Extraordinary ordinariness

This weekend we had a new adventure, one that most people would consider quite ordinary: driving around, running errands.

There were some things we needed to take care of and wanted wheels, so we rented a car for the weekend, and while I am still a public transportation devotee (though much more so in New York!), I must say it was very nice.

Except, perhaps, for the time when we had no GPS or map and James forgot to get directions from Chevy Chase back home in Rosslyn. If we had just stayed on Connecticut Ave., it would have been easy, though slow and terribly indirect. So I had the great idea that I wanted to cut over toward the west to go some more direct way. This was a terrible idea and left us going in circles in a number of small residential areas somewhere vaguely near Woodley Park before giving up and finally just going back on Connecticut all the way past Dupont Circle.

You can tell me are not drivers. Or navigators.

But we did do some fun and useful things, like raid the Tyson's Galleria mall (okay, this was only fun or useful for me, not for James--J.Crew was having a huge sale!), load up on favorite Trader Joe's products, and eat some Guatemalan fast food chicken (an improvised stop at Pollo Campero since we were right around the corner shopping. I am pretty sure the negative reviews on Yelp have a lot to do with people wanting to avoid chain restaurants--the grilled chicken, beans, and plantains were all really tasty).

On the cultural/sightseeing side, we finally (at James's request) visited the Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center, which is basically a giant hangar out by Dulles Airport packed with historic airplanes, plus a space shuttle. James loved it; I thought it had some cool stuff, but my eyes glazed over about 40 planes in, and I just reminded myself that James had put up with the mall the day before.

And for our ballin'-suburbanites-out-in-NoVA-with-car date night, we hit Peking Gourmet Inn for some tasty Peking duck to get us into the mood for Beijing. Their other food was pretty bad, but the duck was really tasty, and plus, the place is a trip--it makes me think of a Chinese place in the '60s in Hollywood or something: a huge place with high ceilings, all red carpets, gilt, white tablecloths, pictures of celebrities on the walls, huge plates of spareribs and wontons being dished out, and a giant full bar. It was packed and bizarrely festive.

There you go, folks: our thrilling adventures doing what most Americans do every weekend.

P.S. Pre-car, we also spent Friday night with friends listening to bluegrass at Tiffany Tavern in Alexandria. Homey, divey, delightful. Highly recommended.