My Grandparents are Obsessed with this DC Gay Bar

For months we've been looking forward to our friends' wedding in D.C. The married-couple-to-be in question -- Arash and Ashby -- are beloved family friends; one of my four brothers became best friends with Arash's brother, Kia, during an internship in undergrad. In that same internship, Kia met his now-fiancée, Natalie, and Bob started becoming part of Kia's family.

For Thanksgiving in 2021, Kia, Natalie, and Arash & Ashby came down to Tennessee to have Thanksgiving with our family. As much as we all love each other, this is where the true love match was formed... with my grandparents. Gigi and Grampy, as we call them, instantly adored the boys and their partners, and the feeling was returned.

The dress code was floor length, with bold colors encouraged; in March, I found my dream dress at the local Dillards in the mall (it's not glamorous, but it never does me dirty), and some marvelously discounted shoes that matched the fun.

My brother Bob and I

Anna pulled out one of her absolutely stunning suits:

Friday morning my grandparents flew in; Friday night, after Anna's shift, Anna and I followed! I am a horrifically nervous -- like, borderline insane -- flyer, so we stopped to buy some magazines and have a drink in the airport first:

Not pictured is my reading selection, a copy of The Atlantic, featuring this article that I found really fascinating.

On the plane we mostly continued our rewatch of "Orphan Black" (just as good the second time around -- and it's been so long that I have the added bonus of remembering very little) and cross-stitched. There was a good bit of turbulence and some storms, so I had another beverage (bless you, American Airlines in flight service).

We arrived at last at 10:30PM, to our beautiful AirBnB. We unlocked the keypad, greasy and exhausted, ready to greet my grandparents and maybe have a nightcap.

Imagine our surprise when the house was empty.

I checked FindMy, and found that Gigi and Grampy -- ages 87 and 90, respectively -- were at a bar a few blocks away. They got home as we were getting out of the shower and into PJs, and told us about all of their adventures: a stranger had seen them walking and offered them a ride. Horrifyingly, they said yes. Luckily, she turned out to be lovely. She dropped them off at a nearby, popular Uyghur restaurant -- they went in, and found the smells tantalizing but the place absolutely packed.

When she saw them come out, she picked them back up (truly an angel) and took them to Shaw's Tavern. There, they ate (mac and cheese balls), imbibed (red wine for Gigi, bourbon rocks for Grampy), chatted with some strangers (i.e. Gigi chatted and Grampy enjoyed pondering his latest read), and then headed back home.

Only, they missed a turn. Queue a mile walk in the wrong direction. At this point they run into some loose US Coast Guard members (I swear I'm not making this up), got to know them, and then were escorted home by them.

All while Anna and I, the young whippersnappers, wearily peeled off sweaty socks and crawled into the airy duvet.

The next morning, Anna and I did some Googling and found a restaurant that looked nice. But Gigi and Grampy wanted to try Shaw's again, as they'd seen the place advertising brunch.

So, Shaw's doesn't advertise itself as a gay bar -- just an "American tavern with Southern roots." But apparently it's well known to host drag events and -- in the case of our visit -- the employees were wearing rainbow heart T-shirts and the bar was bedecked with Pride paraphernalia, specifically geared towards Black Pride. They were hosting some special events that Memorial Day weekend; the place was teeming, with barely anywhere to sit. We ended up in a back corner near the speakers blasting Charli XCX (praise be), a vantage point from where I could see that the majority of patrons were in their twenties or thirties, and (on this particular morning), overwhelmingly Black.

Suffice to say my 90 year-old, very White grandparents (they're Irish Catholic yankees) were not the usual clientele. Anna and I, across from them, fit the bill a lot more neatly. It certainly looked like we'd chosen the place and dragged them along (not so).

Gigi and Grampy ordered black coffees, while Anna got a strawberry bellini and I had an espresso martini. Grampy and I ordered the same standard breakfast (eggs, bacon, pancakes), while Gigi decided to try her first ever avocado toast (she freakin loved it). Out of Tennessee for the first time in awhile, Anna and I enjoyed being in a place where we could stretch out our gay little legs (metaphorically speaking), be publicly physically affectionate with no thought at all, and feel right at home.

One drizzly walk later, we arrived back at our AirBnB and preparations began. Clothes, make-up, the whole nine yards. Anna helped Gigi try out some new products make-up wise, and Gigi gave us a mini fashion show so we could help choose between her dress and shoe options. We compiled all of our jewelry stashes to mix and match. It was girlhood at its finest. (Grampy napped.)

Cue the wedding. We Ubered up to the under-hang of the venue: a classy, sleek downtown hotel called the Conrad. The ceremony was intimate and beautiful, officiated by Kia, incorporating both the standard American elements and lovely Persian traditions like the Sofreh.

Then it was cocktail hour. The groom's drink was a boulevardier but they also had 10 year Glenfiddich so naturally I had both in quick succession. (First I ordered the boulevardier -- I've been back on my Campari game lately -- but then one of the boys pointed out they'd likely run out of the expensive scotch... And I am nothing if not prone to seizing opportunities.)

