Awkward Dining at The Grille

Today I started my job on Capitol Hill. My boss soon asked me if I wanted to come to lunch with her at The Capitol Hill Club Grille. Yikes. I said, of course, yes, but was worried that either my grand design would be ruined on day 3 or I would starve.

Luckily I found a mozarella, tomato and pesto panini on the menu and ordered that, not mentioning to my steak-salad-eating boss that I was a vegetarian. She then proceded to tell me about all the awesome burger joints, Mexican restaurants, and delis in the area. I thanked her profusely for this knowledge, realizing that I would have to start bringing lunch to work.

The restaurant itself was really interesting. It's the semi-official club of the Republican party on the Hill (which I've learned to call it), and is oftentimes frequented by Republican members of Congress and high level Republican Congressional staffers and the like. My boss told me that there is a Democratic club similar to the Capitol Hill Club, but it's much smaller and much less swanky. Makes sense.

Interesting anecdote: members of Congress all wear pins denoting their membership. So in order to take advantage of that, many men who work on Capitol Hill will put similar looking pins on their lapels in order to make people unwittingly think that they are Congressmen. I looked around the restaurant and indeed, this seemed to be true. I'm beginning to learn that in D.C., image and perception is everything.

I did some other interesting things today - I took a tour of the Capitol Building and sat in on debate over the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill. Seeing Joe Lieberman, Barbara Boxer and John Warner go about their business was really exciting, I'll have to admit. I was able to hear Boxer speak for a few minutes in support of the bill, and then heard some random Republican drone on about the jobs that would be lost as a result of a cap-and-trade system. As if allowing the climate to change unabetted would not result in lost jobs. But I digress.

I was going to walk to Java Green (the awesome vegan restaurant) for dinner tonight but it was pouring, so I made myself a quesadilla instead. I need to force myself to diversify my food choices, because it's very easy to stick to easy-to-make meals that I am familiar with, especially after a long day's work.

So, here's the breakdown:

Breakfast:
2 Oats and Honey Nature Valley granola bars

Lunch:
Tomato, Mozarella and Pesto Panini
French Fries

Dinner:
Quesadilla with cheese, spinach and tomatoes. With guacomole.

P.S. I'm watching McCain give his speech in Louisiana. What a snarky old bitch. Every time he musters a snide remark about Obama he puts on this shit-eating grin that makes you just want to punch the guy in the face. I'm also convinced that he has no idea what the fuck he's talking about. If Obama isn't able to crush him in November there is something fundamentally wrong with the way the Democratic Party does business. One thing about McCain's speech that I found interesting was when he said (paraphrasing), "No matter who is the next president, there will be dramatic change from current governance." I'm somewhat surprised to hear McCain promising what amounts to, in effect, a dramatic departure from Bush policies. Bush's popularity has sunk so low that even his Republican dick-suckers have to abandon him. Yikes.

P.P.S. Ezra Klein has this to say about McCain's speech:

The content of McCain's speech is basically what you'd expect, but the delivery is really peculiar. His voice is artificially high, he's grinning more frequently then usual, his tone is jumping octaves to soften the end of his sentences. It's a cuddly, almost delicate delivery, as if he were reading a storybook to really young children. It's extremely disconcerting.