birthday bbq

Dry and warm and cozy and fuzzy. That's how the bbq was. Great grilled meats (thank you, chef!), great hospitality (thank you, Ashish and Jules!), and great friends (thank you, all!). And we even learned to the dance the macarena from almost-7 year old Roxanne. (merci bien, Roxanne!).

The good times tinged by a fine, melancholic lining- a realization that this is the last birthday in DC with these friends, some of whom have known me since I first arrived in DC, young and innocent and naive. But it was a great way to mark the different stages of DC- and pre-DC: Hamilton years (Ndegwa and Dana), early years at Georgetown (Seetha and Anne), late years at Georgetown (Ivy and Andrew), my time at NIH (Gail, Ariana, Ashish and Jules), horrible Spanish class at USDA (Aimee and Anne). Ahh, I see my last 10 years passing before me as though a log on a slowly drifting river (Lucia, that one's for you- you are always missed!).