ceiba, 701 14th street, nw, dc

ceiba used to be a thursday night hangout for my friends. the bartenders practically used to shout, "norm!" when we walked in. now it's probably considered washed up and old news. it is like 4 or 5 years old, afterall. it's seen its scene.

i met my friend for a drink the other night so we could catch up on what's going on in our worlds.

what happened to the corn nuts? they're no more. how very sad they've been replaced by their very distant and less-exciting relatives, spiced almonds. well i guess the good thing is your breath isn't as bad. i did proceed to eat the entire bowl of almonds. what i wanna know is where can you get your fill of corn nuts [besides 7-11]?

looking around, things have changed a little. they converted part of their dining room into a lounge area. cool idea but i think they should make it viewable from the bar by removing the divider wall between the bar and the new lounge. i wanna see if there's a more interesting group of people in the lounge as opposed to the bar, where cool people are not this night.

yes, that's the other noticeable change. no cool people which makes me sad. remember, i don't get out much so it's key to see as many single, attractive people as i can in a short amount of time.

the bartender was quite friendly (and pretty cute, i should add) though slow to keep our wine glasses filled and take our order.

he won me over by id'ing me.

we ordered the crab and shrimp nachos. we always used to get this. some chefs would say there's a law against cheese and seafood. i would tend to agree. except in this case. they're just as good as i remembered them. cheesy, i know.

we also shared the hamburgesa (it sounded so much like marchesa i had to try it). oh my, i don't know what they're doing to that burger but it's really the dish to order, i promise you'll be thanking me for trying it. on buttered sourdough and served with hand cut fries. i'll go back for that snack for sure. we gobbled up and left. on to proof in hopes of seeing some interesting washingtonians.

{something must've been going on thursday night; some big party we didn't know about. we kept trying and we didn't find cool people anywhere. fortunately more friends joined us. sometimes we just are the cool people i guess.}

capitol lounge, 229 pennsylvania avenue, se, dc

bored on a thursday night? can't decide where to go? before you make any rash decisions (like popping in to capitol lounge), ask yourself the following questions:

am i in my 20's?
am i broke or nearly so?
do i live within 4 blocks of capitol lounge and without car/bike/metrocard?
am i literally dying of thirst?
am down to my last 5 bucks before payday?
are all my friends, plus someone i want a meaningless, tawdry one-night stand with enjoying cap lounge right now?

if you answered yes to all of these questions, knock yourself out. go on to cap lounge. it's ok, this could be the place for you.

if, however, you answered no to any one of these, don't go. just don't do it. even if you're
30 something and look 20 something, i cannot stress this enough - it's not gonna be your cup o' tea.

if, however, you're not going to follow my new and official capitol lounge rule, you best get half in the bag before you go. and whatever you do, never admit to it, like i'm doing here. just deny you were there. no one will remember you anyway so you can deny it.

i'm horrified it was the last on our stop of dc bar-hopping on a random thursday evening. do we still call it bar-hopping?

so, we were perusing the town for an interesting social scene. i'm even more horrified that we struck out so much so at previous two restaurants that we ended up at dc's famed capitol lounge. if walls could talk i bet this place has some really disgusting stories to tell.

i heard someone once say that the best thing that ever happened to cap lounge was that it burned down. rebuilt it, they did, though.

what i wanna know is did they rebuild it with the stinky, slimy remains of the burned down building or what's going on here? who's their contractor? for the love of all things holy, why are they burning 15 glade strawberries and cream scented candles all over the bar? that smell, combined with the smell of the bar sludge might be the grossest combination i've ever experienced. the bathroom was a nice departure from the smell of the bar area.

did you know cap lounge claims to be a wine bar? ha, ha, ha, that's so funny - seriously that cracks me up.

who gave me the shot of southern comfort and lime? it's taken me two days to get over this place.

oh and this is a good one: to cap off my night at cap lounge, i almost got in a girl fight on my way out.

a young, ill-mannered and sadly fashioned hill staffer had the nerve to call me 30 and told me i was too old to be there (guess she was afraid her beau was enjoying my rock and republic'd arse).

all i have to say to that is, honey, you're right. i am too fabulous for this place and so you can have your beloved capitol lounge - you fit right in. stinky slimy bars are not my scene. {just in case i was wondering, which i wasn't.}

p.s. all this aside, if you saw me at cap lounge the other night, you'd think i was having the time of my life; i even broke out my best michael jackson impersonation, which is quite a scene. well it wasn't the time of my life but it sure was fun. at the end of the day, i'm a firm believer in it doesn't really matter where you are if you're with fun people. true dat.