Southern Comforts (Revised, with Paragraphs!)

I've crossed the Mason-Dixon Line, damn it, so I have officially gone south for spring break. Jeez, if all my body parts get to go south, why shouldn't I go too?

The Cherry Blossom Festival has officially begun, and given this year's global cooling, at least on the east coast, the festival -- and the blossoms -- will probably be gone before the frost completely disappears. Even so, it feels a lot warmer here in D.C. than it did this morning in New York City when my daughter and I froze our asses off waiting to board the delayed and slightly malfunctioning but ultra-cheap bus. It took about an hour for our toes and fingers to regain sensation, but the misery of the biting cold was long forgotten by the time we pulled into the lot in D.C. There's something about the sight of great plumes of pink blossoms and greening grass and buds struggling to burst forth on winter-weary trees that almost makes this place feel like some sort of vacation paradise.

Or maybe it's just good old-fashioned southern hospitality. I'll admit, things move a little slowly down here. In the time we waited for what I thought would be no-brainer lunch sandwiches we could have had a six course sit down dinner. And up north, they probably would have given us something closer to what we actually ordered. People speak with a bit of a drawl down here, and don't seem to consider the possibility that you are in a hurry. Granted, D.C. is hardly the deep south, but the pace is noticeably more relaxed. There's a reason the Federal Government is located here.

But hospitality takes time. And for all the money they spent renovating my deep dark suburban Starbucks, that place has got nothing over the Starbucks connected to my hotel here. My coffee may have taken forever, but I waited contentedly in one of the seven -- SEVEN! -- huge comfy chairs, complete with an ottoman and two side tables. Add to that a delicious looking mint green plush couch and a cushy banquette against one table-lined wall and the place has the feel of a welcoming southern plantation. Kind of makes all the woes I've tried to leave behind seem awfully trivial.

Speaking of trivia, Monday night is "trivia night" at a favorite haunt of Georgetown students, and I have been informed that my attendance is mandatory. Not just for dinner, but for the trivia festivities afterward, which means, as I vaguely recall from a previous Monday night visit, I will be the oldest person in the room by at least thirty years, and I will be spending much of the time feeling self-conscious about being the only one whose parts seem to have gone south. There's a limit to the amount of alcohol enhanced perkiness this woman can stand.

But, I'll keep in mind that this week I, too, have gone south, in a positive sense, so fiddle dee dee, I'll worry about the body parts another day.