Living in DC

First of all, a quick side note - Happy Anniversary to my mom and dad!  Forty-two years of marriage - yipee!  What wonderful role models they have been to me and Bruno on how to have a great and lasting marriage.  Enjoy your day, mom and dad!

Now on to living in DC...Thirteen years ago I made a life-changing decision.  I decided to move to DC.  I had been working for a member of Congress in his district office in Michigan and had planned to move to DC after he was re-elected.  Problem was that he wasn't reelected!  But I decided to move to DC anyway. I didn't have a job when I made the decision so I came out here for a week in November and had a couple of interviews and was very fortunate to land a job.  I started in mid-December 1996. 

My plan was to stay for a year or two so that I could say later in life say that I had lived in DC once.  Little did I know I would meet wonderful friends, fall in love, get married, buy a house (and then another), and have two children.  Both Bruno and I love living in DC (ok, we live in Arlington which is 5 miles away - close enough for us)!  It is a very different place from where we grew up in Michigan and Massachusetts. 

Sometimes the differences make me laugh and sometimes they make me miss the niceness of the midwest:

• "What do you do?" and "where do you work?" are usually the first questions asked when someone meets you.  So much for, "Hi, my name is ___, what is your name?"
• People go to "balls" instead of "parties". 
• It's a regular occurrence to see a motorcade of varying lengths (the longer the motorcade, the more important the person) zoom by you.
• The national news that most people watch on CNN is our local news.
• People will drive over an hour to go 5 miles - as I did on Friday morning.
• Because the traffic is so bad, informal car pools form at parking lots. A car pulls up and two random people get in the car. The people who ride in these car pools are called "slugs".  It seems so bizarre to me that people would ride with strangers but it seems to work.
• Bars have CNN and MSNBC on their TVs.
• I love being able to drive by the US Capitol at any time of day and seeing its grandeur.  At night, it is lit up so beautifully.  I thought I might get used to seeing the Capitol after living here for 13 years, but I always love seeing that building.
• I love being able to take the kids to a Smithsonian or a monument on a random Saturday.

Almost everyone I know is not "from" DC but from places all over the country.  We are so blessed to have Kerri and Mark live near us (they actually do live in DC).  But they are our only family who lives here.  And most our friends are in the same boat.  So I realized very quickly after moving here that our friends are our family. 

• It's our friends who watch our kids when school is cancelled and we can't get out of our meetings at work. 
• It's our friends who we borrow milk and eggs from when we don't want to run to the store.
• It's our friends who we list as our emergency contacts on the school forms.
• It's our friends who come over for dinner on Sunday afternoons. 
• It's our friends who we invite to our children's birthday parties. 
• It's our friends who hold us up when we are stressed out trying to juggle working and raising two little ones. 
• It's our friends who keep us centered in this town full of politics and who-knows-who. 
• It's our friends who keep us here. 
• It's our friends who are our family. 

Here's to my DC friends - thank you!  We couldn't do this city without you!  We treasure your friendship, your support and your love.