On Saturday, September 26th, I woke up early at my parents’ place, showered, dressed, and jumped in my old car — the ’08 Toyota Matrix I’d bought new in November ’07 and sold to my Dad the following July after moving to DC — and ran some errands: I went to Target, and PetSmart, and IKEA, and Giant, and then I drove to my apartment and unloaded everything, having to make about half-a-dozen trips to get everything into my fifth floor apartment.

My apartment, by the way? Was a total mess. Huge boxes of stuff cluttered my foyer, waiting to be moved into the storage area I’d rented in the basement. Everything was dusty. Books and mail overflowed from shelves, and the carpet was covered in clumps of cat fur.

Having unloaded everything, I showered, changed, and set course due south, navigating down Connecticut Avenue, jumping west on Florida, continuing on M, then jumping across the Key Street bridge, turning onto I-66, and making my best possible speed towards Front Royal, Virginia, where a dear friend was celebrating her three-month old wedding at her new husband’s parents.

My understanding is that it was a small wedding, back in June. Two receptions were held: one in New Jersey, where much of her family is, the other in Virginia, where much of his family is. It took nearly two and a half hours to make what should’ve been an hour and a half drive: heavy rain, heavy traffic, both took their toll. I stopped at a Wendy’s in Manassas for a frosty, and on my way back, again for a late dinner.

Aside from the happy couple, I knew no one, but thankfully, everyone I met there was full of laughter and love and I got along well with all the strangers I was seated with, and even got to shake the paw of a golden retriever so large he looked like a lion (albeit, a very damp lion).

I’d originally planned to spend the night in a hotel, but I’d canceled my reservations — it wasn’t such a long drive, and I made it back to the Grosvenor Metro station about 10:30 that evening, and caught a late train home, finally walking in the door around 11pm.

Sunday morning, I began cleaning my apartment. I started with the kitchen, moved to the bathroom, then the foyer, and then into the main living area. I dusted every surface. I cleaned and decluttered every cabinet, closet, and shelf. I pulled everything off each piece of furniture, cleaned every surface, moved every piece of furniture and vacuumed behind it. The litter box I’d had for well over a year was pitched, and replaced with a brand new one. Cleaning took all day Sunday, and well into Monday afternoon. A Facebook friend suggested I clean more often, and indeed it’s advice I should take to heart, but it’s kind of hard when I’m working seventy-hour weeks, y’know?

My vacation, total, was nine days: from Friday the 25th, ending Saturday the 3rd. Today, I was back at the Bookstore, pulling a 9am until 6:30pm. It was nice to be back, although I’m sad my vacation is over. Having cleaned my apartment, the rest of my week was occupied with a lot of stuff.

Tuesday afternoon, I traveled down 17th Street to National Geographic, where a gentleman I work with at the Bookstore (and who works a full-time job at NatGeo) met me for lunch in the cafeteria (run by Marriott), and then gave me an unofficial tour of the complex of buildings. I even got to see the N.C. Wyeth paintings in the 16th Street building’s stair hall.

Wednesday, lunch was at Meiwah with a former coworker, Dayo. He was in a pretty good mood, considering he’d just been laid off from Congressional Quarterly a week or two prior. I spent Wednesday afternoon on the National Mall, reading under the cherry trees (I assume that’s what they are) north of the Washington Monument, then spending some time in the Natural History museum after it began to rain.

Thursday I met another former coworker, Katherine, for lunch at Cafe Stream on 17th and R, except instead of lunch? We wound up just having hot chocolate and catching up on what we were doing. Like Dayo, I’d worked with her at my day job — she’d been a team leader who’d quit back in June because she’d finally reached the point where she preferred no pay check to continuing to put up with middle management.

There were things I didn’t get to do: I didn’t wind up making it to either the Building Museum, or to the Brewmaster’s Castle. I could’ve gotten to these: I was lazy Friday and Saturday, I spent most of each day reading, and they passed too quickly. I’d been hoping to hear from my date Wednesday night about plans Saturday morning, but that wound up not happening, and I’m disappointed — I thought our date had gone well.

So, here’s the deal: she and I work not far from each other up in Montgomery County. For several months, we even usually rode the same bus from the same Metro station. Then MontCo changed their bus route schedules and ended the discounted fares, and I only began seeing her once every few weeks. Finally, I asked for her number, got it, called her that night, and we agreed to a date.

That was the easy part: I work two jobs, she works a full-time job and is helping her parents, in from Puerto Rico, for medical procedures (they don’t speak any English). Finally, we agreed to meet Wednesday night, and at 6:30pm at Dupont Circle, we did: we wound up going to Meiwah for dinner (twice in one day!), and the night ended with me walking her home (about ten blocks) and meeting her mother. So I thought it went well, but understanding that she’s super busy, maybe I shouldn’t be disappointed that the only contact with her since Wednesday was a brief phone conversation Friday night where we made tentative plans for Saturday morning … which, of course, wound up not happening.

Well, whatever winds up happening with her, the vacation ended this morning. It’s not without problems: today is the only day I’m scheduled at the Bookstore, so I need to make a call tomorrow because I suspect our operations manager just cut-and-pasted the schedule and neglected to realize she needed to put me back on it. So, we shall see.