THE Move from HELL!

Brinkley has lived in Washington DC for three years and this past weekend moved into her 6th (yes, 6th) dwelling. (moving therapy may be in order) Being a candidate for "mother of the year" and because I love my Brink, I went to help. The new nest is the best, thanks to the wonderful Titlows, but the move was something out of a Stephen King novel. It all started when the "company" she selected called her to say they would be a couple of hours late. No worry, order Chinese and call the new place to say we would be later than expected...fine, the security guard would be there to open the loading gate. Two hours turned into three and being the sweet, calm person that Brinkley is, the leader of the movers was chastised to say the least. This did not solve the problem as the three hours turned to four. The new place continued to be informed of the problem and continued to assure us that the security guard would be there. The three so called movers did show up at 10:15 pm and I do believe they had been doing something with pot. New place was notified of the arrival and yes of course the security guard would be there. Needless to say by the time the truck was loaded it was after midnight. Yes, you are right the new place was informed that we were on our way...security guard would be standing by. Now you are not going to believe this but when we arrived with the truck there was no security guard and the gate was not open. We called and about 15 minutes later the security guard showed up and informed us that under NO circumstances would the loading dock be opened and under no circumstances would we be able to unload. Now picture this...three stoned and aggravated moving people in an idling truck in the middle of 25th street, Brinkley screaming at the security Nazi, me throwing up my arms questioning the sanity of the so called human that we had been talking to all night. It was only 20 degrees outside. After about 30 minutes of this insanity (and the head security person suggesting that the stoned moving individuals sleep in a guest suite and unload the truck the next day) it was decided that the stuff would be stored overnight and they would come back at noon on Saturday. I am sure you have guessed that they were not there at noon or 1:00 and there were many very harsh words spoken by the Brinkster to the head mover. Around 2:30 the truck arrived and the contents delivered. A good time was not had by anyone.

The weekend continued with the defeat of Bama by the mean gator people, snow and sleet, and the worst service at Old Ebbitt Grill.

We noticed that the flags were all at half mast and Brinkley kept checking her Blackberry to see who had died, but there was no news about anyone famous dying. Then we realized that it was December 7th....how appropriate to lower the flags and take pause.

There were good things like trips to Target, a quick visit to the newly opened American History Museum (I had to make sure that our history had not been altered by the Bushies), and a wonderful tour of the monuments by night. The DAR was especially well decorated, I guess Marian Anderson was happy. Perhaps you are wondering if we saw any of the million or so really famous people at the Kennedy Center for the awards (which is only a few blocks from Brinkley's new apt), oh no we didn't know that was happening...we were up on Capitol Hill where there was no one. But the Capitol was beautiful and they have started building the platform for the inaugural.