September 2007 Activity -- Wardrobing Tips

Wednesday, September 19, 2007
6:30pm
Nordstrom, Tyson's Corner, VA




After sending in our sizes/coloring/styles/clothing needs to the Nordstrom personal shopper --she promised that she would have rooms full of clothing and accessories that met our needs/styles/lifestyles. Amy called to follow up with her and found out that she was "out sick" on the day of our dilettante activity! Surprising for Nordstrom...but in true customer service fashion, they sent over their top salesperson from the Pentagon City store, who did her best to find us some fashions that met our needs (though not our pocketbooks, we were soon to discover).


She kept giving Amy size large items (all way too big), picked out suits and skirts for me (even though I wear jeans to work) gave Nicole tons of impractical (though GORGEOUS!) stuff and brought Amanda some really matronly items (even though she's young and cool). Aside from that, it was very helpful (snarf!)
The experience itself was all very civilized, though. We had a suite of dressing rooms that opened onto a cental area with a pedestal and mirror. Perfect for showing off the stuff we liked and even more ideal for the ridiculous get-ups. Our personal shopper brought us cookies and water and kept going to the floor to find additional things for us to try on and exchange sizes (for the petite-not-large Amy). It was also a perfect place for Kathleen to begin changing into and out of things right in the center of the room -- and right in front of the doorway that led into the shoe deparment. ("Hi to my salesguy friends in the Nordstrom shoe department who now know what my underpants look like!")

We learned quickly that the third floor of Nordstrom is not a place for bargains...but it is definitely a place for quality and good fit. It was fun to try on a lot of the things we did. And, we each actually came away with some good purchases: Amanda -- a gorgeous tobacco-colored leather coat and brown knit dress; Amy -- a brown skirt with a great pattern that will look amazing with boots; Nicole -- an awesome runway-worthy grey dress and some cool green cords; Kathleen -- a black shirt and very practical leopard coat. And I do think we all got some pretty good ideas about what looked good and what we needed that we can take with us to H&M.

As our credit cards were cooling off, we headed to Gordon Biersch to have some dinner and sample the Oktoberfest keg that they tapped that day. All the waitresses were in dirndls -- nice touch.

Supplemental Activity -- Brew at the Zoo

August 23, 2007
National Zoo, Washington, DC

Okay -- not an official dilettante activity -- more of a supplemental dilettante activity -- with the boys. Well, for at least part of the evening, but not the part where we were all doing the "dilettante dip" down each other's cleavage, prompting the couple ahead of us to sneer and the guy with the messed-up grill behind us to keep screaming, "titties", and the crowd of men behind that to fan out to see what was going on. And not really for the part of the evening where I used the convenient pull cord on my shirt to get more generous pours from the sampling people at the beer tents. And also not really when we took turns taking pictures down each other's shirts...and then deciding as a group that the lighting was off on Nicole's pictures, and then re-taking it and all saying in unison, "ahh...much better."

And come to think of it...not really the part of the evening when Amy mentioned that her dad, Townsel, likes to "freeball" it, or when Amanda lovingly noted that my mom's boyfriend, Jack, is an "Assman".

But they were there with us for the best part -- you know, to drive us home.

August 2007 Activity -- Salsa Dancing

Monday, August 13, 2007
7:00-8:00pm
Clarendon Grill
Arlington, VA
Cost: $5 for beginner class and social dance at 9:00pm
http://www.oohsalsa.com/

Well, who knew that a salsa class in Arlington on a Monday night would be so well-attended? This was pretty cool -- there were about 40-50 people here -- all ages, all ethnicities, all (not "both" -- "all") sexes -- sometimes the DC area is surprising in its lack-of-stodginess.

The instructor was enthusiastic, if not a little bit corny. Whatever...he taught us to salsa. We all mastered the few basic steps that he taught us and were actually doing what resembled a dance in time to music within about 45 minutes, taking our leave only when it became apparent that there might be some partnering up with guys. (And thus prompting the dilettantes to state their credo of "not touching anyone they don't know.")

