A Lucky Lott

I had the pleasure of working with Steve in my last job in a project as part of the Intercultural Leadership Engagement and Development (I-LEAD) team, where he was one of two change agents leading and giving advice to our project team.

When Steve heard that we were swinging by Washington D.C, he and his wife, Laura, graciously offered us a room in their house-that-looks-like-a-mansion.

The Lott residence is about 40 mins from Washington D.C, in a fairly secluded area. To respect their privacy, I have decided not to post too much info here about the place we lived in for 2 nights.

The timing of our arrival was fortuitous, as we arrived only a day before Steve's birthday. Immediately after bringing our bags up to the room, we joined them in the backyard patio for a barbecue. And Steve really has a knack for teasing out the flavor in the meats!

Steve sets up the grill and does the barbecue on his own. No help needed!

I'm not too sure, but I guess the couple must have spent the better part of the day preparing the food.

Serving table had all the makings of a simple but delicious meal

Pretty, but not easy to prepare. You'd have to extract the egg yolk, mix in some milk and and dunno-what, then squeeze it out again onto the eggs!


Steve's brother, Rob, and Laura's brother, Rich, also dropped by for dinner. Close friends Adrian and Lorraine also turned up, making a cosy group of 8. We had a great time chatting into the night.

Rob is a fan of barbecues and shared with us that each state within the USA has got its own way of barbecuing. He travels around to whack the local flavors whenever he can! (yes, yes, that sounds a bit like my relationship with KFC!)

Yi Lin enjoying the burger she's put together from the barbecue

Rich is a fireman with plenty of interesting stories. He had arrived late because the fire department was celebrating a birthday at one of the child-care centres in the vicinity. Apparently, if it's your birthday, you could call the fire department and they would turn up in their red fire-truck and hose you and your friends down for free! They don't use the super-powerful ones for putting out fires though!

Rich was also rotated to the US base in Antartica for a time. Yup, there are fires in Antartica, because the place is so dry. One of the most interesting things he mentioned was that there are no flights there in winter. Why? Because, the airport is not just closed, it just simply doesn't exist! The control tower, the hangars, all the normal buildings you'd expect to see in a airport are movable, and the people there will just move the airport away and mothball it until weather conditions are better for flying!

Adrian and Lorraine are actually New Zealanders. Lorraine works at the embassy for New Zealand, so I'm thinking that there are not many stories that can be shared with strangers. But they are great people to converse with. Just don't get Adrian started on Australians!

I believe the cupcakes were brought by Lorraine. Don't they look delicious?

As the evening dwindled to a close, we got up to our rooms to find that everything had already been thoughtfully provided for us. Bath towels, face towels, toiletries were all laid out for us. Steve and Laura also assured us that the bathroom is ours for the duration of their stay - no need to worry about taking turns with them - whew!

We sank into the most comfortable bed we've experienced in 3 months, and were fast asleep within minutes.

Check out the candle-holders. Airplanes!

Thanks, Steve! And Happy Birthday! :)