Thing 21: 18th Street Lounge

Where do you go for a casual get together? You want your friends to be able to come and go as need be, you want them to be comfortable and you want to hear them when they talk. You also might enjoy dressing up and wearing heals (or at least, not sneakers). Maybe a dive just won't do...

Or maybe you just want to party in Teddy Roosevelt's mansion.

18th Street Lounge has you covered.

Which is where I found myself on Friday night to celebrate the Roommate's birthday. Full disclosure: I may have had one too many celebratory glasses of champagne to have done a good job of journalistic observance, so bear with me.

First, you have to find the place. There's no sign. It's just an unmarked doorway next to the Mattress Discounters on 18th Street, in Dupont. Once you've knocked at Candie's Hardware, Mattress Discounters and the Daily Grill and then finally stumbled upon the doorway for ESL, then you have to get past the bouncers. We had a guest list for the Roommate's birthday, but apparently if you are a guy and you are not dressed particularly well, or come without a lady on each arm, the bouncer discriminates at will as to whether or not you can get in. Thankfully, between the guest list and the fact that all the Roommate's friends are beautiful and stylish people, everyone got in with minimal issues.

Once inside, you go up the stairs and it feels laid back and luxurious -- very clearly a converted mansion. The rooms have high ceilings and the spaces aren't crowded. Sofas and coffee tables are placed in corners of the room to facilitate lounging, beautiful chandeliers hang from the ceiling and expensive fresh flower arrangements adorn the bar and the corners of the lounge. A roaring fireplace adds to the feeling of a living room. The windows look out onto the 18th Street/Connecticut Avenue intersection, and you can see the lines across the street for 1223 and Play.

ESL is known for its DJs; it used to be owned by Thievery Corporation, and the place has a record label associated with it. When we first got there, there was a nice mellow mix of reggae and hip hop. The drinks were on the expensive side. Then again, I was the happy drunk buying everyone's drinks, so I guess my tab was bound to add up.

Later in the evening they opened the large room off of the main room. The room had high white walls and a long bar on one side of the room, with the same ornate chandeliers and mirrors and sofas as the smaller lounge had. At no point was the bar particularly crowded, or ever too loud, or too frantic. A chill place, tucked away on a busy strip, that feels like a house party thrown by a very rich friend. Or at least, from what I can remember.

Thing 20: Cherry Blossom Picnic

The cherry blossoms are in bloom, marking the official start of tourist season! For the next five months, surly teenagers will look bored in front of museums, families in matching T-shirts will stand on the left of the metro escalators, and bus loads of school children will descend on mall food courts with $5 food vouchers.

I was once a tourist too, I keep reminding myself when I get the urge to yell at one of these well meaning people when they stop abruptly at the top of the escalator to have a look around. I, too, did not know the unspoken etiquette of navigating the streets and public transportation of DC. So I try to be patient.

DC residents have a love/hate thing going with tourists. We love their dollars, and their big, excited eyes when they see the Capitol or the White House remind us of all the good things we have that we take for granted. On the other hand, they stand on the left. This irritates natives to no end. They also speak loudly on the train, get excited about the Pentagon City mall (it's a mall...they're everywhere), and seriously, what is with those matching shirts?

All this to say: Tourists, you are welcome in my city. Just so long as I don't have to mingle.

Which is why my favorite way to enjoy the cherry blossoms is to picnic beneath them, thereby avoiding the majority of the crowds as they stroll around the Tidal Basin. I've found that strolling among them only aggravates me. They keep stopping in the middle of the narrow path to take pictures, and the rest of us must wait patiently on the sidelines to keep their frame clear. This is fine the first couple times, but if you are walking the perimeter of the Tidal Basin, you must do this dozens of times and it gets old.

I much prefer bringing a picnic and staking out a spot beneath the trees. The tourists are still there, but they're several feet away, and they're no longer getting in my way as I enjoy the beauty of the tiny white flowers bursting everywhere alongside the water. This year, GFD and another friend of mine who recently moved to the District (enjoying her new status as Not A Tourist) headed down to the Tidal Basin on Sunday afternoon. It was supposed to rain on Sunday, and though it was overcast and a bit chilly we decided to at least attempt a picnic in the hopes that the weather would hold.