We ducked out to the Eleventh Street Lounge next door for dinner and drinks. Amy insisted that we all order a fancy cocktail to begin...even though we're normally a beer/wine crowd. A sidecar, lime rickey, pineapple-tini and raspberry beret later, we were hitting our stride. This was followed by a few rounds of beers and about a million stories and laughs.

July 2007 Activity -- Massage Techniques

Tuesday, July 17, 2007
7:30pm-9:30pm EST
Felix Lounge
2406 18th Street NW
Washington DC 20009
Cost: $25

Not since the pole dancing class in April 2006 have the Dilettante spouses been so excited about an activity.

We were somewhat hesitant to schedule this class as it was being brought to us by Professionals in the City, who you might know from their earlier work in "suck-ass hypnosis class." Alas, scheduling a monthly activity for four women is almost a dilettante activity in itself these days, so a Professionals in the City class it was!

The class was held at the Felix Lounge in Adams Morgan -- so, plenty of time for beer before the class began. Hooray! (Though, we were not instilled with confidence when the bartender told Amanda that sometimes the instructors for Pros in the City classes don't show up. Fortunately, this one did.)

"Introduction to Partner Massage" was led by Joesph Reo, licensed massage therapist and massage therapy instructor.

He had all of us introduce ourselves and talk about our experience with massages -- whether we had them often, for relaxation or injuries, and if we'd had good or bad experiences with them. Then, he came up with all the following sound bites:

"I have the table, the sheets and the cream"

"When I'm giving a massage, I take a moment to check in with myself -- to be present not just with Ken (participant), but also with Ken's shoulders"

"Once I put my hands on somebody, I tend to not like taking them off"

"Sometimes people want a poky massage"

"When I teach this class in the winter, there are too many clothes...skin is so much better"

"Apparently, she's one of the fingernail ones" (said about Nicole)

"You can use the cream or not, some people don't like to get all gooed up"

Instruction sheet had commands such as:
"Now change places" and "Now switch roles again" -- sheesh! You'd think we were at a swingers' club (yes -- it took me almost 19 months to work "swinging" into this blog -- talk about restraint!)

If there was ever a question about just how juvenile your dilettantes are -- that question was answered repeatedly during this activity. To wit:

a) During his discussion, Joseph mentioned that sometimes people get very relaxed and sometimes fall asleep during massages, which can be jarring when you wake up and realize it's over. To which we added, "yes, and you realize your kidneys are gone and it hurts in the no-no place."

b) One dilettante noted with hilarity that every time she moved on the vinyl couch, it sounded like she was passing wind, so she proceeded to do it about 15 times while saying "couch" every time just to make sure that no one thought that she was, indeed, REALLY passing wind.

c) All dilettantes coming up with the same third-grade joke about "what's this?" "a brain sucker" "what's it doing?" "starving" when we were demonstrating scalp massage on our partners.

Fun event. The instructor was very laid-back and didn't seem to mind when we went to get beers during class. Only slightly uncomfortable part of the evening was getting hit on (as a group) by two different guys at the end of the class. Even after mentioning that we were married during the introductions. Perhaps this was a swingers' massage class. (I broke the seal...two swinger references in one posting...I can't help myself.)

June 2007 Activity -- Hand Dancing

Monday, June 11, 2007
Lincoln Theatre
U Street, Washington, DC
6:30 or 8:30pm
$10
http://www.handdance.org/

Hand dancing sucks. That’s a baseless comment, because we know nothing of hand dancing. We all arrived at the Lincoln Theatre on U Street in DC only to find out that some kind of schmancy graduation ceremony was going on. Thusly, the hand dancing class was apparently cancelled for the evening – a fact not shared with the hand dancing web site…or on the voice mail of the woman I called whose phone number was listed on the hand dancing web site. Oh, hand dancing…why dost thou forsake us?

