It was decided that some of the"essential" staff at the club would stay overnight on Monday because of the early street closures due to the Inauguration. We wanted to be sure that we would be there on Tuesday. All of our guest rooms (57) were booked months ago, so the women (10 of us) stayed in the spa and the men (20 of them) stayed in the exercise studio and a conference room.This is the facial room where I slept. We put 2 women in a room (there are 3 treatment rooms that have massage tables) and then 4 women slept out in our "waiting area". Judy shared a room with me....I'm so glad she stayed over because it would not have been the same without her!
Judy and I went to dinner around 6:00 and then we went to Macy's at Metro Center. We decided to walk back and we walked past Fire Station No. 16 in hopes to see a handsome firefighter I had the pleasure of riding in an elevator with a couple months ago!! Well, it didn't look like he was there so we decided to get some dessert. We walked over to Georgia Brown's because our good friend Norbert has a part-time job there. They had a 3 hour wait; we decided to go to CVS and get some Haagen Dazs and we went to the employee cafeteria to hang with some of the staff. They were watching the movie 'U.S. Marshalls' in Spanish.
We finally made it to the Sports Lounge around 10:15 and set up camp. The party began with me and Masra playing some Rummikub and then Marchese and Regina vs. Me and Masra in a games of Spades. Masra and I KICKED BOOTIE!!!!
Soon, others joined in on our fun. Most of us were in our pj's by then. I brought my laptop with some speakers and we put on my iTunes. Every one was a bit hyped up...it was fun.
John and Sean showed up around midnight. They are the chefs at the club and made some food for us. John is holding some peanut butter ice cream that Sean made..it was pretty tasty!
John eventually took over as DJ. He was impressed by my library of music - it's rather eclectic. 
Amela showed up for a while but retired rather early. (around 12:30 am) She is the Housekeeping Manager and had already had such a busy day and would have an even more busy day on Tuesday.
This is Norbert. He was showing us how to dance.....yah.......don't ask.
Me, Marchese and Miguel. This is around 2:30 am.....we were pretty tired at this point.So, we finally got to bed around 3:00 and I woke up around 6:00. Everyone was exhausted but we had a great time. It was a fun group to spend the night with!
D.C. was absolutely crazy on Inauguration Day. We work a couple blocks from the White House so Judy and I walked to Starbucks in the morning and the streets were lined with vendors selling food (chicken, shrimp, funnel cakes) and Obama memorabilia. The people making their way to the mall (literally thousands) were so excited and I have never seen so much fur in my life! Everyone was wearing fur coats....it was a sight to see!
I have always been grateful that I grew up so close to D.C. and know I am glad that I actually work in the district. I never thought I'd like to work in D.C. but now that I've been down there for 4 years I really love it.
