The Weekend Log: Take 14
Celebrating America with Beyonce in our nation's capital. Plus: Prime Day link.
Happy Fourth, Midlifers!
I am writing to you from the cafe inside a Residence Inn outside Washington, DC where my two daughters and I stayed last night in anticipation of the Beyonce concert later on tonight. This will make Show #3 for my youngest daughter — who flew to Houston last weekend to see Queen Bee perform in her hometown — and my girl has assured us we are in for a great show.
We hightailed it here a day early to beat the holiday traffic once we realized that we’d committed to spending the 4th of July in our nation’s capital, which is a notoriously horrible place to drive — even on a good day. I left NJ around 9am yesterday and swung through Philly to grab my younger daughter and it was mostly smooth sailing until we hit the DC beltway but, like, isn’t it always horrible on 495?
We’re pretty much in the middle of nowhwere, Maryland, so there was not much to do yesterday once we checked in. So, we resorted to our usual tricks: a stroll through the local Target and Costco, lunch at ChickFilA (I love their grilled chicken and kale salad) and of course — the newest Jurassic Park movie. GAH, I love a dinosaur.
The plan today (thanks to my personal assistant, ChatGPT) is to take the metro into DC proper and go to the aquarium and eat lunch before coming back to get ready for the concert. I’d thrown out a bunch of ideas over dinner last night of things to do but after our recent trip to Europe, the girls are over museums. Roaming around an aquarium was the one idea they could both get behind.
Neither of my two daughters shares my desire to have a fully built out itinerary at all times. I have a running commentary inside my head that’s saying, “Okay, first I’m going to do this and then I’m going to do that.” It helps if it’s also written out on a post-it note and also in one of my two notebooks (for work and for life). And if I’m traveling somewhere, I want to see and do the things. What is the thing to do, eat, see? I need to know and then check it off my list.
That little Busy Bee really wanted to push my daughters to DO SOMETHING yesterday when we got here. “Why don’t you go into Georgetown or drive to the National Harbor?” she buzzed. And I could have pushed that agenda on them and then suffered through everyone being annoyed with me when we were sitting in traffic or hot or any other potential snag.
In the end, I just went with the flow and followed the daughter vibe. And I was reminded that I just like spending time with my girls. We always have a lot of laughs — even walking through a subpar Costco in Maryland. The girls did submit to my strong desire to hit up a nearby Crumbl after dinner, even though we’d have to get back in the car to drive there. We went back to our hotel room with the giant pink box of cookies and rated our favorites (see ranking above) while watching the newest Somebody Feed Phil on Netflix and I was like: these are my people. The ones I want to go on road trips with, and look at Costco’s newest beach towel selection or fight about the temperature in the hotel room.
Tonight, we’ll sit and stand and dance alongside each other watching one of our favorite performers put on her version of a July 4 show and this one feels especially poignant in light of where we are as a country. I can’t wait to share it all with you on Sunday.
(Sharing recs this week below the paywall.)
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