A Couple Nice Brunches and a Brisk Walk

After all the drinking, Sunday was a refreshing and welcome reset. I took a cab from Corin and Zadie's hotel room to my old boss's Dupont apartment. She's a tiny Lebanese woman who loves yoga, wine and painting. When I worked for her, we were on the operations and finance side of a small DC nonprofit. Now, she does fundraising for an even smaller DC nonprofit – a hospice home for homeless men and women dying of AIDS or cancer.

She'd planned this brunch for me, essentially, or used me being in town as an excuse to get the old gang together. Me and about half a dozen of the women I used to work for when I was fresh out of college and even more insufferable than I am now. We gathered around her cozy and sun-soaked living room; made yogurt, berry and granola parfaits; and caught up on how our grandchildren were doing. Or, in my case, the cafes where I do my work and the online dating I've been up to.

Then I hopped a cab back to Chinatown and had another very nice brunch – 12 courses of pitsachio french toast, omelettes, octopus, brussels sprouts, fried oysters, and stewed lamb at Zaytinya – with Corin, Zadie, Shephard, Rick, and Steve.

Corin and Zadie caught the Bolt Bus back to NYC, Rick and Steve went home, and I spent the rest of the day with Shephard. It was an unseasonably sunny and warm day in DC, and I hadn't been outdoors or sober in 48 hours, so he took me on a walk around the Mall. I had no agenda, but Shephard felt under pressure to show me something in DC – a city I lived in for nealry a decade – that I'd never seen before.

So we walked from his office, where we ditched our bags, to the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial, a 4-mile loop. Then, just like old times, we went out for Thai food, rented a nerdy movie from Redbox, and went to bed early. I even slept on my old futon, now Shephard's couch.