May 18, 2021: High Spirits All Around -

The rain! The sunshine! The roses! The radishes! Everything is exuberant right now.

I was striding down the street yesterday, just in time to meet a friend I hadn’t seen in ages, and I was grinning (though I wasn’t really aware of that, because I was thinking about six different things: nice day, look at that azalea, what do I want to remember to tell my friend…?) when a portly older guy in a big rig rolled his window down and shouted, “You look GOOD without your mask!”

I shouted back, “You do, TOO!” because it seemed like the right response, under the circumstances.

As he drove away, I looked to see if his rig had weird bumper stickers, but it was sticker-free. I have made the executive decision to classify the entire interchange as not about masks, but about high spirits. He was just being friendly, shouting encouragement at a grinning white-haired lady who was booking it down the sidewalk. Or it was clunky flirtatiousness, and he was out of practice, as we all are.

My ancient neighbor Susan, whose English comprehension is excellent, but whose English still has some Chinese flavors, called out something from her garden: You mmph MMPH? 

I said WHAT?

She held her hands way out to both sides: YOU LOSE WEIGHT???

Then she pulled them in, shoulder width: LOOK LIKE IT!!

I said Thank You!

(My buddy said: Would Susan shout the opposite? YOU GAIN WEIGHT??? LOOK LIKE IT! I said probably not to me, maybe to her kids....)

We went out to eat at a tapas place with little cabanas in the parking lot (pretty much opaque fiberglass greenhouses). We couldn’t see anybody else, so it felt isolated, which – I know! – counted as a good thing, this year. They were using QR codes and some fancy system where you had to scan this, and enter that, and scroll there, and give them your cabana number and your credit card and your name, before you could even order. It would work on one page and then stall out, Loading, loading, loading… and suddenly, a waiter materialized in the tiny doorway.

“Are you,” he asked Rick, using the German pronunciation, “Richard Wagner?” 

Rick laughed and said yes. They waiter said, “The Ring Cycle is my FAVORITE! I just had to tell you!” He then told us about his undergraduate and graduate studies, his feelings about Nietzsche, and what he would have covered in his thesis. High spirits. Then he realized he was neglecting other guests, and vanished, reappearing with free drinks, because of a) the dumb app and b) what he figured was a dumb Wagner joke. Rick hadn’t minded the Wagner joke one bit. That joke happens, but not as often as you might think.

A while later, a different waiter popped his head in and presented us with complimentary appetizers, saying that the whole kitchen was excited to have (German pronunciation) Richard Wagner dining there.

I said to Rick, This is a pandemic thing. They are so happy to have people here, and also, they know your name because we had to use that dumb app. When we come back next time, and there are paper menus, and all the patrons are nameless, there won’t be free drinks and complimentary appetizers. Still, we were celebs for the moment. High spirits.

Walgreen’s just sent me an email with the subject line, “You nearly scrolled past this.”  No, Walgreens, On the Contrary! I successfully scrolled past it AND I deleted it unread. HA!