Sometimes, I Amaze Myself!

I tend to do a lot of thinking on my drives to and from work. Going to work, in order to block out all my work tasks, I tend to think about upcoming weekends, what I need to get for a 'To Do' list and sometimes reminisce about good times from the past. Going home, I usually think about what I'm going to do after the gym, what I need to do the next day, etc...it's just the planning side of me. And if I'm not thinking about stuff, I'm usually singing in my car.

On this particularly morning, I was thinking about when I first went to the Fish Market, in Old Town Alexandria. It was back in 2001 - my husband was down in DC for a weekend baseball series with Georgetown. My brother in law was in DC for a software conference. So what did my sister and I decide to do? Drive down from New Jersey and spend the weekend in DC! I stayed with my friend, Kelly, in Falls Church and my sister stayed with her husband at his hotel. My husband (then boyfriend) was sharing a room at a hotel so it wouldn't have looked very good with me bunking in the room. We all decided to meet up for dinner, one night, at the steakhouse on the top floor of the Key Bridge Marriott. The food was excellent, by the way. Afterwards, we had asked a concierge where we could go for some light drinking and entertainment. They had pointed us to Old Town Alexandria and the Fish Market. So off we went.

I had gotten directions from the concierge from Rosslyn to Old Town. Having lived here for five years now, I would imagine that I went via the GW Parkway to Route 1. Getting back from Old Town to the hotel, I would think that I just went the reverse route and headed back via Route 1 to GW Parkway - I can't really remember. All I do remember is that I got us all back to the hotel, in one piece, with my very drunk brother-in-law passed out in the passenger seat. One minute we were getting into the car and he's like 'I'll navigate us back, Jen.' The next minute, he is out like a light and I'm driving around a dead corpse.

I don't often go from Old Town to Rosslyn nowadays but when I do, I still manage to get confused about taking 50 vs GW Parkway....there's a split off in there and if you don't know where you're going, it can get very confusing. And that's in broad daylight....sober - I can't even imagine what I did at 2 am, at the age of 25, as a first time driver in the northern VA area, with a schooner full of beer in me. Those must've been some damn, good directions!

And that's when I usually pat myself on the back and think, 'Wow! That was amazing - I wonder how I did that!' But I'm sure I was a lot smarter back then...in the past seven years, I guarantee brain cells have fallen by the wayside!