Get comfortable

So I had the perfect “have a safe trip” gift picked out for a friend at work, had it wrapped nicely and the whole thing … and left it on my dining room table as I walked out the door early Tuesday morning. I just completely forgot it. I remembered it as I was driving up 19th Avenue towards the Golden Gate … too far to turn around and head back home. My “HQ” offices are less a mile away from a mall, so I knew I could find something else. Still, I kicked myself for forgetting the gift in the first place. After all, I set it right next to my computer bag (and yes, I looked on the floor of my passenger seat just to make sure that I *did* have my computer with me).

I called Tim during mid-morning to see if he wanted to run a “mall-errand” with me during lunch and at 12:30pm, there we were. I’d found a replacement gift (actually, it was better than the original, which I’ll now give as a “welcome back” gift, I suppose) and was having it wrapped when Tim noticed a cafe. Since we were waiting anyway, we decided to take the time and catch up over a cup of coffee – or, in my case, hot chocolate.

The chairs outside the café were not comfortable, but the conversation sure was. We were there for 20 – maybe 25 minutes. More than anyone else in my life, Tim knows all my little details, even the ugly, scary, not-very-nice ones. The only one he wasn’t current on was what I was doing about my health situation and, after a quick update on that, we got down to all my other “brass tacks” as of late.

If you’ve been paying attention, you may wonder how much advice Tim could give to me about … well, lots of things, really. He is close to my age, true – and we’ve done the same job - but beyond that, we’re VERY different folks. For starters, he’s a guy. Also, he’s in a successful relationship based on mutual respect, honesty, love, and compassion. Tim knows that when the going gets tough, he’ll have his partners’ shoulders to lean on. I deeply envy him for that. (I could take a deserved and truthful cheap shot here … but I’m better than that. You, however, should feel free to do so.) Tim didn’t grow up in California and has spent significant years throughout Europe in his adulthood. He’s lived away from his “growing up” home for a couple of decades, and I’m pretty sure we vote and spend money differently, too. With all that, ‘tho, he is perhaps PERFECTLY qualified to dispense advice to me and, while I may not always follow his guidance, I always listen carefully to it.

There are, also, the un-said things between us that we both notice. As we were leaving the mall, Tim was reminding me that I need to take better care of myself, and that the whole “job/life/health” thing will work out whether or not I worried about it … and I *was* listening, honest. But something had caught my eye and I just couldn’t let it go un-noticed. I stopped him mid-sentence and asked “hey – are we the stupidest two people here or what?” Without missing a beat he said “yeah, I know. Did you even SEE those when we walked in?”

At the front entry to the mall were two coin-operated Shiatsu massage chairs. This whole time, we’d been sitting in straight-back, cast-iron café chairs sans padding at all (save for the padding we carry naturally).

We kept walking out the door as Tim said “next time – next time, we head straight here, agreed?”

Agreed.