Out to Lunch

Today we caught up with a friend from years ago. Roger is in town for some training with Xerox. We met him at his hotel this morning and went to church together in Webster. After church we planned to get lunch and spend some time visiting. The trick was finding a place to eat.

It was a little bit after one o'clock when we left the church. We decided to stop at a local Italian restaurant. The door was unlocked, but they were not open for lunch. They were hosting a baby shower. The Japanese restaurant a few door down wasn't open at all. Since Italian was still on our minds, we headed down by the bay and stopped at Basil's. They were serving brunch. The wait for three was about half an hour and they wanted the restaurant cleared out by three o'clock so they could get ready for the dinner hour... We began to wonder if we would find a place to eat at all.

We were looking for a place to eat that didn't have big screen TV's or overpowering music. It wasn't in our plan to fight technology in order to carry on a conversation with a friend we hadn't seen in 25 years, and since we knew Carrabba's to be more friendly to personal interaction, we headed there. We had eaten our appetizers, finished our meals, declined dessert, and had the check in hand when the waitress came over and said, "Wait a minute, I have something for you."

We didn't know quite what to think as we glanced around and wondered what in the world she might have. She returned a few minutes later with a plate of ice cream with a fancy glaze and candied walnuts, and three spoons. "This is from my friend Jared," she said, "He's the server with the spiky hair."

Talk about confused! We were full but didn't want to appear ungrateful to the mysterious Jared. We glanced around to see who this generous stranger might be and soon a spiky haired server showed up at our table. He was smiling. "I always watch to see if I see people I know," he told us, "and then I surprise them." James said his mind was spinning through all the people we knew wondering where to place the spiky haired young man before us, but I recognized him right away. We went to church with his family years ago, and he is the uncle of my little friend, Harper.