So, what do three women (Amy crapped out – apparently the memo about dilettante activities being optional only went out to Amy and Nicole) do with a suddenly-open hand dancing slot? Go shopping, of course! Have you seen the cute boutiques on U Street? Sadly, many of them close by 7pm. Happily, Pop stays open until 8pm --giving us plenty of time to try on almost every garment in the store. Kathleen and Nicole proceeded to make this the most expensive dilettante activity on record in a span of about an hour.

After learning how to shop efficiently, we learned how to eat and drink on the roof top deck of Local 16. And we learned that the server should be forced to set down the Chimay and back away slowly – he was that remedial in the pouring department. Food was pretty good/drinks were great, but orders for them were taken too slowly. However, it was a perfect night weather-wise and we were seated next to a smart ass. So it ended up being a pretty great night.

May 2007 Activity -- Phyllo Dough Cooking Class

Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Whole Foods Market
Tenleytown, Washington, DC
7:00-8:15pm
Free

For the first time since the Dilettante Club began, we were down a member for the evening's activity. Nicole was sick and (sadly) could not make it.

The cooking demonstration at Whole Foods was very informational -- even those among us who don't own microplanes to grate nutmeg found a few useful tips on the 3-item menu that was presented (spanikopita, tahini salad and grilled pineapple). Plus, the woman who taught the course was cooking-show watchable. Not only did she know her stuff and give good tips and make it all seem easy...she was lovely and made it all very interesting. And at the end, we got to sample everything on the menu.

Whole Foods provided recipe cards, note pads, re-usuable shopping bags and bottled water for this class -- nice touch.

Evening ended at Guapo's for some Mexican food. Because we missed Nicole, we drew an extremely life-like rendering of her to pose as a stand-in. Our adorable Columbian waiter was fun enough to ask if she wanted to order anything.

April 2007 Activity -- Decorating

April 22, 2007
10:30 - 11:30 am
Pottery Barn
Tyson's Corner Galleria
International Drive, McLean, VA 22102
(703) 821-8504
Cost: Free

Our decorating class began with a short presentation by the Benjamin Moore rep, who explained a bunch of decorative painting techniques for outdoor spaces (they have a partnership with Pottery Barn and are featured in all of the stores and catalog tableaus). That was informative and timely, as we are finally seeing some nice, warm weather here in the DC area and are all starting to think about our decks and patios.

The next part of the workshop entailed the Pottery Barn employee walking us around the store to point out all of their new merchandise. She didn't really provide too many decorating tips...it was more about how we could buy things from the store and put them together to create -- WOW! -- exactly the same thing that was available in the store displays. She also mentioned that every season, she completely rotates her furnishings and home decor -- puts away velvet pillow covers and replaces them with linen ones, rolls up wool rugs and replaces them with sisals...replaces photos in frames with family photos taken on the beach, etc. Great idea -- but seriously -- who has the time/energy/storage space for that?

In true dilettante fashion, as soon as we stood to move to another section of the store, Amy wandered off when some bedding caught her eye.

Shortly after, Amanda was staging a photo op from the "red clambake table setting" that involved a "big mr. vomit" and a "lil mr. vomit" bucket. As I was about to snap the picture, I was scolded by a Pottery Barn fembot who told me that it was corporate policy that no photos be allowed in the store. The store is set up to look exactly like the catalog, which looks exactly like the web site, which is available to like, the entire universe. I doubt anyone would be finding Pottery Barn corporate secrets from the staged photo taken by my disposable camera.

