The Omni Incident.

We’re in D.C. for the weekend!** I love this place. We don’t ever want to leave.

For a few hours yesterday afternoon, though, Yuri was crabby. Selling his Chicago condo is giving him headaches; he found himself neck deep in real estate document language when he was supposed to be taking a nap with me so we could be fresh daisies for a night on the town. We had come back to our room after brunch and a trip to the National Portrait Gallery (my favorite museum in the world) and he opened his laptop. One irksome email about sale protocol, and the co-nap was a distant memory. I had never seen him so grouchy.

I tried plying him with chocolate, I tried distracting him with kisses. I considered producing a mini-puppet show with gum wrappers and hotel soap, but it was no use: the crabbypants were on. I decided giving him space was best, so I left to explore the hotel.

The Omni Shoreham in D.C. is epic. Seven (eight? two hundred?) glittering chandeliers hang high in the lobby’s vaulted ceilings. There are arches. Domes. There’s a lot of chrome, a lot of oriental rug action. It’s got “historical” written all over it. I wouldn’t mind living there, especially if they’d let me work at one of the many circular banquettes in the lobby. They’re all upholstered in lush velveteen and I want one.

Our room was on the 8th floor, which is the top floor, and we had a perfect view of the grand courtyard out back. There’s a little gazebo and gorgeous flower gardens, cobblestone walkways and huge planters all across the sprawling green lawn. I saw three different wedding parties coming and going in one weekend! Two of them used the courtyard and the weather was perfect for them.

I poked my nose into all kinds of places on my walk; boardrooms, the pool, the east wing, the west wing. I went through a patio door and locked myself out at one point, but found a service entrance and got back to the hotel via a slightly creepy corridor that wound all around.

When I spied the gate to the courtyard, though, I had an idea. There was a hotel phone on a little table and I picked up the receiver. It dialed the operator automatically.

“Omni Shoreham hotel operator, how may I direct your call?”

“Room 848 please,” I said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

When Yuri picked up the phone, I told him to go to the window in exactly two minutes. He said he would.

“Great,” I said. “Enjoy!”

I slammed down the phone and ran to the doors that led outside. I ran right to the place in the courtyard that I knew Yuri could see plain as day from the window in our room. And I put on a little show for him. It was meant to cheer him up, and it totally worked.

I squealed for joy when he told me that he got it all on tape.

**This post didn’t post yesterday; sorry for the delay.