I had one of those families that ate dinner together at a table every night. It kind of fell apart in the teen years when the calendar filled with debate tournaments (me), band rehearsals (my brother) and football practice (the coolest and youngest sibling). But until then, there we sat at 6 p.m. each evening passing around the bread basket and telling each other three things from our day. This ritual was extra fun during a fight of some kind–like the time my mom made me get rid of the West Side Connection and Notorious B.I.G. CDs. We maintained the dinner ritual during these times of stress leading to strained, awkward pauses, interrupted by: “Laura, please pass the salad dressing.” Followed by more silence. I tell this mostly pointless and self-indulgent story because of this Tweet that appeared on Ron Sims’ Twitter page last night: “County Council members Constantine, Hague, Lambert, Patterson, Von Reichbauer, Phillips, and I had dinner in DC last night. It was fun.”The council members are back in the nation’s capital lobbying for money to rebuild the South Park Bridge and save salmon. Sims is there (in case you’ve somehow missed this) to be confirmed as the new Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. You’ve got to wonder, after a vicious several months between once-rivals Larry Phillips and Sims culminating in Sims recommending that the council appoint a replacement fitting a description specifically excluding Phillips–did the once friends finally put aside their differences over a steak? Or did everyone shift around uncomfortably: Kathy Lambert politely asking Pete von Reichbauer for the ketchup, Dow Constantine laughing a little too hard at anything remotely humorous, Jane Hague tipping back a couple martinis, and Sims awkwardly hugging Phillips at the end of the night (hugs being no real indicator of how Sims feels about you, everyone gets an embrace)?