The outing ended with brunch at Cafe Deluxe across the street. Highlights: Amanda being surrounded by an assortment of crazies, my husband going to New Orleans and getting a rash down there (but not "down there"),

Supplemental Activity -- Dilettante Prom

This started as an idea to celebrate a couple of milestone birthdays this year and quickly grew into Dilettante Prom 2007 -- complete with a theme, colors, costuming and a "killer" agenda:

Date: March 24, 2007
Theme: Forever Young (but of course)
Prom colors: Turquoise and hot pink
Prom Night Agenda:
-Girls get ready at Dilettante Amy's house
-Boys meet us and we take a limo ride around DC for two hours
-Limo drops us at Applebee's in Falls Church
-From dinner, we walk to the State Theatre and see The Legwarmers

During our limo ride (with Lonnie the limo driver) in the District, we stopped at The Tombs (where a bunch of Georgetown students were all over us) and an Irish bar (where Dilettante Amanda got to meet one of Leon's friends from the grand jury for the first time -- while dressed like a punk rocker). We also stopped for photo ops at the fountain in Dupont Circle where a passerby said, "I metaphorically hug each and every one of you." Dan, who was dressed like an 80s hair band member was accosted by a group of Japanese tourists who wanted their pictures with him.

From there, we headed to Applebee's. Either we'd had a few too many cocktails or the food at Applebee's has improved since we last ate there in 1990, because we all found it delcious. (And Dilettante Kathleen cracked herself up all night long by asking the Applebee's waiter how the chef recommended the steak be cooked.)

At the Legwarmers concert, we danced and sang and drank some kind of cocktail they were featuring that had a dirty name. And I took a picture with a guy who had a mohawk. (Awww....just like my own senior prom.)

March 2007 Activity -- Hypnosis

We been hyp-mo-tized!

Thursday, March 15, 2007
7:00-9:00pm
Johns Hopkins University
Washington Center
Washington, DC
Cost: $25

Amazingly, this was our first Professionals in the City event.

February 2007 Activity -- Curling

Potomac Curling Club

The Ice Garden
Laurel, MD
http://www.curldc.org/
Thursday, February 15, 2007
6:15-7:15pm

Cost: FREE

Be honest. If you're like the Dilettantes, there was probably some curling mockery somewhere in your past. You watched it during the Olympics and thought, "Really? You push a stone down the ice and then sweep? And that's an Olympic SPORT?"

Well, we had a bit of a change of heart after being instructed to strap teflon pads to our feet and trying to stay upright while pushing a huge granite stone down the rink.

Our instructor, F.L., taught us some curling terminology such as:

burn the rock

the hog line

January 2007 Activity -- Cake Decorating

Cake Decorating
Sur La Table
Pentagon Row, Arlington, VA
Saturday, January 27, 2007
3:00pm-5:00pm
Cost: $75 (no, that's not a typo)

What we thought would be an opportunity to exercise our creativity, create a lovely cake to take home, and most importantly, get a set of decorating tips turned into more of a over-priced death march through :

• hygiene tips (don't eat the icing or it will be contaminated!),
• obsessive compulsive disorder (don't get your knife contaminated with crumbs!),
• a fraction lesson (if you want 1 cup of icing, use 1 T water, 2 cups would be 2T, 3 cups would be 3T, repeat ad nauseam) and,
• passive aggressive behavior ("Oh, I see you decided to start decorating your cake already!).

And for $75, we didn't even get a set of tips! Instead, we got a gift certificate good for 15% off at Sur La Table for that day ONLY and a recipe for icing (because that's the hardest part - stirring sugar and water together).

Never fear - the dilettantes still managed to have fun - mostly by breaking all the rules! Amanda quickly put herself in food coma by eating all of her mistakes. Kathleen made a 3-foot high cake using the "if you make a mistake, cover it up with more icing" technique. This prompted a snide comment from our fastidious instructor: "Well, I suppose if you put 3 feet of icing on it, any cake will look good!" Hmph.

Amy had a tough time deciding what to put on her cake, scrapping the marine theme in favor of a shooting star, while Nicole made a very delicate cake with hearts on it (even if she used the softer green icing for her rosettes - apparently a big no-no). Kathleen ended up covering nearly every inch of her cake, while Amanda took the minimalist (some might say lazy) approach and quit after completing her hippy-dippy flower.

