So this is where I am today!
Twenty-five years ago (yes, that does constitute an actual lifetime!) John graduated from Georgetown University, and we are here for his Reunion.  (He’s older than me.  We just won’t discuss when my 25-year Reunion will be.  Until I blog about it next May.)
This is the final installment of the two months of travel, celebration, fun, and stress that I wrote about two months ago.  (Did you notice I kind of stopped blogging for the duration?) But this is by far the less stressful occasion, and do you know why?  We are here BY OURSELVES.  Yes, we took advantage of the fact that three of our kids are adults, at least technically, and abandoned the little ones to their care.  So here we are, just like the old days.

Except we are older and fatter.
We aren’t staying on campus this time because it now costs–I kid you not–$180 a night to stay in a DORM ROOM and after all the time I spent cleaning Village C (a whole summer scrubbing toilets and making beds) they ought to be paying ME to stay there.  So I scored us a four star hotel on Hotwire for a two star price because we are GROWNUPS.  It’s a mile and a half away and we are busily coming up with ways to avoid paying $45 (yes you read that right) a NIGHT to park at the hotel, so we left the car at Georgetown last night and walked back, which was not so bad if it weren’t for my uncomfortable shoes and the 90 degree heat.  I used to routinely walk from Georgetown to the Mall and the monuments and the Smithsonians, and sometimes did round trips of ten miles, so I can handle this, right?
As grownups, we decided to go to the grownup restaurant last night too.  While all John’s classmates were attending a raucous celebration in the Tombs, we stayed upstairs at 1789, where we had never been.  It was awesome enough to make up for being older, fatter, and greyer, seriously.  It’s dim and old world and all the waiters have French accents which they are not faking.  Every item was exquisite, from the amuse bouche to the coffee. (Fair Trade, French press) Maybe by next year we will have saved up enough money to go there again.
On the agenda for today were lectures and receptions on campus.  Because this is Georgetown the lectures have names like “The State of Security: Balancing Foreign Relations with Domestic Concerns” and the receptions have free wine and beer and actual food enough to make a meal of (as some enterprising students have been known to do, since no one is checking your i.d. at these things).  We had three lectures planned but we slept in and then ate lunch at Mr. Smith’s instead.  And we did go to one of them.  It was held in one of the few big lecture halls at Georgetown (because most classes are small, y’all!).  This happens to have been where I took “Physics of Energy and the Environment” along with all the members of the basketball team and many other non-scientists.  Today’s lecture was much more inspiring, I promise.
Tonight we should have been at a tent party.  Except $100 PER PERSON is a lot to pay to party under a tent in 90 degree weather.  I can get drunk for a LOT less than that, should I want to.  I didn’t like tent parties when I was 21 and my opinion hasn’t changed.  It probably doesn’t help that the last one I attended as an undergrad ended with me vomiting in the grass and then returning to the apartment and passing out.  So we went down to M Street, had dinner, and walked back to the hotel where we will soon be passing out from heat exhaustion instead of drunkenness.
To Be Continued . . .