Monday was spent handling last minute errands before Tuesday, the big day of the week.

Russ and Ann were gracious enough to brave Costco and get us a new camera.  In return, we had a bunch of events and to do’s.

When we began to plan our trip, we didn’t realize that we would be invited to an official ball.  So we purchased tickets to the Equality for All.  Then we were offered tickets to the West/Southwest Ball.  So we had to sell our Equality for All tickets, which we did to Larry Shorter and his friend Tony.  We met them for brunch at a great place called Open City.  In addition to Larry and Tony, other folks joined us including Rudy Fuentes whom I met through Emilio Cruz from my Willie Brown days.  It was an awesome brunch, filled with great food and better company.  We invited BALIF board member Shay Gilmore and former Alice board member Mark de la Rosa to join us for the day to keep us company.

After brunch we went to Jack’s on 17th street for another round before going to the events of the night.

First off was former Alice board member John Lazar’s party at his lovely home on Vermont Street.  John lives in a classic DC home, so my wife tells me.  I thought his place was fabulous, well decorated, great food.  John has also served on Los Angeles’ Stonewall as well as currently serving on the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club board.  So there were a ton of gay democratic movers and shakers in the room.  Shay particularly enjoyed listening to Garry Shay, openly gay DNC member who told us stories about the famous Rules Committee meeting during the presidential race.

Afterwards, we headed over to the Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council event.  All the national mover and shaker types were there – Andrew Tobias, Judy Dlugacz, Obama Finance leader Joan Garry and a bunch of others that I don’t know or don’t know yet.  San Franciscans may remember native David Tseng who relocated to DC.  He’s now general counsel for the District of Columbia.

Julia ran into her old boss C. Dixon Osbourne from her SLDN days which made her happy.

Larry Handerhan, Alex Randolph, Alfredo Pedroza met up with us there.

The exciting news is that we got to meet Marisa Tomei.  As in the Marisa Tomei from My Cousin Vinny.  Picture is forthcoming.  That was a great cap to a better day.  We had dinner with friends from law school in Maryland and then off to bed to prepare for Tuesday.