We took ourselves, our cakes, and our lighter wallets to the Irish Pub afterward to debrief and toast Kathleen's birthday!

Overall - the activity was fun, but way overpriced for what it was. Had we walked away with some decorating equipment and tips we couldn't have read in any Wilton book on cake decorating, it would have been better.

December 2006 Activity -- Champagne Tasting

Sunday, December 17, 2006

7:00-8:30pm

Best Cellars Clarendon

Arlington, VA

Cost: $22

What a fitting way to end the dilettante year -- a champagne tasting that combines our loves of dilettante activities and boozin' it up.

We began the evening with tapas at Las Tasca in Clarendon. We reminisced about the year as dilettantes, talked about what activities we could plan in 2007 and generally just discussed why we are so much fun. Amanda then presented each of us with a fabulous dilettante gift -- Dilettante brand chocolates, a silver "D" ornament and customized postage stamps with a picture of one of our dilettante activities. Of course, her packages were wrapped beautifully and the bows had tons of "oomphy poomphy."

After dinner, we walked up the street to Best Cellars for the sparkling wine tasting. We immediately noticed some scha-weet looking gift bags on the counter and assumed they would be ours at the end of the evening. This was looking promising. When the tasting started and we saw that there would be a total of seven samples from many different price ranges, it also looked promising. Then, we received our glasses and our first (very generous) sample and knew we'd made a nice choice on this activity. In addition to very generous samples, there was cheese, crackers and olives to munch on and pitchers of water available to cleanse palates.

Because wine descriptions are hilarious, we selected some of our favorites from the sheet that was provided. To wit:

• gossamer soft and a whisper on the riotous side of sweet
• a superb gift for anyone who appreciates pink-pleasure in their mouth (go ahead...insert your own husband's name here, as we all did)
• boasts a rare level of refinement and powerful finesse
• want to garner red carpet-worthy attention at your next party? pop the top of this fun, flirtatious fizzy and we guarantee you'll be the center of attention (ridiculous, right? guess which bottle every last dilettante bought? This one, a Fox Creek Vixen Sparkling Shiraz)
• a darker note of ripe red fruit bringing up the rear

The woman providing the commentary for the tasting knew her stuff and had lots of good information. We tasted some really interesting sparkling wines...including one that went well with "small nuts and salty things" (sheesh...they make this so easy for us).

The only downside of the evening occurred when Amanda sneezed and a woman next to her moved about four feet away from her as though she were Typhoid Mandy. Amanda was all like, "oh no she di-int" and we were all like, "oh yes she did" and then we decided that we'd be mature and just lick her gift bag before handing it to her.

Gift bags included mulling spices, a big jar of raspberry caramel sauce, chocolates, wine biscuits and a coupon for $5 off a purchase at that Best Cellars, which each of us used for the Vixen wine.

And so a bunch of happy dilettantes went on their way.

November 2006 Activity -- Wreath Making

Saturday, November 18th, 11:00am-12:00noon
Arlington Westin Gateway Hotel
Arlington, VA
http://www.jlnv.org/

This wreath making workshop was part of the Junior League of Northern Virginia Enchanted Forest Fundraiser.

Now, two of your dilettantes were members of the Junior League of Northern Virginia for a short amount of time (of course, we're dilettantes!) and found the grown-up sorority aspect of it all a little much, replete with passwords to enter meetings (who knew they were such sticklers?), refreshment committees, and the members continually buying more of the raffle/fundraiser tickets themselves than selling them to other people. Combine that with paying dues to have friends and we both decided we'd been there/done that in college and this time we didn't have the benefit of formals or keggers to make it palatable. (Let's just say we were not Sigma Psyched.)

