Woke early in my Woodbridge guest quarters at 6.30, panicking, bowels loose at the thought of having no working cell phone for the entirely of my odyssey.  Somehow managed to talk myself down, and after a light breakfast followed by a few more futile attempts at fixing my Galaxy S10, I gave up, determined to enjoy the day, which was to begin properly at the Quarterdeck in Arlington, a crab place where Chris and I were to meet up with Chris’s daughter Charlotte for lunch.  We three arrived just as it opened, and headed for a paper-covered picnic table under a red awning laid with small wooden mallets and assorted condiments.  Once we ordered but before we were covered in shell bits dripping with Old Bay-flavored crab juice, Charlotte, both musician and coder, offered her assistance with my phone.  I gratefully accepted, and handed it over minus its pink cover.  In a matter of minutes, clever Charlotte had it sorted out—as the rest of the photos from this happy day can testify.

O the bliss, Dear Reader, of disaster averted—and at the beginning of a gorgeous spring day in good company with a pile of delicious crabs to smash and eat.  Peripeteia divine!  I used the now restored functions of the phone to cancel the previously scheduled tech appointment at a Target miles away, and we made plans for a much pleasanter way to spend a Sunday afternoon, setting out to bring more crabs to another of Chris’s daughters, Marianne, and her family in Alexandria, husband George and young son Christopher.  Both hard-working attorneys, Marianne and George also had good tips for visitors, and after taking delivery of said crabs, they sent us off to explore Old Town Alexandria.

The vibe there beside the Potomac resembled a smaller, less touristed version of the Riverwalk area of New Orleans:  street musicians and magicians, sidewalk artists, green space, gelato shops, a paddle wheeler, restaurants, and a one-time torpedo factory reconstituted as both workshops and gallery space for artists.  Another version of swords into plowshares, this, artifacts of destruction replaced by creative art.

We toured the extensive space, visiting glass artist Alison Sigethy and her dynamic, mesmerizing “sea cores,” and the drip art of Blu Murphy, among other delights.

Back outside, the treats were audible and gustatory; fast-melting sorbet consumed to Dixieland tunes in the park with Chris, Marianne, George, and young Christopher George, who seemed as taken with the ambiance as I was.

Another tip from Marianne sent us to Mo Mo’s for a takeaway dinner of extremely elegant and enviable sushi the likes of which are not to be found back in my NH home.

All in all, ‘twas a glorious ides of May, a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat by three generations of a wonderful family.  After such a day, I was primed to take up my next adventure in good form, and slept soundly through the night.