Do You Have Nibbles? (III)

Or, Poor Blurry/It's his own damn fault!

So, a little background on the title for these posts. We kept making beaver jokes throughout the weekend, because we're 12. Sometimes we would get out of the car and someone would ask, "Do you have Nibbles?" Which almost always came out sounding like, "Do you have nipples?" Other variations included, "Get Nibbles out!" and "Where's Nibbles?" and "We need Nibbles." And then there were all the times we mentioned Nibbles' log...

By the way, Nibbles' personal life motto is "Either work hard or you might as well quit." Thank you, MC Hammer.

Aight then, Saturday. Teem and I left her house at about 8 a.m. to go pick up Nancy. I shared my Oatmeal Crisp bar with Nibbles, because we both get very hungry in the morning. We went into Nancy's apartment, but her cat, Sonny, was hiding, so I didn't get to meet him.

And then we were off to Washington D.C. It was supposed to only rain until mid-day. Well, it rained ALL-day. And it was cold (I could see my breath) and windy and just generally crappy. We stopped at Burger King on the way, due to hunger and the fact that "hash rounds" are superior to "hash planks." We ordered three things of hash rounds and three Diet Cokes. Heh.

We listened to Billy Joel and ABBA and various mix CDs on the way. Eventually we realized that, due to having to drive slowly in the rain, we were going to be late meeting Blurry (we had agreed to meet between 11 and 11:30 a.m. at the Iowa pillar at the WWII Memorial). We alternated between "Poor Blurry" and "It's his own damn fault for not having a cell phone!" Yeah, we're nice like that.

Nibbles fills up his belly

We had directions as to what exit to get off at, so that we could pahk the cah at Pentagon City Fashion Center and take the Metro over to The Mall. We were looking for Exit 9, and ... there was no Exit 9. Or maybe it was the thing off to the left side. At any rate, we didn't see it. So we got off at Exit 10 and had a nice little detour around/though Reagan International Airport. Which was really freaky considering that he died right around then!! Seriously!! His time of death is pretty close to when we were at the airport.

Spooky, eh?

Oh, by the way, the Pentagon is even more huge than you'd think. I was really struck by how big it was when we were driving past it.

Nibbles plays between-seat driver

So we did the roundabout at the airport and then got back on the interstate (after commenting on how gross the name "Roaches Run" is for a national park or whatever) and made our way to Pentagon City. Ran through the Fashion Center to get to the Metro station. Stood dumbfounded in front of the fare card kiosks for about 5 minutes trying to figure out how much money we needed to put on the cards, how to get change, etc.

(Incidentally, I'm probably missing a ton of stuff that Teem and/or Nancy can fill in, but I took allergy medicine this morning and I am, literally, about to fall asleep sitting upright at my desk at work.)

*Metro, Metro, Metro*

We get off the Metro and it's raining. Nancy and I have li'l umbrellas, and Teem has a rain jacket thinger. But suffice to say, it wasn't nearly enough. We walked past The Stick (the Washington Monument) on our way to the WWII Memorial, and Nancy gave us an impromptu history lesson about the building of The Stick. My contribution was to say, "The Stick!" over and over in a really chipper way.

It's not a long walk from the Metro to the memorial, but it's long enough, and by the time we got there my feet were soaked (we were all wearing flip-flops, thank god I had brought along the pair of Flojos I had bought the night before, otherwise I would have been screwed). Finally we saw the memorial in the distance and I prepared myself for meeting the infamous Blurrificus.

HWG: "You know, it's going to be hard for me to mentally switch to calling him (his real name) rather than Blurry." <-- foreshadowing

The pillars seemed to be in the order in which the states were admitted into the Union, so it took us a second to figure out where Iowa was. Luckily we spotted it from the ground, and marched over.

Blurry!! It's Blurry!! Wearing a white hat!! I said hello and gave him a wet hug. Blurry gave a bear hug in return. Blurry am tall.

As cool as the memorial was, I think all of us were kind of feeling like we wanted to get this done with, in a way. I mean, it is AMAZING, and I really need to go back so I can take everything in. But it was COLD, yo. And rainy and windy and there were quite a few people there, and it was a little difficult to get around because in addition to weaving in between people you were trying not to get in front of people's cameras or poke them in the eye with your umbrella.

Click a thumbnail for a larger image. Hold your cursor over a photo for a description.

