Lunch with Linda

I had lunch today with my friend, Linda Ewing Redd. Linda was my best friend in 5th and 6th grades. We walked to school together every day, even in freezing cold temperatures. By the time we got to school, we would have frost all over our hair. We were still kind of friends in junior high and didn't do much together in high school because we were interested in different kinds of things at that point and I had a dumb boyfriend, so I didn't do much with any of my girl friends.

If I could change one thing from any day of my life, I'd go back to the first day of 10th grade and break up with the loser boyfriend and enjoy high school with a lot less stress. (Ok, so he did have one redeeming quality. He was cute. Not enough to base a relationship on, so remember that girls.)

So back to lunch. This is an example of how things usually work in my life.

I am punctual to a fault. It's probably MY only redeeming quality. I always show up 5 minutes early because I don't want people to have to wait on me. I know how annoying it is to wait on other people so I try not to annoy others. I'm cool that way.

I got there and checked in at the hostess area and sat down at the end of the bar to wait for Linda and my other friend, Cindy. I knew Linda was coming for sure but Cindy wasn't sure if she'd make it or not. Once I sat down, I realized that I didn't bring anything to do while I waited. I usually have a book or a Reader's Digest or something. I was feeling kind of conspicuous, because at The Bluebird, where we were having lunch, the end of the bar where I was sitting was pretty much right in the middle of the restaurant, out in the open. I also had to sit turned out because they had a bunch of rolled up napkin bundles on the bar in front of me.

After about 10 minutes, I decided to start fiddling with stuff in my purse because I was feeling pretty self-conscious by then. I pulled out my little cheapo cell phone and pretended to be doing something important on it. By 1:15 I was starting to get a little annoyed. It's one thing to be 5 or even 10 minutes late, 15 is pushing it. I called my mom to have her call Linda's mom to get Linda's cell number so I could call her and see if she was just running late (or if I was possibly at the wrong place, etc.)

For some reason I stood up while I was on the phone and walked toward the front of the restaurant. (I was sitting on the end of the bar in the middle so I could see both the front and back doors.) As I was walking, I saw another girl sitting at the opposite end of the bar. Wouldn't you know it, of course it was Linda, looking as annoyed as I was feeling. She was smart enough to have a newspaper to read. I'm not sure when she came in, but I know she wasn't there when I got there because the bar was all empty. Later on a man came in and sat exactly in the middle, so when I looked down the bar I couldn't see her and when she looked up the bar she couldn't see me.

We laughed at that one and each of us had the hostess vouch for the fact that we'd been there a while. After thinking about it, I was a little annoyed with the hostess. She knew I was waiting for someone and Linda said she told her the same thing. I'll let her off the hook because I said I was waiting for two people, and maybe that's what Linda said too, but you'd think the hostess would have put two and two together. She had at least seen both of us there waiting for someone for quite a while. I asked the hostess if that happened very often and she said it had never happened before, which surprised me.

Anyway, we had a nice lunch and caught up on lots of things. It was nice to know we still have some good similarities in our lives, even though in some ways they are quite different.

Next time she comes up to Cache Valley we will let our 4 year old boys play together while we catch up some more and play pool in the basement.

That's all for today.