But I digress, the most frustrating thing about the Junior League is HOW HARD IT IS TO SIGN UP TO PARTICIPATE IN THE EVENTS THEY SPONSOR. Jesus Christ! It's a good thing we REALLY wanted to do this (okay, we kind of wanted to do it and it worked with all of our schedules). That motivated me to work through finding out what the dates were for this event (saw no advertising), getting half-information on the JLNV web site (do we get to keep the wreaths we make? that's not the case with the gingerbread houses...so we didn't know), e-mailing three or four different officers and then leaving an (unreturned) voice mail. Finally, I received a registration form that I was to complete and FAX back...no on-line registration. Oy vey! (Kindly note my uber-inclusive usage of both Christian and Jewish imprecations.)

Anyway, we got to the Westin that day to participate, parked the car ($15 valet parking) and went into the hotel. The wreath-making workshop had about 40 people in it, all separated into round tables of about six people each. A charming woman named Lourdes was the workshop instructor. She could make a bow like nobody's business and spent about 45 minutes of the 60 minute workshop lovingly crafting bows while explaining to us how to do it. That was all great, but after the "grab your supplies" free-for-all and getting back to our tables so we could fluff our wreaths (yes, we were fluffers...imagine if this post had focused on that aspect...you'd be so much more interested right now, dear reader), we had about 15 minutes to complete our wreaths and get the heck out of that room.

This was no problem for Amy "Bow Showoff" Schirmer, who had a gorgeous bow completed in about a nano-second, or for Amanda "Double Ribbon Bow Extraordinaire" Lonsdale, but Nicole and I were a little slower on the uptake. Lourdes offered to go around to the tables and help those who were a little less crafty to get their bows completed, but also liked to stop and admire those bows that were already done. With about five minutes left, I, Kathleen "Crankypants" Canedo, got a little hostile with sweet Lourdes, snapping at her about three times as she stood across the table from me adding "movement" to Amanda's bow, while Nicole and I still didn't even have the beginnings of one. Finally, she made my bow for me, and then made Nicole's for her. We each added a few sprigs of gold berries and some gold ornaments and Voila! homemade wreaths!

The dilettante day ended with lunch (and beers) at nearby Rock Bottom Brewery. Nothing like the sweet, golden nectar to melt away a case of the crankypants.

Dilettantes make the Washington Post

The Dilettante Club gets some press:

Party Animal
Dirty Dirndls: Oktoberfest by Way of Oakton
By Christina Ianzito
Sunday, October 29, 2006; Page W11

Kathleen Canedo, 39, and Amy Schirmer, 35, can't really explain the roots of their annual Oktoberfest celebration. They just wanted to throw a themed party and somewhat randomly settled on Oktoberfest, a Bavarian festival that revolves around beer. "There's no real connection for us," says Kathleen, a 39-year-old freelance writer, "other than we like to drink beer, eat German food and say 'wiener' a lot."

Amy Schirmer, Kathleen Canedo, Amanda Lonsdale and Nicole Bono sport dirndls. (Nicholas Roberts - Nicholas Roberts For The Washington Post)

Tonight, for their fifth Oktoberfest, they've set up semi-authentic-looking striped tents next to the pool in Kathleen and Tim Canedo's back yard in Oakton. Long tables are decorated with blue-and-white Bavarian flags and little plastic "windup hopping lederhosen," which were purchased, along with packages of sticky false mustaches, on Stupid.com. Invitations included the "Top 10 Oktoberfest Pickup Lines." No. 7: "What do you say we explore each other's hinterlands?"

The party gives Kathleen and Amy an excuse to sashay around in St. Pauli Girl-esque dresses, called dirndls. "We both love dressing up," says Kathleen,who is wearing a demure blue number tied with a purple apron. She bought it a few years ago on eBay, choosing not to go the "dirty dirndl" route, she says, pointing to her friend Nicole Bono, 27, who is wearing a short, poofy, leg-baring version and two ponytails tied with red ribbons.

"Nicole's our youngest friend who can still get away with that," sighs Kathleen, though her mother, Karen Steenberg, arrives in a low-cut, bright-red dirty dirndl that she happily admits is "inappropriate."

