Between Visits

One of the nice things about living in DC is that it's a destination, which means that friends are always swinging through here for work or leisure.

When I got back to work on Tuesday, I had a brief e-mail waiting for me --

From: Maria
To: Aaron
Subject: Happy New Year
--
Any chance you and Kathy can meet me for dinner on Thursday evening in DC?

Maria is a law school friend who still lives in Tallahassee, and was coming to town for a conference (at this point she's the only friend from law school that I still keep in touch with).

Last night she came over and we went out to our new favorite Thai place (conveniently located in walking distance to our house). We had a great time catching up -- it had been about four years since we'd seen each other. During the course of the evening, she related to Kathy one tidbit from law school that I'd forgotten about -- while we sat next to each other in Civil Procedure, I occupied my boredom by trying to list all the CDs in my collection. She thought I was nuts, and as I assured her last night, I still am (an assertion to which Kathy readily agreed).

--

I woke up this morning at 4:15 with Nora licking some part of her. After about ten minutes of trying to go back to sleep while listening to a small dog meticulously attempting to address whatever grooming inadequacy she was encountering, I gave up and went into another room to try to sleep. Sleep, however, had no interest in joining me, so here I am.

--

Yesterday afternoon, I came back from a meeting to find the following e-mail --

From: John
To: Aaron, Michael, Katy
Subject: Coming to DC!
--
As I have finally, mostly shaken this cold, I'm planning on driving down to DC tomorrow (Friday the 6th) and hopefully staying thru Monday or Tuesday. I have a friend who works for Booz Allen and was going to drop by his office on Monday and see about possibly Interning there next summer. Do any of you know anything about them?

What availability do you all have this weekend?
John

To which I responded --

They're a major consulting firm, but beyond that, I really don't know much about them.

So will we see you at all?

He came back with the following --

I was hoping to still crash at your place.
Is that still ok?

Call me
John

Maybe it's just me, but the two short-notice visits have a certain qualitative difference. Then again, this is John, someone who's always danced to the beat of a different bassoonist, and someone I've known since I was 7. To be fair, a couple of months ago he had asked about such a visit for sometime in January -- he's now in law school ("I told you I was going to law school." "You asked how I did on the LSAT -- I thought it had to do with you having worked for Kaplan."), and as the e-mail indicates, looking for an summer internship.

When I called him back he said that he had a backup. I told him that of course he was welcome, and that it was no big deal. After all, we live in DC, so we expect to have visitors.