*Because Ramanda is too much Amanda and too little Roni.
Roni got in on Monday afternoon. I was at work, so I met her at Union Station and we picked up lunch from the food trucks and ate it in my office (it’s suddenly so cold here!).
We headed home by way of Trader Joe’s and had a Fall Feast: butternut squash soup, pretzels and pumpkin butter, garlic parmesan bread, and ice cream sandwich cookies for dessert. We watched Jeopardy! and stayed up talking until late, not unlike we used to do when we had sleepovers out on the Pullan fort.
My big plan for Tuesday/Election Day was to get to my polling place at 6:00 AM so I could be the first one in line. Problems with that: 1. I’m positive other Virginians who wanted to be first in line arrived much earlier and 2. Getting up to leave the house so early on a cold fall morning is hard. We left around 7 AM, and found the voting line out the door. It moved quickly and I was able to cast my ballot–but on paper! That kind of surprised me; even in tiny Payson, Utah, I had only ever used electronic voting machines.
I had a main campus meeting in the morning, so we took the metro and then a city bus up to the hilltop. Roni explored campus while I was engaged, and then we reunited around 11 AM. We hit up Saxby’s for hot chocolate and walked through Georgetown to the White House. Along the way, I pointed out Sites of Interest from the Frosts’ DC Adventures. The Barlow Center! The Papa John’s from which Jason procured snowmaggedon rations! The Metro station to which I used to walk every morning! Roni’s a good sport.
We took some dashing photos of ourselves in front of the Obama family’s house, but this is maybe my favorite of the trip.
(Top: Roni circa 2005. Bottom: Roni circa 2012).
We weren’t so hungry after our hot beverages, so we went to the American History Museum. We did the presidential exhibit and first ladies’ dresses in honor of election day (and just because we wanted to see them), and the war exhibit and the giant flag. We hit up the gift shop, where we discovered that the American History Museum does not carry a Utah tumbler (like the Kentucky version pictured below), and Roni bought some astronaut ice cream. 
When we were all museum-ed out, we went to Good Stuff Eatery for an Obamaburger, a Michelle’s Melt, fries, and a salted caramel shake.
Once home, we began Election Night Preparations, filling out our bingo sheets
and mixing up the First Lady cookie bake-off recipes. We couldn’t find Andes mint chocolate chips for Michelle’s cookies, so we used York Peppermint Patty bits, which are a lot like Reese’s pieces. In the spirit of election season, we used only red M&Ms in Ann’s oatmeal-peanut-butter cookies.
We conducted a holistic test, based unofficially on aesthetic, texture, crumb, and taste. The verdict: neither was the Most Amazing Cookie in the World (awards which in my book go to chocolate chip cookies and Mom Frost’s pistachio ones at Christmas). Ann’s recipe doesn’t call for flour–just lots of rolled oats–which made for a jaw-aching long-lasting cookie-chewing experience (and this critique coming from a girl who loves oatmeal). Michelle’s would have been less-than-remarkable except for the walnuts, which gave the cookies an almost Pecan Sandie taste and texture, and the mints chips, which make everything better. Both of us preferred Michelle’s cookies, so the Romney batch was relegated to the filing cabinet buffet at work this morning. Note: as of 1 PM, all cookies had been devoured.
We watched election returns on various channels and played bingo and ate M&Ms left over from the cookie bake-off. At 9:30 PM, we ordered a barbecued chicken pizza from The Lost Dog Cafe and watched the Bartlet election episode in the fourth season of The West Wing. I was on the phone with Jason when the race was called, and let Mariel know a few minutes later (she’d left her apartment at just the wrong moment to go pick up snacks). Neither Roni nor I ended up getting bingo, mostly because the things we chose to fill in were a little specific, but it was really fun. “Joe Biden smiles”, which was each of our middle free space, was surprisingly elusive.
Roni caught a cab at 2:00 AM to begin her long trek home. I’m so glad she was able to come visit. There was a time when we did almost everything together, but now we go months (and in this most recent case, 1.3 years) without seeing each other. Though it sounds a little bit cheesy, we really can pick up right where we left off. We never run out of things to talk about, and we still understand each other so well; it’s like we’ve been best friends for ten years or something.
We didn’t get a single picture of the two of us together, but here’s a good one from 2006. We look mostly the same, except Roni has teal glasses (complimented on by many strangers) and I have pierced ears, we try not to wear DECA blazers, and we don’t get as many medals these days.
They each took second place (first singles) in high school and junior high regions, respectively, a feat I never thought possible for a Pullan athlete.