About 40 family members, friends and friends of friends drink from a keg of Spaten beer and eat a spread from German Gourmet in Falls Church: bratwurst, knackwurst, potato salad, two kinds of sauerkraut and hot pretzels. German oompah-pah music drifts from a CD player. Some of the male guests sport real lederhosen, also courtesy of eBay, and a few others -- including Tim -- wear T-shirts or aprons printed with a picture of lederhosen. Close enough.

Nobody's taking this too seriously, especially the hostesses, who are part of what they call the Dilettante Club, with Nicole and another friend, Amanda Lonsdale, 32. The four women started it, says Amy, when they realized "none of us has real hobbies because we have such short attention spans." So every month, they briefly learn a new "skill" -- pole dancing, belly dancing, rock climbing -- then go drinking.

This may help explain tonight's lebkuchen, which are large gingerbread-y cookies often served at Oktoberfests, traditionally printed with sweet sayings such as "Be Mine" or "I Like You."
"We do 'The Aristocrats' version of that," warns Kathleen, referring to the 2005 movie that revolves around the retelling of a dirty joke. The lebkuchen baked and handed out by the German-speaking Amanda are large and heart-shaped, with German phrases written in blue frosting. Many cookies include the word "wiener" and plenty of extraneous umlauts, and all are probably unprintable but one. It says: "Underpants."

Toward the end of the evening, the party thins out, but a core group remains in the (pseudo) German spirit. A few friends bring out Kathleen's karaoke machine, and Amanda, still wearing her Swiss Miss braids, starts in on Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot." Then Amanda and her husband, Leon Morse, take an impromptu dip in the pool, followed by Karen, who dives in -- dirty dirndl and all.

October 2006 Activity -- Ghost Tour

Sunday, October 29, 2006
6:30-7:30pm
http://www.alexcolonialtours.com/

1. Is this an activity where someone would feel comfortable going alone or is it better to go with a partner?
2. Was it convenient to participate in this activity?
3. Was the activity a good value based on the registration fee? Tour was just $10. It was a one-hour walking tour, the evening was a perfect fall evening
4. What were the participant demographics?
5. Logistics
6. What should one wear/bring to the activity for maximum enjoyment?
7. Level of physical fitness required (if applicable) -
8. Should participants be there early to get a good seat? Meet people? Get set up?
9. Size group that could be accommodated (if you wanted to organize a group outing).

We ended the evening at Bilbo Baggins in Old Town. Wow! What a great beer menu. And, the food was fantastic.

September 2006 Activity -- Belly Dancing

Saturday, September 9, 2006
5:30-6:30pm
Sahara Dance
4631 Wisconsin Avenue
Washington, DC
http://www.saharadance.com/

I must admit, we were somewhat skeptical going into an activity where the instructor had written an e-mail to us prior to class with a signature of "Happy Shimmies." However, the "Happy Shimmies" woman proved to be probably the best instructor we've come across in this whole dilettante world we've created. Of course, she had an amazing belly-dancer body, and this, combined with full-length mirrors around the perimeter of the room, made us that more anxious to follow up this activity with a lot of margaritas.

But I digress...she was really helpful and didn't make us feel like dorks with no rhythm. She broke down all the movements and explained them in a way that was easy to understand and made sense. And, she made it all really fun. Plus -- we got to wear scarves around our waists that had those jangling coins on them! Seriously...other than a tiara and a feather boa...what could be better? (I think I just described a drag queen's start-up kit.)

Best of all, the class lasted just an hour. Long enough for us to realize that belly dancing is a workout and not as easy as it looks, and long enough to be able to put moves together into something that resembled a belly dance. Just about the perfect dilettante activity.

The evening ended with a couple of pitchers of margaritas and some Mexican Food at a place around the corner.

August 2006 Activity -- Sushi Making

Obi Sushi
1771 Library Street, Reston, VA 20190 703.766.SUSHI (7874)
http://www.obisushi.com/
As this activity was located in suburban Reston, Virginia, we forced Amanda out of her urban comfort zone into the Stepford Fabulousness of Reston Town Center.
There were maybe 12 or 14 people signed up for this class...we were all seated at two long tables that faced each other, with the instructor's table situated at the head of the room where we could see him demonstrate.

