The Cramer Lemon: The Wednesday Before Thanksgiving

I managed to get the week (Monday though Friday) off so that our family could travel down south. I loaded up the car on Monday, picked up Rob from the aviary and zoomed down to Maryland to get in some time with Mimi and Pop Pop. On our way there we told Buggy who we were going to see, not thinking that she'd attach the names to their faces, but sure enough, once we walked in the door and she saw my mother, "Mimi" was the first thing she said. Same for my dad when he got home later that night. We had a delightful - though very brief - visit and then departed for Fredericksburg, Virginia, where Rob's longtime friend Jeff lives with his fiancé, Amy. It took us longer to reach the normally 90 minute-long destination than it did to get from Pittsburgh to Mt. Airy (we did that in 3.75 hours when it usually takes us 4). Still, Buggy was in pleasant mood, entertaining herself with Richard Scarry books, and Rob was the exceptional travel partner that he always is, so the traffic outside of DC and along 95 wasn't as unbearable as it could be.

Buggy stayed up several hours past her bedtime last night, wired with glee from being freed from her car seat. After putting her to bed, Rob, Jeff, Amy, and I gathered round the table for several hours of Bananagrams. Such fun! I turned in at 11:30, tucking in with my newest read:Olive Oil: From Tree to Table, by Peggy Knickerbocker. It's fascinating and is filling in a lot of the gaps I had in my oil knowledge. I feel so much better equipped with information and can now pass on more intriguing tidbits to my customers. Rob and Jeff sat out on the front porch talking, and their voices, a few feet outside my window, kept me awake after I'd turned out the light. I'd fallen asleep before Rob came in at 2, but not long before. Olive woke at 7, so I woke at 7. And then I completely misunderstood the plans. Rob's brother and sister-in-law, Rhett and Amanda, were flying in from Connecticut and Jeff, Rob, Olive, and I were going to drive up to DC to pick them up at the airport and, from what I'd understood, spend a little time in the city. I was delirious from fatigue and Olive hadn't taken a morning nap, so staying behind seemed the wiser choice. However, the District beckoned, so Olive and I left shortly after Jeff and Rob. The traffic going up 95 was atrocious, as I knew it'd be. We met up with Jeff and Rob at the airport; Rob got in with us and Rhett and Amanda got in with Jeff. I followed, not sure of our destination, until Rob said he was just going back home. Mind you, it took nearly two hours to get from the house to the airport, and the attractions of the nation's capital were within view. There was no way I'd driven in sluggish traffic just to witness and airport pickup and drive back to the house (which reportedly took them three and a half hours). Rob was down for some enrichment so our first stop was Ah Love Oil & Vinegar in Arlington, VA. I'd heard of this shop and was curious to check out its wares and see how they compared to ours. We sampled a few of their balsamics (our traditional is better) and infused oils and all of the monovarietals, but none of them excited me much. Our next stop was my favorite destination in Washington:Dolcezza. They have a good selection of dairy-free sorbettos so we got Olive a cup of the cranberry apple cider flavor. Rob and I went the more decadent route with thai coconut milk, salted caramel, and chocolate peanut butter (Rob) and valhrona chocolate amargo (a dense, dark chocolate for me). We savored our treats then, to make the most of our visit and to try to avoid some of the anticipated traffic, we meandered through Northwest before finally stumbling upon the National Museum of Natural History. We wanted Buggy to see the dinosaur and mammal exhibits in particular, the latter of which I hadn't seen before. It was pretty spectacular and just as good as a zoo in many ways. Go see it if you haven't.