'm already planning our gastronomical itinerary for next year's trip, though it will be difficult to top this year's carnivore's delight.  Maybe Brazilian Charruscarria...

Below are from our post-breakfast buffet photo session on the grounds of the fabulous Omni.

Trish posing seductively

The fountain

Where are the chips?   Too late, I'm bored.

July Fourth in DC or Our Road Trip to Ruin - Part One

Happy Independence Day, America!  Isn’t it ironic how our forefathers so vehemently fought for our independence from Britain, all the while being served dinner by their slaves?  It’s comforting to know hypocrisy has always been a important fixture of our government.  Oh well, It’s still a great excuse to take a road trip.  So here it is - drum roll, please - the Third Annual DC Fourth of July Pineda Road Trip to Ruin or TADCFJPPTR for you texters (our 2009 and 2010 trips). 

I was excited to head to NJ Friday afternoon to meet up with the rest of the Pineda clan.  Morgan Stanley had graciously granted me a half day at work.  When I called for a pick-up at the bus stop in Cranford I knew something was amiss from Val’s short and detached phone manner.  I was not surprised to find out the van had a flat tire. 

Juan had actually noticed a slow leak that morning and brought the van in to the local Goodyear store where their obviously incompetent technicians found nothing wrong.  On top of that, Juan had now been waiting four hours for their tow truck to bring the van back to the shop.  It never came.  We ended up calling AAA who arrived within the half hour.  Yeah AAA.  Boo Goodyear.  Oh well, no real Pineda sojourn is complete without some unplanned disaster.  At least we got it out of the way up front.   

The first stop on our little road trip was Target where we shopped our cares away as the mechanics at Goodyear replaced the tire.  We finally hit the road four hours later armed with our gourmet Target dinner - turkey jerky, an industrial-sized Frito-Lay variety pack, Swedish fish and Pepperidge Farm Tahoe cookies.  Don’t judge, we were stress eating. 

Thankfully, we missed a lot of the holiday traffic due to our late departure.  Even so, we made our regular pit stop, the Maryland House rest area, for crab & cheese soft pretzels at Phillips.  It sounds gross, but they’re actually quite delicious.  By midnight we were luxuriating in our regular DC hotel, the Omni Shoreham. 

With our first night in DC a bust, we headed to bed without even ordering room service.  I know, it’s so unlike us but we were ass tired.  Don’t you worry, we made up for it the next day at lunch by ordering a 50-ounce T-bone steak.  You read correctly, a 50-ounce steak!  And that was just one of five courses - yes, five.

Acqua al 2 is a little Italian restaurant we stumbled into by accident.  We were wandering around Eastern Market, a fun but over-priced flea market/tourist trap near capital hill, looking for some good food and a place to get out of the oppressive DC heat.  We literally picked the place at random from the many restaurants on the block.  Turns out it’s been touted as one of DC’s best new restaurants - pay back for yesterday’s flat tire.

Our Italian feast consisted of a salad sampling menu, an antipasto platter, a pasta sampling menu, the aforementioned steak (at left) and a dessert sampling menu.  I’d go into detail but there were just so many different dishes, all of them lip-smacking good.  Just check out the menu here.  The highlight, of course, was that perfectly cooked hunk of cow flesh, seared and juicy, wet-aged and so yummy you didn’t need extra sauce or seasoning.  Our sassy waitress, Khamise (rhymes with chemise), kept the bread basket full and the platters coming.  Coincidentally, she mentioned the chef is Filipino - holla! 

Oh, I totally forgot to mention our ultra-cool drink, a lemon vodka-based concoction spiced with hot peppers.  You could actually see the pepper seeds floating on top.  Spice + alcohol = love.  I learned that in AP calculus.

Bloated and tipsy, we headed back out into the sticky heat and straight to a gelato stand.  Yes, we literally rolled our fat asses away from a five-course meal and down the block for a second dessert.  We’re sick, sick people. 

After our Italian food orgy we hopped back on the metro for the ride back to the hotel.  I know the DC metro is immaculately clean and doesn’t smell like urine and homeless people like the NYC subway, but their pass system is not visitor friendly.  Every stop is a different price and you have to swipe that flimsy paper card to enter AND exit.  And what genius decided to carpet the train cars?  Seriously, that’s just nasty.