July 2006 Activity -- Segway Tour of DC

Segway Tour of Washington, DC
www.citysegwaytours.com
July 2006
Cost: $65/person for 3 hour tour (plus a possible additional $500 if American Express was not the best credit card company on the face of the earth)

It was a dark and stormy night...

We headed into DC to meet Dilettante Amanda at the Segway place. Due to the weather and traffic, we were running a few minutes late, so Amy and Nicole dropped me off so that I could register us while they found parking. As I was making my way up the five steps to the Segway place, I tripped and fell up the stairs and stubbed my toe. (Cue dramatic music indicating foreshadowing here.)

Our tour guide, Steve, was a young guy with a great attitude and we liked him immediately. What we did not like was that we had to wear helmets and bright blue rain coats like the rest of the dork patrol on this tour. (As fun as Segways can be, there is no possible way to look cool while riding one.)

This three-hour tour started off a little rocky when an elderly gentleman in our group ran into a stopped car at an intersection. We may have rolled our eyes a little bit when this happenend (refrain: dramatic foreshadowing music). From there, we rolled down the streets of DC, stopping occasionally to look at monuments and get a bit of a guided history tour. We also stopped occasionally because I kept falling off my Segway. I fell a total of *three* times. To break it down for you, I've assigned a special rating system that details our tour guide's reaction and the amount of pain I was in.

Fall #1: Tour guide Steve's expression: concerned
Pain Quotient: 1 on a scale of 1 to 5

Fall #2: Tour guide Steve's expression: exasperated/incredulous
Pain Quotient: 4 on a scale of 1 to 5 (I scraped my elbow and bruised my coccyx)

Fall #3: Tour guide Steve's expression: Don't know...he refused to look at me
Pain Quotient: 4 on a scale of 1 to 5 (the Segway kept ramming into my shin)
Damage Quotient: 4 on a scale of 1 to 5 (the Segway handlebar broke completely off and Tour Guide Steve had to drive my Segway back to HQ)

Between falls 2 and 3, we were stopped in front of the White House, where Dilettante Amy seemingly became possessed. She began turning 360s in a tight circle with a maniacal look on her face all while making beeping noises. This sent all of the other dilettantes into fits of hysterics.

Also between falls 2 and 3 (and after I had tried to convince Tour Guide Steve that my Segway was defective, we overheard a smug/nerdy -- "smerdy"? -- member of our group saying sarcastically, "Oh, I'm sure it was a defective SEDGE-way." From that point forward, we could no longer call it a SEG-way. It was (and still is) a SEDGE-way).

After we had locked up the Segways to take a walking tour of the last of the monuments, we went back to the Segways and Steve asked us if we remembered which Segways were ours. Amy deadpanned, "well, we know which one is Kathleen's" (pointing to the one sans a handlebar).

Back at HQ (God, I love saying that), the four of us sat on a bench like so many juvenile delinquents waiting for their parents to pick them up after drinking too much Milwaukee's Best and cruising around in a Chevette (at least that's what we imagine it would feel like...obviously none of us has a frame of reference for such a thing.)

I was forced to fill out a damage report saying that I would pay $500 to cover the repair of the Segway ("forced" because they had my credit card number on the reservation...there was nothing I could do at the time).

Over time, my coccyx healed, AmEx disputed (and won!) the charges, and the other Dilettantes have never again mentioned my utter lack of coordination. (Had you going there for a minute, didn't I?)

Necessary beers and food followed at the Old Ebbitt Grill (thank God for cushioned seats.)

June 2006 Activity -- Cancelled!

Due to many unforseen circumstances (e.g. the trapeze place in McLean went out of business, ear infections, graduation parties, rain delays, travel schedules, etc.) the June activity was cancelled.