Uh huh.

Ok, so tonight ChAli, Brett and I made what was our second attempt to scoot up to D.C. to see "Next to Normal." Or "Almost Normal," "Pretty Normal," "Abnormal," "Normally," and several hundred other not-the-right-names we came up with while we couldn't remember what it was called.

When we tried to go last weekend we got off to a tearing start about 48 minutes late because Ali Thibodeau dyed her hair (long story), got stuck in crawly traffic that allowed us to reverently goggle at the Bass Pro Shop and Evangelical Laudatorium for about 20 minutes while we idled past, and ended up giving up in Frederickburg and having steak and what Ali was pretty sure was lobster dick at the LongHorned Beef Fancy Palace or somewhere up in Fredericksburg. This was all very entertaining in and of itself due to the extraordinarily competent greeter at the restaurant door, who when having asked for and been given my name-spelled out, raised an eyebrow and said, "Nuh uh, give me another one, that one's too hard." I merely looked straight at her long enough for her to realize that I was furious so she looked past me to Chase who volunteered "Ted." This seemed to be feasible. Ali and I got violently ill from stuffing warm wheat buns down our gullets and didn't enjoy a drop of our dinner. There was considerable debate as to the sexuality of one of the nearby waiters. Much of Brett's transvestite theory was based on said individuals mammoth breasts which were only apparent when he/she was standing upright. Trouble was, he/she seemed very intent on leaning over the table he/she was waiting on and tickling their rolls with he/she/it's whiskers. Mystery never solved. After we had decided on the pictorials for the Richmond Theater nude holiday calendar we journeyed home, well satisfied with our evening.

Then we went tonight. 

We left promptly at five. Five fifteen- we had to go to MacDonalds. We got there, no fuss.

The Arena Stage is located in the basement of the Marriott Hotel. We were not expecting this.

Who has arenas in the basement after all. So after we secured our tickets, Chase and Brett strode manfully out the door in the direction of the hotel bar. The whereabouts of which they were completely ignorant. Brett finally asked someone, as he is wont to do (I feel that ruins all the fun of just finding things eventually), Chase found a large curving staircase down which he performed an excerpt from the Barksdale Theatre's Christmas 2007 production of "Mame," and Ali and I got diet sodas.

Then we went in for the show.

A spirited dramatic musical about pills, depression, hallucinations and pole dancing.

Alice Ripley hit five or six of those good belty notes. The ones where she is very clearly running her lungs through a cheese grater. Awesome. 

Tears, violins, awkward encounters with the director.

All in all, a successful theater experience.

Then we drove home and the boys decided to go to Taco Bell. I stayed out of this decision as I had tried to get in on the decision to get on the proper interstate access but was completely ignored and overruled in favor of taking a side road into the slums of Alexandria featuring a near head-on collision in a gaping sunken car wash by a rusty Sunoco from the early part of the seventeenth century. 

At Taco Bell we ordered several of everything on the menu and some items from fast food chains having nothing to do with tacos. Our grand total rang up somewhere in the triple digits at which point Chase chivalrously inquired into the matter of my having not paid him back for the last time he bought dinner. So I bought dinner. We pull away and begin dividing up the food, one piece of which was supposed to be a Clapusha. Or something like that. So we pull back around and inform the man that we are short an item. He immediately replies, "the Chalupa?" (That's what it was. Chalupa.) So this is suspicious as it would seem he deliberately failed to Chalupa us just to see if we'd come back around. So we pull up to the window and receive a bag. We pull away. We open the bag. The bag contains two hard tacos. Chase has had three nervous breakdowns by this point and has nearly asphyxiated himself chugging Mountain Dew out his nose, he is so tickled by the supposed willfull deception of the Taco Bell counter boy, but we convince him to drive back around. We end up with all of our food, with an extra dessert and extra container of cheese sauce that no one had ever asked for. 

We drive home, Chase and Brett acting out the drive thru situation on loop for a good forty miles, followed by fourteen rousing choruses of "America" from West Side Story. 

Good fun. Good to be home.