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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Sweet sweet Virginia

Yesterday I got back from a really pleasant weekend home. The temperature seemed to be a good fifteen degrees warmer the whole time. I ate like a starving person the entire weekend. On Friday night my parents and I were enjoying one of my favorite meals (pecan-crusted trout) at Artie's. My mom asked me about something, so I launched into an extremely detailed and interesting explanation of, say, the bar exam, and then my mom interrupted me to say: "You have little ears! Aren't his ears small," she said, turning to my dad. I think this kind of weird attention to bodily detail is the kind of thing you only get with parental love. And you know what, I appreciated it.

On Saturday L and I met her new first cousin, once removed: the consonantly named Lacy Day, daughter of Kristin and Ryan. Lacy was a delight, and is quickly moving from the Yoda stage of infancy (where babies are three parts adorable and one part raisin) to the stage of cherubic cuteness. The fact that the three of them are moving to San Francisco is sort of depressing, since they are the kind we need on the East Coast and especially at in-law gatherings (Ryan being one of the few to fully comprehend the joy and wonder of entering the Lacy clan mid-stream).

That night we went out with Trish and Matt to a wine bar in Clarendon, where we ogled the cheap prices of everything and basked in the presence of other Virginians. There is just something about how people dress and act and carry themselves -- it's different from New York, and it feels completely familiar and reassuring. For the girls, it's a certain way of wearing the hair, and maybe some make-up combination, I don't know, but I call it "Virginia-cute," and it was good to see again.

Sunday we ate like pigs at a trough at an extremely classy brunch place. After we dropped off L to return to the city I went to join the Easter festivities at Kateri's, and later on we drove to one of the few Noodles outposts open on Easter night, just so I could get one last fix -- that's how good my parents were to me.

It was a lovely spring weekend. I was happy to be home and spend some time with my parents. Callie, the older dog, is getting extremely old, but she is still as regal and proud as ever. The other funny moment with my mom occurred as we were driving around and L mentioned seeing those "1/20/09" bumper stickers people have to celebrate the end of the Bush administration. My mom is a die-hard W. fan, but she was initially unclear on the stickers, so when L mentioned them my mom started pumping her fist in the air joyfully and crowing, "Go! Goooo!" We explained that the stickers are for people happy he'll be leaving office. My mom didn't miss a beat: "Oh," she said, with her fist still raised. "Bad! Baaad!"

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