Much Appreciated Minestrone: Thoughts on an Unexpected Lunch

I emailed yesterday morning and said thanks again for the sheets (which sounded funny but really wasn’t. They work nicely as tarps and that’s what he always uses them for, which made sense if you’d been operating out of the same linen closet for over twenty-five years and had a bountiful supply. I’ve been operating out of the same one for only three years now and regret didn’t stock it to the extent I should have at the time) I’d borrowed on Friday, to throw down on the floor while I tackled those three pieces of furniture I mentioned earlier. The painting project completed early into the day, I dropped them into the washer and sent the email. Once out of the dryer they went into a Rite Aid tote bag, accompanied by a pipe wrench and a crescent wrench. “I’m happy to drop these on your front deck (the depository, as it were, for items borrowed/returned, etc. when their pick-up / drop-off time window occurred when he wasn’t home or would be uncomfortable to find me at his door) on my way home tomorrow,” I wrote, “and thanks again! I’ve once more done my personal best to keep Rustoleum stock right up there where it belongs.”

This last was a joke between us as for several months some years ago, no matter what was suggested to me as an activity or something to do when I had an actual free afternoon, whether it was dinner, a movie, shopping or a show, I was busy painting something. With, without fail, Antique White Rustoleum high gloss.

I didn’t get a response but thought nothing of that, either. Owen was a sporadic email checker and always had been, although since he (joined the current century) and got high speed Internet several months back, he’s been better at it.

His email came through to my office this morning. He had to be in the area, across the street, actually, checking on a contract today. He could save me a trip if I liked, pick up the sheets then, and if I was free for lunch that would be great. So it was that we wound up at The Cajun, just up the street. It was the first time either of us had been there since you no longer had to produce a membership card to be allowed inside, and it looked much the same, just a few lunch customers scattered throughout, something I’ve never understood. The food is good – really good, and not terribly expensive, and it’s very convenient to get to. Maybe the fact that it was sandwiched in beside an empty warehouse that used to be an antique store and flanked by more than one taco cart didn’t help.
I’m sure the Tattoo parlor directly across the street doesn’t provide much curb appeal, either, which was too bad because as I said, the food was very good and the service never anything short of stellar.

He ordered a Chicken Caesar salad and I gave The Look but only because that, too, was somewhat of a joke between us. You could set a beautiful steak or platter of foie gras in front of Owen, and he’d order a Chicken Caesar salad. We once went out to sushi (only because it was my birthday) and he ordered, or tried to, a Chicken Caesar salad. At the governor’s dinner at the Capitol, black tie notwithstanding, he’d ordered the Chicken Caesar salad. Beachside in Malibu, best seafood in the world readily available, he’d gone for the Chicken Caesar salad. I had a bowl of minestrone soup and it was fabulous. Obviously freshly made. You can tell, with minestrone. You don’t have to be Julia Child to know fresh tomato from canned, and the squash floating around in there obviously hadn’t seen the inside of a freezer in its life. Having myself just made a crock pot of Vegetarian Italian Pasta-less Goulash just the day before, slicing and wrestling with twelve fresh (well, as fresh as they can be at this time of year) tomatoes and having the results for dinner, the difference jumped right out at me.

We talked about the same old things. His son was, at the current time, keeping his grades way up and his interest in girls way down. His dad was still old, much to the irritation of his much-younger wife. Basil was still always welcome and should really, he noted, be dropped over the fence for a day or two in the sun before the weather turned again. Had to be more fun for her than a day at daycare, he insisted (I considered that, and I’m not entirely sure. At daycare she has a whole range of canine friends. In Owen’s yard, she has one pint-sized pedigree to deal with all day. Not the same, and much fewer structured activities. Still, a nice alternative for her). As I’ve just, as I mentioned earlier, jumped through hoops to reinstate/replace a county library card, we exchanged notes on which libraries were good and which were too limited, and the one nearest me topped the list of most limited. Unless, of course, you were looking to be surrounded by kids of all sizes and ages, and miles upon miles of kid fiction when all you were really after was the latest T. Jefferson Parker. He asked if I was still with the financial planner he’d set me up with a few years earlier and I said I was and very happily so, as he seemed to have found a way to make money make a little money instead of shrinking/disappearing altogether, which was more my personal specialty when left to my own devices. Likewise I planned to use the same tax man and no, I still hadn’t adjusted my deductions but was hoping this year I wouldn’t get dinged as hard because as, by my rough calculations, I’d made a bit less.

I suppose we ran the gamut of all subjects in general, and bypassed the personal completely because, in hindsight, that’s what we do. Which is probably why we’re friends. Which is probably why it was a very nice, companionable bowl of minestrone.

The meal drawing to a close, I brought up the subject of business, and we discussed this in some real semi-depth for a few minutes, covering the remainder of this year and what was out there or not, and briefly touching on next year and what might be out there and what may not be. He asked about a few dates next month when our office might be available for the annual holiday lunch his company always took us to somewhere downtown, and I said we were pretty much available for everything from Acme Burger to Macaroni Grill to that new Italian place, any time. Nothing about ‘free lunch’ is a hard sell to our team.

He beat me to the check (I wanted to take it as I had, after all, been the recipient of a favor that had I not been, I’m quite sure I’d have gotten as much paint on my floors as on the furniture. He beat me to it because, as he’d asked it was a given and besides, we’d talked about work so it was a business luncheon in its own way), and he dropped me at my car in the lower level of the parking garage. I wrestled the sheets and tools out of the tote bag (I didn’t think he’d be caught dead carrying an Earth Friendly Reusable Rite Aid tote bag and it always came in handy for me to keep one in the car) and deposited them in his backseat, depositing myself back in the front, something that got me a bit of A Look, but I explained that when a person was walking around all day in heels an inch higher than they generally wear, a short walk is best and he could drop me at the elevators.

“They look nice on you,” he said, addressing my boots. That was the only uncomfortable moment because, to tell the truth, until then I’d forgotten they’d been a Christmas gift a few years back. From him.

“Thanks,” I said. “I mean, I really like them.”

As I said, we don’t discuss the personal.

Casey, in the office across from mine, looked up from her keyboard as I came in. “How was lunch?”

“It was good,” I said. “Fantastic minestrone at The Cajun.”

“Hmmm,” she said, eyebrows raised. “The Cajun. That sounds like an Owen lunch.”

“It was.”

“Hmmm….”

“Absolutely not that kind of luncheon,” I said honestly. It had been a spontaneous, completely unexpected bowl of minestrone. With a friend. Which, given my life circumstance, broke no rules, shattered no standards of behavior, and was probably pretty OK with the universe in general. In the past, the totally spontaneous beer at The Cajun offer after an event at work has been put out there and my answer had been an unequivocal no. It wouldn’t have been appropriate, then.

It was odd, for a moment, to digest once more how appropriate it was now, but as a pilot once told me, there’s no rear view mirror on a 737. Not that I’m a Boeing or anything, but sometimes, an unexpected bowl of minestrone and a break in your routine is like a little gift from the cosmos to let you know sometimes that’s all in life you really need to think about and don’t really even need to think about it much, just appreciate the simple pleasure it honestly was.