Our friend Maria told this story on herself a few months ago, while a bunch of us were sitting around discussing the movie, Lincoln, which we’d just seen. I wish you could have been there for the original telling, because Maria’s expressive nature steals the show every time. She’s this innocently hilarious cross between Lucy and a young Debra Winger. And she has given me carte blanche permission to write about her on this site. In fact, her husband recently commented that he was surprised not to have read this story. I assured him that I was just waiting for the right moment.
On the news this morning, while they were showing Inauguration Day preparations, I heard the words, “Here’s a view of the National Mall….” And I knew the time had come. Please enjoy.
When they were in their late 20’s, Maria and her sister Angie visited Washington, DC. Being a schoolteacher, Angie was particularly driven to see all the monuments and museums, and to take all the tours. Sadly, Angie wasn’t prepared for so much walking, and hadn’t brought the right shoes. As they were resting near the reflecting pool, Maria — the take-charge, problem-solving girl that she is — declared that they should just go to the mall and buy Angie a better pair of walking shoes.
“What mall?” asked Angie.
“I don’t know what mall it is, but it is right around here somewhere. Everybody’s talking about it.”
Gotta love her.
ginnygram 
While we were in Austin for Adrian and Rowan’s wedding, my sister, brother-in-law, Carole, and I decided we should check out the Arboretum, since we are after all a bunch of tree-huggers. We followed our GPS right into the Arboretum Mall, a tony shopping center.