Visitin'
I road tripped yesterday and it was a fun, little package of a day. First, I drove a couple of hours to the rolling green hills of Charlottesville to visit Madeline. Madeline, having finished up her residency at UVA, is getting ready to pack up and move herself to Chapel Hill. It was great to see her and we spent a couple of hours catching up in person and munching on pumpkin seeds. I also learned a lesson about Yahoo Maps: don't trust them completely. Madeline owns a little townhouse in a relatively new development and while Yahoo Maps purported to recognizing the address, they left out a few relevant details in terms of getting there.

Then I climbed back into my wee Civic and zoomed along 64 to Richmond to visit Emily. Emily is my old roommate, a compadre from my college job at Baskin Robbins (the 3rd busiest in the nation, people!), and one of my dearest and most erstwhile friends. I hadn't seen her in over two and half years and we picked up as if we hadn't seen each other for a few minutes. Except we had a lot more to catch up on. She and her husband bought the sweetest little fixer upper in Richmond's Southside, and from the look of their almost finished kitchen and their totally finished pantry, by the time they get done with everything I'm totally packing my bags and moving in. She even started a little vegetable garden in the backyard complete with her own baby pumpkins and fledgling green peppers. It was great to re-connect and I left feeling sated and with mental resolutions to stay in more regular touch.

I've also managed to see DC-area friends too and it's been wonderful. Dinner and a DC-monuments walk with Annie, brunch with Des and Bryan, and dinner with Anne and Nate (who I finally met, and it every bit as great as I've heard).

I also climbed on the scale at Em's house after eating a big salad for lunch and it read a number down three and half pounds since last Wednesday! Hooray! I needed that reinforcement since I was tempted many times this past week (especially walking into Lost Dog Cafe with Anne and managing not to grab one of their fresh baked pizzas or sandwiches and cramming it into my gaping maw).