Another first (and a, uh, 39th)
As I entered the Wicked Sister restaurant a bit before noon today, I announced to the hostess that it was my first restaurant since March 2020. I was unmasked (I had one in my pocket). I have never understood the point of requiring people to wear masks INTO a restaurant and allowing them to remove them to eat. I mean of course you can’t eat with a mask on but this is cognitive dissonance to me. The restaurant was practically empty although more people arrived while we were there but we are all vaxxed so I said a little prayer to whatever I believe in and plunged in. I did wear a mask to the grokkery store this morning and I don’t plan on dining in frequently for a while. This was a speshul occasion though.
We were meeting my cousin and her husband there and we waited for a bit. My cousin runs on what we call “Pooh Time” and I run on, well, I’m not sure we have a word for the time I run on but Flash Bang might suffice. To illustrate our difference in “tempo”, back when we were kids and had outhouses, I remember watching her meander out to her outhouse (next door), stopping halfway there to inspect an insect or whatever. My style was to RUN to the outhouse and back, maybe doing a somersault on our homemade play structure along the way. We finally put together that they had stopped at the recycling center, which closed at noon today so they had no choice but to go there on the way TO lunch. Also, they had had a somewhat chaotic morning as one of their sons and his fiancee left today and they were preparing for a big influx of people this afternoon. More of my cousins.
A fun little sorta bittersweet thing happened at the restaurant. When our waiter ran my credit card, he noticed that my last name is the same as the doc who delivered him. Was I related? Yes, Yes, I was. I am his niece. And then I pointed at my cousin and said, “She’s his niece too.” My name is the same as my late uncle’s because I use my birth family name (I informally used my husband’s name when dealing with schools, etc.).
When you are a small-town doc with a long career in your home town, you deliver a LOT of babies so my entire life people have been saying things like, “Hey your uncle delivered me.” Actually, usually they would say, “Hey, your dad delivered me.” Nope. I can’t feature my small-town banker dad delivering a baby🤣. It was my uncle. More people remember my uncle than my dad (which is OKAY). My last name has died out in Sault Ste. Siberia so I haven’t heard this in a while. I have cousins who descend from him in the area but they use different surnames. So, a fun little blast from the past and I felt honored to hear from someone who still remembered what my uncle did in this community.
P.S. I hope none of this embarrasses my cousin because we’ve known each other forever and I love her and a slower “tempo” does NOT apply to brain power 🧡
July 3rd, 2021 at 8:17 pm
I’ve been braver about restaurants lately although I generally try to sit outside. That’s cool that people remember your uncle. There are still those who mention that my grandfather was their parents’ dentist. It was a small town and most people knew each other.