Last night I needed to park at a meter, didn’t have change, went to my destination restaurant, Neyla, and they told me they didn’t have any quarters at all — none, just dollar bills.  Could that even be possible?

Well, thank goodness for the lovely young lady at Papyrus — who told me she had just started there, maybe a student — because she converted three of my US dollars to twelve US Quarters.

Like I said, when I parked outside and didn’t have any quarters for the meter I went in and asked for Quarters.

I asked the hostess at Neyla for change and she said they didn’t have any. I asked for the manager and she led me to what looked like the owner.  I asked the owner for some quarters for some dollars and he said that his entire restaurant did not have any change or quarters at all and that he could give me dollar bill change for my $20 bill but physically did not have any change at all in the entire restaurant.

Is that even possible?  Or, was the staff having me on?  Are there really restaurants that do not maintain a till or a draw with any change or quarters whatsoever?

Back to the young lady at Papyrus at the corner of N and Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown, I really have to thank her!  She’s new there and she was lovely.  I asked her name but forgot it.

When the manager at Neyla told me there were physically no quarters in their entire restaurant I left the restaurant and headed across the street to the store on the corner and told the woman working there there that I would be happy to buy something there but what I really needed was quarters for the meter

She told me not to buy anything and asked me how many quarters I needed — she told me I didn’t need to buy anything at all and was happy to help me out!

She told me that I probably needed three dollars of quarters and she broke my twenty and returned to me 12 quarters and I was on my way.

God bless her!

I will surely make sure I make a special trip for all of my stationary and printing and wrapping paper and blank journals and greeting cards and even any fancy fountain pens and gifts I might need from Papyrus in general and the 1300 Wisconsin Avenue Papyrus in particular!

Sometimes it only takes the lethal generosity of one person, even the evening shop girl at a corner stationers, to make the day of someone who was very close to being super-bummed.

Thank you very much Georgetown Papyrus girl!

(More background on the evening over at Why Neyla Mediterranean Grill Sucks)

I spent a couple hot, humid, hours rowing Gerris on Friday. It really doesn’t get better than this. Sculling might be my happiest hours.

It was a four-water-bottle-day. I tore my hands to shreds and slept most of the weekend. It really doesn’t get better than this. My boat house stays open until December. I can row until they remove the floating dock.

When I returned, I met a fellow sculler by the name of Dave. He is much stronger and faster, but even he struggles to hit the water every day. He has a newer and faster Hudson. I discovered that although he is from Georgetown, he will be coaching Freshman rowing for my alma mater, GWU, this Fall.

We both agreed that there is no better way to spend happy hour than on the river. Just on Friday, I saw two ospreys, three blue herons, a flock of cormorants basking on the three sister islands, and a large turtle sunbathing on a sunlit rock.

It really doesn’t get better than this.

I found the pictue below online and although it is not me, it could be, almost every day. My boat, Gerris, is a red Husdon, but I pass Jack’s Boat House just about every day while rowing upstream on the Potomac. I pass right through that arch on Key Bridge, too.