#23: An Ode to DC

POEM

Sweet sweet, reader!

It’s T-minus 10 days til the big move, and I am feeling sentimental. We’ve only been in DC a year, and just as I was starting to feel at home here, I decided to move to “follow my dreams.” Typical!

While I’m excited for the next chapter, I’m sad to be leaving our nation’s capital. So I wrote a little something to honor our time here.

An Ode to DC

Here’s to the most ravenous mosquitos in these 50 United States

Here’s to the pigeons with red bottom feet that let me sing Bodak Yellow to them in the park

Here’s to roundabouts with four lanes and seventeen stoplights

Here’s to our elderly neighbor Lee who once asked me if I’d ever considered mailing my photo into Cosmopolitan because I look so pretty without makeup (I was wearing makeup) and models make good money if I could just buy some blue eyeshadow because those New York Types love that sort of thing

Here’s to tonkotsu at Sakuramen and half-price happy hour sushi at Rice Market and lentils at Lapis and a family platter to ourselves at Family Ethiopian

Here’s to tire-flattened rats petrified in the back alley

Here’s to dive bar open mics and new funny friends

Here’s to our 81-year-old neighbor Denise who likes to remind us she can still touch her toes and tries to convert all women to lesbianism and was once mistaken for Marilyn Monroe when she was nannying as a young woman in LA

Here’s to rubbing elbows with world leaders and small-town tourists at the Tidal Basin cherry blossoms

Here’s to ducklings on the reflecting pool

Here’s to Lincoln’s big ass marble hands

Here’s to Denise again because the first time we met her, her tank top was so loose she was freeing a little bit more than the nip and I think she knew it too because she spent the next several minutes explaining how much she loved the way her cat walks across her naked body when she sleeps

Here’s to AdMo McDonalds at 1am

Here’s to the vanilla latte, Dupont Circle farmers market, Kramers bookstore Sunday loop

Here’s to the Georgetown AMC and a $4 falafel sandwich

Here’s to the man who brought out the speaker in front of the White House and led us all in the Cha Cha Slide, left foot now y’all

Here’s to sweaty pits all swampy summer

Here’s to picnics in the circle and walks down 14th

Here’s to Denise just one more time because have any of you ever seen the horror movie Devil about a bunch of people stuck in an elevator? I don’t even like scary movies but I watched this one as a teen and *spoiler alert* the little old lady ends up being the Devil and she kind of looks like Denise and the first time Denise invited us into her apartment to meet her cat that walks on her naked body I was like oh no this is where we perish Denise is the devil but it turns out she’s just a hoarder with a cat obsession so we were fine.

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Thanks for reading and happy long weekend! Let me know what’s in your ode to Mondays off in the comments.

Here’s to you,

Ariana