It’s been a while since I got out with the girls. Yesterday we had the well-intentioned plan to spend the day doing fairly girly things: a bit of shopping fueled by designer coffee, some knitting, and what ended up being an obscene amount of cheese and bread and a lovely Malbec for dinner in front of two Cusack classics. In rapid succession.

Giddy side note: My Cheeselady is settled into her new home, but it looks like the wine and cheese bar part \may still be under construction. The new space is comfortingly pungent. But there’s a sign up over the door in the old cheese space that has put me right over the foodie moon: ladies and gents, we’re getting a bUTcher (Scottish accent, please). A butcher! Woot! And the name of this welcome addition to the neighborhood is…wait for it…Let’s MEAT on the Avenue.

Apparently, the previous tenant left behind a little cheese.

Anyway. I am no longer allowed to drive to places we actually want to get to. Engaged in the most sharply snarkful conversation I’ve had this year, I paid little attention to where we were going. Or not going, I guess. I passed the exit to a shopping center I’ve gone to a bazillion times and damn near caused a cardiac episode for the poor friend riding shotgun.

To the tune of: “We need to get off this highway right now. You need to take this exit.”

Fortunately, we’re all the first to admit our personal levels of tight-assedness, so a firm mocking and a couple of u-turns got us back on track. My saving grace was the quick-thinking friend in the backseat, who whipped out my Atlas and gave directions from where we were, but had us going in the wrong direction for 10 minutes.

I felt better.

When we finally tried to turn around, though, we had a distinctly DC experience almost 80 miles from the beltway. We got stuck behind a POTUS-level motorcade.

A motorcade. In fucking Manassas. Who GOES there?

Dead people, it turns out. Even the Hill-worker among us was sure it was Bush, but the hearse in the place of honor pretty much set us straight. Something resembling shame filled the car, at least until we got turned around and backtracked at the average speed of an overweight sow.

Being dead, it seems, is like being president. Nobody gets to pass you.

After such an ominous start, it was only natural that the skies would open and I would worry about burning out the motor in my wipers and/or hydroplaning off the road. We got remarkably lost within sight of the shopping center. It was off to the right, then it was behind us and across the freeway but that street dead-ended, and then my car was suddenly full of syphilitic sailors with impressive vocal cords.

Ahoy.

At one point, Shotgun turned to me and said that our friend in the back was laughing so hard that she wasn’t even making noise anymore. Then, incredulously: “Do you hear that?”

No. I don’t hear a goddam thing.

At least the shopping went well. Then there was much cheese and puppy love, and a fair amount of knitting. Slow knitting. It had been a long day. At the end, I was overcheesed–my stomach is still not reacting well to…most things, so I missed out on a proper dinner with an honored guest. That was the only low point of the day, other than forgetting how to get where we were going. (I did manage to get us home in one try.)

What a fantastic day. I love my friends. Also lamp.