By 6PM my shoes were off (nothing to do with the booze, I'm just awful at walking in heels), and dinner was beginning. A multi-course, rich, delicious meal, the highlight of which (in my opinion) was a potato and poblano soup that had Anna actually licking her plate (or bowl. It was one of those fancy bowl-saucer-plate combo things).

Then, of course, the dancing. I danced first with Gigi and Grampy (or rather, around them -- and very aggressively, which made Gigi laugh), then with "my boys" (my brother and his college friends that I've stolen as my own buds), and of course with Anna.

An hour or two later, after returning from a side quest, we found Gigi holding and rocking a baby. She'd been rather hungrily eyeing him all night (we all had, okay, he's adorable). He's the son of a cousin of the groom, and in the bathroom his mom and I chatted. I confessed that her babies were giving my fiancée and I baby fever, and she congratulated our engagement as well as basically said, "Give in and do it, it's so fun."

On our way to walk Gigi and Grampy down to their Uber, we passed her and another young mom in the family sitting in the hall together, breastfeeding on a nice velvet couch, sans any kind of cover. I couldn't help but think about the rhetoric that goes on in this country about Middle Eastern and Arab cultures. In particular, conservative folk seem to love to whip out the supposed "gotcha" of how "oppressed" Arab, Middle Eastern, or otherwise brown women are (let's be real, it's not like they can tell the difference or name more than 2 of the roughly 26 countries comprising the region, let alone the myriad cultural, religious, or political differences therein). Yet I had watched both of these women all night. I had watched their husbands take the kids a solid 50% of the time. I had watched those babies go to so many family members, friends, and loved ones that it had taken me most of the night to figure out who they belonged to. I had watched a stunning rendition of community in practice -- with joy, support, ease, and freedom.

I'm not pretending to know anything about what it's like to be a Persian woman or to live in Iran. I'm just saying it's a beautiful irony: white, Conservative, particularly Christian women are some of the most oppressed people I have encountered in my own life, and the only time they seem to worry about oppression is when they're justifying bombs going into the Middle East. Á la the facile Zionist comeback of, "Oh, you support Palestine? Try being gay in Gaza." (Like, yeah, try being anyone in Gaza. Where's the pro life shit when it's Palestinian children being starved, mutilated, and murdered?)

Anyway, the next morning Anna and I harassed a very hungover Bob into getting out of bed. We met him, the new bride and groom, Kia and Natalie, "the boys," and lots of family for lunch in this adorable... park? square? I'm not exactly sure what to call it. It was like a food truck park made into a wildly aesthetic city center.

Anna and I got bagels -- mine was a BLAT (BLT + avocado) with a jalapeño aioli, on a za'atar bagel. It was ungodly delicious.

We caught our flight home (after an airport negroni and pilsner for me). A probably-around-60 white woman across the aisle from us leaned over to ask what Anna was crocheting (incredibly beautiful scrunchies); we ended up getting to know her. She lives in our area but was in DC visiting one of her daughters. She was lovely and absolutely hilarious, and I'm incredibly sad we didn't get her name.

At one point, when talking about a family member, the lady said, "She's a--well, I should say it."

There's nothing I love like some tea, so I was like, "No way, now you have to say it."

She held up her kindle to cover the side of her mouth, leaned into the aisle, and partly staged whispered, partly mouthed, "She's a TRUMPER."

She leaned back and remarked that she probably shouldn't have said that, and her apologies if we were. Anna and I were like, "We're lesbians." To which she said, "I know, but still" -- which was oddly stereotype-busting and nice of her to consider.

(When we'd landed and were walking back to our car, a black sedan drove by us and she was leaning out the window, shouting, "GIRLS! I was just telling my husband about you!")

While Anna and I were making friends on a harrowing (i.e., totally chill and very smooth) flight (God bless those American Airlines Heinekens), Gigi and Grampy were... going back to Shaw's. On Sunday. That's right: drag night. Gigi and Grampy's first ever drag show (I think...? Wait...).

On our drive back from the airport, I tried to call Shaw's and convince them to pull Gigi up on stage or something. She would have loved it. But alas, they didn't pick up.

Afterwards, I ended up talking to Gigi on the phone, and she was excited to tell me about it.

“Some of them," she said, "I mean some of them just walked around and showed off their figures, but others were just so talented -- doing backflips, dropping to the floor. We were really impressed. Grampy was too. I mean, it was really neat. It was really something. We enjoyed it."

Almost a week later, my mom and Grampy (her dad) caught up over the phone. Grampy was genuinely touched by how welcome and valued Kia and Arash's family had made him and Gigi feel. He described them as some of the warmest and kindest people he'd ever met.

This is really all to say, aren't my grandparents so damn cool? But also that there's not only never an excuse for intolerant bullshit, it's also a great way to miss out on some really fucking fun and special experiences.

There are quite a few people we've both loved who won't be at Anna and I's wedding thanks to varying kinds of intolerance -- in some cases, not even religiously or politically based. Watching Gigi and Grampy hop a flight, explore the city, and experience new things didn't just make me happy at the idea of aging with a sense of adventure. It also made me plain-and-simple pity the people who will never get to taste life the way we do.