Tuesday

After yesterday's reading, we headed into the Farragut neighborhood for a going-away party honoring Sunshine's coworker Matt. Matt is the guy who drove me into México when I met Sunshine at the border in 2005. In Monterrey, he left about three weeks before we did; he is doing the same now. His party was nice, and full of people I've been meaning to meet for quite some time. It was held at another branch of the crappy gimmick joint Vapiano's, where patrons are issued silly little credit cards at the door. These keep track of each purchase, and must be presented here and there around the room's adjacent food stations (one for pizza, one for pasta, one for alcohol, etc). It really sucks. What interests me: after all this hoopla, basically designed to eliminate classical restaurant excesses like a wait staff, at the end of the night they still have the gall to present me with a bill that includes a tip line. Tip who? What surprises me is I actually did tip. The drinks were excellent. I hope that bartender gets a better job soon. Last night juxtaposes nicely with tonight, when we went out to a special goodbye dinner with our friends Ian and Christina at the local frat Mexican restaurant Sombrero Hut, a couple of blocks away from the unit. This is the couple who accompanied us to see Grindhouse back in April. They are leaving at the end of this month. Apparently, one has to be pretty close to the actual day of departure to be the star around here. I will be saying goodbye to people beating me over the border until the first week in October. Dinner was nice. I washed down California-style burritos with a DC-style Mojito toast to safe travel. [Cavin]