We toured the whole memorial and I took a bunch of photos. My grandfather, Kenneth Ray Rowley, Jr., served in the Atlantic Theater as a bomber pilot in England, so I focused my photos on things related to that. He was from Iowa (thus its significance). I also took photos of Teem and Nancy in front of the pillars for the states where their fathers were born.

I took photos of Teem and Nancy and Blurry together. Blurry told me that I could use his real name now. He called me out! So I started trying really hard to do that, but mostly I just ended up calling him "Bl-realname." Sorry about that. You'll always be Blurry to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

Nibbles attacks!

Nibbles enjoyed himself from the safety of Teem's pocket, but he did make sure he got his photo taken with his favorite memorial, the Lincoln Monument.

We wandered over to the information center, and there were short lines to use the kiosks where you could look up the names of people who served. I was really jazzed about this, because I had registered my grandfather on the WWII memorial website 6-8 weeks ago and now believed I could get a photo of his listing.

But no. The stupid thing couldn't find his name. Except HERE IT IS RIGHT HERE, on the website. Yeesh. Whatever. *rolls eyes*

So with the memorial having been seen, we started trekking back to the Metro station. Blurry used his superior height to block the rain. Speculation on whether or not "rain" means that "god is sad." Talk about how long Blurry waited for us in said rain (hours and hours). Nancy gives Blurry her history lesson about the building of The Stick. Jaywalking rather than absconding with a mounted policeman's horse.

Blurry, wary of the beaver

We picked up the Metro and headed back to Pentagon City, making our plans to go to Potomac Mills and have lunch. Nibbles sat beside Blurry, but then Blurry kept eyeing Nibbles suspiciously, so Nibbles moved to sit beside Teem. Who was oblivious to the fact that she was riding the Metro with a beaver.

And then we had the Parking Garage Fiasco of '04. We were parked on the third level (you have to go up a flight of stairs from the mall entrance). Blurry was parked on two (the mall entrance). It is decided that we will drive down to the second level so that Blurry can fall in behind us, because he didn't know how to get to Potomac Mils.

Only ... we couldn't figure out how to get down to the second level without leaving the garage. So I was nominated (FINE!) to exit the car, go back down to 2, and tell Blurry to meet us at the exit. I find Blurry, who is in his car, and he pulls up beside me. I make the international hand gesture for "roll down your window" but he doesn't do it. I knock on the window and he doesn't roll it down. I try to open the door but it's locked and I very nearly rip all my fingernails off. THE HELL? I make the IHGF"RDYW" again, and he doesn't do it. So then I ask him if his windows don't roll down or something and THEN he unlocks the car door.

Maybe he can shed light on this whole thing.

So I tell Blurry that Teem says to meet us at the exit, because we can't get up to this floor of the parking garage. And then:

Blurry - Which exit?

HWG - *blink*

Blurry - *silence*

HWG - Hmm. Well, I don't know. I've never been here before.

Blurry - *silence*

HWG - *looks around, sees Eckerds sign across from parking garage* OKAY, let's meet in the parking lot of that Eckerds. *points*

Blurry - Okay!

Sounds easy enough, right?

I run back up to Teem/Nancy and tell them where we're meeting. So we drive to the garage exit and then ... Teem can't find the parking ticket. And the maximum daily rate is $16. Ack. The ticket taker asks us if we had a receipt from a mall purchase, but no, we do not. BLAST! Teem checks pockets, purse, car, but can't find it. Eventually the ticket taker asks for her license, and a few minutes later (we're not sure what she did with the license) after Teem begged and pleaded and batted her eyelashes, the ticket person charges us $2. Which was pretty damn nice of her.

So we drive over to the Eckerds parking lot and expect Blurry to appear shortly. Five minutes later, no Blurry. Nancy goes into Eckerds to get some food (for her) and ibuprofen (for me). Still no Blurry. By now it's 2:25 and we are way off our schedule. Five more minutes, still no Blurry. THE HELL? We again curse him for not having a cell phone. We decide that next time, we'll just buy him one of those prepaid cell phones. We have a brilliant idea - too late, of course - that we should have given him one of our cell phones to use.

We decide if he doesn't show by 3 p.m., we're leaving. Because we're hungry and have places to go. Blurry drives into the parking lot at 2:40 and we scream and yell and tell him to "follow us!" And then we're off to Potomac Mills, which will have to be another post.

Posted by Highwaygirl on June 11, 2004 12:01 PM to the category Friends