What a Weekend

I was down in DC last week for work. I was able to participate in our company spring fling thursday evening in Alexandria which was nice since I had missed the one in Boston. Smaller group and able to connect with folks. As it was winding down, I ducked out to call it an early night. On the walk back to the hotel, I enjoyed a leisurely walk and popped into a store or two before they closed. Walking by a Talbots I was admiring a few of the mannequin outfits. 

The next day I was able to pop in and ended up getting a summer dress. They were out of my size so I asked to try something similar in the smaller size. The sales person returned with the dress I wanted and in the right size. Turns out the mannequin was wearing what I wanted. And this way I didn't have to order it. 

Also caught up with an old grad school friend who works in the area. Great to swap stories over breakfast before heading into work. After leaving architecture he ended up going into engineering - in the facade side. 

It was nice having a leisurely Friday morning. Although getting up really early I still managed to hit a bunch of tasks before heading to the airport Friday afternoon. Now I'm sure I've espoused on my position on how early you should get to the airport before the flight. I thought I was in good shape until the kiosk wouldn't issue me a ticket and the guy at the counter prints my ticket and says he'll escort me through security - basically going in the shorter first class line. I still think I was fine and would have still made the flight going through regular security. Still, nice to be pampered. 

Arrived home, changed and headed towards my friends place for their Friday evening summer party which was in full swing when I arrived. Tons if laughing kids. Good catching up with folks and even got some cotton candy since they rented a machine. They've since bought one so am hunting down how to make maple syrup cotton candy - my favorite. I think it just uses Indian sugar. 

Well this is when things started getting expensive. On my way there I got rear ended in rush hour traffic. I thought the damage was minimal until the next day I saw the side was crumpled. So now I'm paying for the deductible. 

Saturday morning I had a vet appointment for Winston and ended up having to go to the vet hospital for emergency work that was in the four digits. 

And Sunday, finally made it back to ikea and got the sofa bed sectional I've been wanting to get for my back room. But didn't want to pay for shipping. So technically I saved money but it felt like I was spending a lot of money this weekend. 

My dad and Barbro were visiting and helped with the sofa. We took two cars and barely fit the four boxes the sofa came in, into the cars. Dad and I had visited ikea awhile back but found the sofa was sold out. As dad said, after we finally got the boxes in, it was a good thing they were sold out that time since we only had the one car and there was no way it would have worked. 

The cats are loving the new sofa. It's black so they really blend in, although not their fur which appears to be a bit on the gray side. They love hanging out on it and watching the back yard critter activity. It's taken them a little while to adjust to Winston, especially Wallace. She was still hissing and growling several days after. Winston was like whatever - I'm too tired to deal with it and frankly she seemed to mainly be hissing as she passed but acting normal otherwise as if it was a requirement to respond to the "new" cat but it really didn't matter to her. I ended up combing all three yesterday and I think that helped to mix up the smells and get things back to normal.