Back at the hotel we decided a couple hours at the pool would work up our appetites again for dinner as well as provide us an opportunity for more drinking.  Val (at left with her sassy new hat from Eastern Market) was a teetotaler all last month because of her fertility medication, but she’s taking a break in July.  So naturally, her aim this trip was to stay happily buzzed for the weekend.  I’m not sure this is exactly what Dr. Phil means by setting a goal and committing to it, but perhaps he should be more specific. 

Oh, did I mention we also ordered a few “snacks” along with our drinks to get us through until dinner?  Just a pulled pork sandwich, a Kobe beef hot dog, sweet potato fries and fried calamari - you know, some light fare. 

After a power nap to help digest the day’s incredible caloric intake, we headed out for a late dinner at Medaterra, a Middle Eastern restaurant around the corner from our hotel.  To keep Val on course with her imbiber’s resolution, we immediately ordered a pitcher of sangria.  We then followed with an array of appetizers for a tapas-style dinner - corn and spinach risotto, grilled shrimp, taboula, lamb sausage, pork chops, garlic string beans, bruschetta and mussels.  Again, just some light fare before bed.  We ended up skipping dessert.  Who wants those extra calories?

It took great effort not to vomit up the contents of my stomach on the walk back to the hotel, but I managed the two blocks incident free.  Weary from the day's alcohol and food binge, I fell into a deep, coma-like slumber as soon as my greasy head touched down on my pillow.  This is what hibernating bears must feel like.  Then the nightmare began.  There were flashing lights and sirens and a strange voice was speaking to me. 

Wait, this wasn't a dream, it was the fire alarm!

Believe it or not, at 2 AM the fire alarm in the hotel began a banshee-like wailing.  In surreal contrast, a female voice from a speaker in the wall then calmly told us to proceed to the nearest stairwell to evacuate.  Two minutes later, Val rushed into our room, roused us out of our beds and pushed us toward the stairs.  Apparently she was already wide awake, stricken by a mild case of DC's local version of Montezuma's revenge, or as I like to call it, Lewinsky's other dirty little secret.  I leaned over the edge of the railing and looked down at the bottomless pit of the stairwell.  Why the hell did we request a high floor?

Seeing all the pajama clad guests funnelling into the stairwell, I was actually impressed by how put together most people looked.  Yes, most wore mismatched t-shirts and shorts or bathrobes, but how come I was the only one with pillow lines across their face and bushy disheveled hair?  It was as if the hotel was taken over by perfectly coiffed movie-extra hotel guests.

Around floor two we came to a standstill.  If there really was a fire, we would soon be a delicious mound of human barbecue.  We soon spotted the source of our log jam, an elderly lady in a wheel chair who was now forced to limp slowly down the last couple of flights.  Why did her two young, healthy caregivers not fling her bony ass over their shoulders and haul her schmata-clad frame down those stairs?  What 'evs, I was just too darn tired to panic.  If I burn, at least I had one helluva last meal.

We finally made it outside.  There was absolutely no sign of urgency from the guests or the basically non-existent hotel staff.  Hundreds of guests were calmly milling around, just a few feet from a potentially towering inferno.  Then came the sirens.  Two fire trucks pulled up.  Again, absolutely no sense of urgency from anyone.  Put everyone in tuxes and gowns and it could've been intermission at the Met.

Finally, a bellman announced that all was safe and that we could return to our rooms.  We decided to wait it out given the capacity of the two elevators is about five people if two of them happen to be Olsen twins.  Fifteen minutes later we headed into the lobby where at least a dozen people were still waiting at each elevator.  Grudgingly, we decided to take the stairs back up to the eighth floor.  Note to self, avoid stairs if you've eaten thrice your body weight within the last 24 hours. 

Finally, sweaty and nauseous we climbed into our disheveled beds.  Thus ended day two of our Road Trip to Ruin.   

I’ll post Part Deux of our trip shortly.  Check back soon.

Me and my big wiener

Juan's poolside mudslide