My friend picked up sandwiches from Subway, I brought a homemade strawberry rhubarb pie, and GFD brought big beers.


We put our blanket out on the strip of grass between the Jefferson Memorial and the little bridge, under the blooming trees. The Tidal Basin path was only about four feet away and from our vantage point we were able to enjoy the scene while munching our sandwiches and covertly drinking our napkin-wrapped beers. If you are a dog lover, you will be in heaven. Every breed, size and color of dog was being walked around the Tidal Basin. A miniature shitzu, three identical golden retrievers, boxers and schnauzers and even a wolfhound I recognized from the St. Patrick's Day parade last month (he was still wearing his green neckerchief). If you prefer to watch people, this is a good place to be, too. A young child walks behind his family saying in an even tone "ow...ow...ow..." while his family walks on, willfully ignoring him. A bridal party walks down the way, the bride in a lovely ivory dress with truly ugly, bulky, chartreuse shoes. A very old woman, lines of a life well-lived cut deeply into her cheeks, being pushed in a wheel chair by a teenager, presumably her grandchild. A look of utter happiness and contentment graces her wrinkly face.

I'd brought chess and a deck of cards, and after our meal we played a few hands of Texas hold 'em for pennies. I taught my friend how to play chess. We lay back and looked up at the tiny delicate blossoms over head, enjoying the temperate weather.

After about four hours of a perfect, lazy Sunday picnic, we packed up the supplies and headed back for our homes. Tourists still flocked around the cherry blossoms, posing for pictures beneath the boughs and standing in line for ice creams. As for my friends and me, we have the luxury of going back next weekend, and the weekend after that, if the blossoms hold. We'll be here next year and the year after for them, too. We headed home.

Thing 19: Peyote Cafe

Wanna go out in Adams Morgan without running into the usual frat boys, fabulously well dressed people, or inappropriately un-dressed people? Wanna go to a place that doesn't care who you are, what you look like, how old you are or what you're wearing, just so long as you know the words to "Sweet Caroline"? Do you love to karaoke, or at least love to sing along with those who do? Go go go to Peyote Cafe.

Peyote is easy to miss. It's located in the basement level of the bar-a-palooza that houses Roxanne's and that unclear rooftop bar. Although marked by a fairly large sign, the sign is below eye-level when walking up 18th Street, so you really need to be looking for it already. Once inside, it's just a small basement room, with one bar that takes up nearly an entire wall and a banquette lining the other wall. There are no tables and no stage for singing, those karaoke-ing are right there among the sweaty masses, wielding their microphone.

I was at Peyote on Friday night to celebrate a friend's birthday. Once again, I was impressed with the diversity of people there, especially for an Adams Morgan bar. Black, White, college age, young professional and downright old people, really hot and really not people, skinny, fat, well-dressed, sloppy, punks and preppies -- all of them belting out 'Nsync and ABBA with not a hint of self-consciousness.

If it's crowded and you want to sing, expect to come up with $5 or $10 with which to "tip"(bribe?) the emcee. My friends are karaoke pros -- they know how to rile the crowd into a frenzy of singing and toasting and dancing with their masterful rendition of "Piano Man." "Raise your glasses!" they command, and everyone in the bar raises their glasses high and joins along with the chorus. "Sing us a song, you're the piano man. Sing us a song tonight..." The applause is long and loud after they finish the song.

A short time afterwards, my friend is called back up for another crowd pleaser. He sings "Take On Me," the 80s hit by A-HA, complete with most excellent 80s dance moves during the musical interlude. We all join in with our best falsettos, "I'll be gone...In a day or twooooooooooooo."

One last word about karaoke at Peyote. If you go and you are singing, please please please no slow songs. I don't care how good you are at belting out that power ballad. It is guaranteed to slow the party down and no one will like you.