I don’t take pictures of my food, sorry folks. Here’s a pic of my car— does that help?
My dearly loved brother and sister-in-law are visiting from the Land of the Rising Sun, having come in for the Wedding of Number Two Son, so I’ve gotten to spend a lot of time with them. I’ve not seen them since our Dad passed away some nine years ago. Hard to imagine I was going to Japan almost annually and then stopped— work just got too busy.
They wanted to take us all to lunch and my sister in law is enamored with a certain Italian Restaurant here so she worked it out with Number Three Son and it was decided we would all meet there at 11am.
Now, 11am doesn’t sound crazy early when you get a text suggesting it at 9pm several nights before, in fact, it seems early but not ridiculously so. I knew they were both still getting up at 5am due to the time difference so 11am was certainly proper time for their lunch.
When I stumbled out of bed threw myself into the shower and then fumbled down the stairs on the morning of the event and glanced at the clock 9:55am- I thought to myself as I poured a cup of coffee— there is no way I can eat Lasagna at 11am.
Veronica had to cancel attending because a client had a last minute emergency, and she was planning to go shopping for many hours with my sister-in-law after lunch so she would meet us there when we were finished.
The dog was sound asleep. He does not like to be woken up. He is safe and warm under the blankets and it’s pretty close to freezing outside. I don’t like to wake him up, but at now 112 years old he has to be taken on a walk and I didn’t want Veronica to have to stop working. After a minor argument he and I were walking down my hill to a nearby park. My stomach dispatched a message to my brain, a telegram of sorts;
I DO NOT WANT LASAGNA AT 11AM.
I texted Number Three Son and relayed this message to him.
His reply; you know what’s funny?
i was having the exact same thought.
At 10:53am I fired up the roadster (top up it’s cold) and raced the highway to the restaurant. To my surprise even though they opened at 11 (and I arrived at 10:59) there were people waiting outside to get in. They were all people there with their kids. The people were 100 and the kids were in their 70s.
Everyone else was a few minutes late, and I was greatful because I was able to spend a few minutes standing in the slight warmth of the sun.
My Mom, Brother and Sister-In-Law arrived— Number Three son drove— and he and I exchanged a quiet laugh. My Mom said they had invited Number Two son and his new wife but they hadn’t heard from them yet. I already knew the answer— the early rising crew probably texted them at 9am with the invitation and since Number Two Son and his New Wife are on a sort of staycation this week there is no way they were even close to being up yet.
Not surprisingly we were seated right away and put in our orders.
A text arrived from Number Two son that came to both myself and Number Three Son;
How old are you two?
This was a reference to eating the blue plate special version of lunch at an hour that was still techincally and officially MORNING. My soup came and I ate what I could of that, then the Lasagna and although it was quite good, I could only eat about half of it. My stomach sending me additional angry messages that we seemed to have missed breakfast.
I am a person of strict habit— I must have a hot breakfast everyday. Eggs and toast, French Toast, Pancakes, etc— I eat one of these items every day to start my morning, without it my world is thrown into chaos.
And so it was with this— for the rest of the day I felt like I had Lasagna for breakfast— I ended up taking two quick naps and was not super productive with work, although I ended up pulling a pretty late shift to make up for it.