I intended this to be a post about graduation. Graduation came and went. I got a cold, flew to Washington, and fought the ravages of chest and head congestion.
This is, one may say, my inaugural visit to our Washington, DC, apartment, a very nice set-up just a block from the White House. The location enables one, as I remarked to someone a few nights ago, to live as close to the White House as possible without getting elected. It is so close, in fact, that the attached picture was taken on one of my evening constitutionals wandering the neighborhood.
Allyson arranged an impressive week for me. Tuesday night we enjoyed an engagement celebration with Steve and Katrina at Bourbon Steak, a Michael Mina restaurant. It is a phenomenal steak place. Invoking T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", however, I explained to our guests that I can't eat steak late at night anymore. It keeps me up at night. Allyson assured me the young couple would both order steak, because steak is expensive and good and beyond their means at this early time in their lives. Allyson and I, able to afford not only our own but their steaks, steaks for all, opted more prudently for halibut and tuna, so as not to suffer nighttime terrors. They had the steak, aged and cooked in butter, and loved it. I pined silently for the good old days as I ate my healthy tuna.
Wednesday I visited the Newseum, which I recommend. Thursday I met a school friend, Angela, at Cato for lunch, where we heard Judge Napolitano opine on Dred Scott's revenge. Then I toured the Natural and American History Museums before visiting Allyson at work. We toured the EEOB, and helped surprise her boss with a surprise Birthday Party in a very special room, before heading to the West Wing, as show in the picture.
Today we toured the East Wing and the main White House. I then headed up to Ben's Chili Bowl, recommended by Steve and Katrina and a DC institution. I sat at the counter and ordered a half smoke with chili and cheese fries with a coke. Very good. Worth a visit, even if the half-smoke isn't as good as the sausages Robbie gets from the old guy at 69th in Stony Island back home. But I wolfed it down before heading back to the apartment.
Just in time to be overcome with illness. The half-smoke did its damage. I recalled once again Eliot's "Prufrock," this time too late. I excerpt:
I would have liked to see what Eliot would do with rhymes for "half-smoke." I'm sure they do more damage than any innocent peach. But no peach has the fire and greasy goodness of a half-smoke smothered in spicy chili.
