In which Layla and Roz spend their first DC week in glamorous and less glamorous manners

by Layla


Friday was our one-week anniversary of living in Washington DC. It’s been a funny week. I’ve not been quite sure what to do with myself. Tuesday was a particularly odd day. The sun vanished behind a raincloud. Roz went off to work, and I called my parents, then her mother, then had the landlady fix a couple of things in the flat, then went on a long trek to ‘Target’ and ‘Bed, Bath and Beyond’ in Columbia Heights to buy an array of household items. Typically, I got indecisive and stressed and came back with a rather random array of items as opposed to the sensible list my dear wife had presented to me. And when I say ‘came back’, I mean ‘was driven back by a random stranger’ – when I asked the cashier about the best way back to Georgetown, the posh woman behind me in the queue overheard – she lived practically next door and offered me a lift. On our ride home she pointed out sights of interest and discussed her life as a journalist, covering warzones, while I mused upon the very clever nature of everyone I meet in DC, and my relief that she probably was not going to abduct me…

With Roz out at a work dinner, I prepared for a quiet night in and started feeling a little morose about my possible interminable future as a housewife, but then she called and said she had an hour to spare – so we both dashed to the cool little bar in Kramer Books and drank wine and caught up with our respective days. Very cheery. Then we both pottered off to our events – hers a fancy dinner with glamorous people to discuss something intelligent; me to the late night shops to acquire some coffee for our new cafetiere. But she had found me the contact details of a ‘spouse’ of a colleague who had a proper job, so I started to have hope that life may hold something for me more sensible than housewifeliness (at which, to use an American phrase, I suck).

The next couple of days passed more cheerily, with me making lots of health world contacts, going to an interesting presentation by the World Bank of their new development report on gender equality at the Centre for Global Development (a great think tank near Dupont Circle) and a ‘congressional briefing’ on integrating family planning and HIV services in developing countries, in one of the glamorous, marble-clad government buildings, right next door to the Capitol building (at which I asked a question about whether there were any disadvantages to the approach they suggested, which resulted in my receiving dirty looks from the entire audience, and the panel staring at me, stumped).

We’ve also been doing some evening socializing – a lovely trip to the cinema that’s just a hop, skip and a jump from our flat on Wednesday (My Week With Marilyn – quite enjoyable), and a brilliant St Andrews Day celebration with the Scottish government and various fancies on Thursday, at a museum dedicated to women’s art, randomly. My parents, having heard about our invitation to this decidedly glamorous affair, had immediately ordered sashes in the family tartan for both of us, and we had spent a week waiting on tenterhooks to see if they would arrive. Sure enough, Roz’s PA extracted them from the post room in the nick of time, and we looked excellent. It was a cheery night and our first time meeting a few people nice enough to hope they might become our friends…

Yesterday, I was up early to meet the delightful and intelligent director of global health for another think tank – we had a lovely, and fascinating conversation about global health in the US over lunch, until I realized I had to leave for an event that was so very opposite that it left me feeling entirely confused as to my identity: the official spouses’ coffee morning. This took place in a mansion just outside of town that made me fear Roz ever being invited to anyone else’s house and realize that we might have lived there rather than our little Georgetown flat… The spouses in attendance (9 women and a solitary man, clutching a small daughter for protection) were very nice, but the conversation was absolutely dominated by the discussion of children, of which each attendee had a few (some present; the others mostly at the same school). Children were so dominant in their identities that four of the ‘spouses’ sported gold necklaces proclaiming ‘MUM’ in various scripts. The absence of such a necklace around my neck was rapidly noted by all present.

People tried to engage me in conversation but when I embarrassedly admitted that (1) I did not have children (nor was I desperately trying to acquire some), and (2) I was intending to seek a job, and furthermore, not even a designated ‘spouse’ job, the conversation dried up. I sat there awkwardly, sipping my cup of tea and wondering how to extricate myself from this odd little parallel universe of homework and sports days.

Fortunately one of the spouses was driving home in my direction and gave me a lift (the event clearly finishing in time for the end of the school day). I hopped off at the school gates, walked home through the woods, then up to Roz’s work to snigger at her massive office and have drinks with the boss and his wife, and then – oh joys – it was the weekend!

We had dinner in a pleasant but unremarkable Italian restaurant called Il Ricci, then popped in for a drink in our rather bizarre local pub/restaurant Mie N Yu where we had an unpleasant cocktail and a more pleasant glass of wine amid weird Thai/Turkish décor, a bellydancer, and an incongruous TV showing a basketball game. A fun and quirky end to a fun and quirky week. I wonder what next week will bring…