Blogmas 2018: Christmas In the City, Part 2

I opened my computer.

BANG!

There was a mild explosion, as my charging cable gave up the ghost.

Since my computer won’t work unless it’s plugged in, this means I’m finishing this blog post via thumbs tapping on a smart phone.

Fun times. Where were we? I have extra catching up to do, since I didn’t post yesterday.

I’ll try to post tomorrow as well to make up for it, so long as my thumbs don’t give out.

Thursday

Matt’s apartment was much too warm. I slept without a blanket.

Friday

Matt made steak and eggs for breakfast. He gave me his keys, and showed me how to deposit the trash.

“Anything else you need?” he asked, packing up his stuff.

“Is there any way to turn down the heat?”

He laughed. “Sorry, the building has central heating, and it doesn’t always keep up with changes in the weather. But here, let’s open two windows and get a cross breeze.”

Matt left for the airport. The cross breeze didn’t help much. I was absolutely sweltering.

I checked my weather app. It was 67 degrees outside.

67 degrees!!!

Outdoors I bounded, wearing a t-shirt. I stuck a couple sweaters in my backpack just in case, but it was decidedly short sleeved weather.

With the weather that nice, I didn’t exactly want to be in some indoor museum. So I went to the downtown holiday market and looked at a lot of stuff I couldn’t afford. And bought an empanada and some tea. And listened to live Christmas music.

For a bit, the weather slipped into my favorite weather pattern–sunny with a slight sprinkle of rain. But then the sunshine disappeard and the rain dumped, and I dashed over to the National Gallery of Art to wait out the storm.

Saturday

Saturday was colder and less rainy, so I spent most of the day in museums. Particularly the American History Museum. The display of First Lady dresses may be my favorite part of the entire Smithsonian.

Then I went to a Starbucks to do some writing. DC doesn’t seem to have a lot of cute independent coffee shops, so Starbucks it is, I guess. I peeked into the windows of a different shop but they had very little seating.

Starbucks seating was rather limited too. One artist had a huge canvas that took up two tables. Yep, he was just sitting there, painting in Starbucks.

I’d just sat down on a bar stool when a little round table near the back door opened up. Woo hoo! I snagged it.

It was terribly wobbly. It’s hard to get writing done on a wobbly table. I grabbed some wooden coffee stirrers and tried to wedge them underneath to stabilize it, but it didn’t work.

The table was round, with one post in the middle, and a base. Maybe it was coming unscrewed? So I spun the tabletop in a complete circle, and it was still wobbly so I spun it in another complete circle, and just about the time I was looking like an idiot who just spins tabletops around and around like they’re lazy susans, everything tightened up suddenly and what do you know! The table was no longer wobbly.

I felt very proud of myself. I get such a kick out of fixing things in public. When I relayed the story on Instagram, Mom thought I should do a blog post about fixing things in public places. Bit really, it’s mostly just been toilets.

Sunday

This morning I put on my fuzzy red sweater and walked across the street to Christ United Methodist Church. I knew nothing about it, but it was a church, so I went.

There were very few people there, but they were extremely friendly and excited to see me.

At least, the adults were. One confused teenager looked at me and asked, “so where you from?”

“Oregon,” I said.

“Is that why you do your hair like that?”

Anyway, everyone greeted me and shook my hand or hugged me, and I was given a welcome gift and two Christmas cards. So it was a nice morning.

This evening hasn’t been so great. After my charging cable exploded, the sink overflowed. Sigh.

Oh well. It’ll be a Christmas to remember, I guess.