My Lonely City

I saved a baby cricket from working in our office this morning; I know how scared I would be if I was snatched from my surroundings by something roughly two thousand times my size, but still. Just relax; I’m not going to hurt you. Really.

And then when I went to put him down outside, he sat on my hand for a few seconds, and I had to shoo him off onto the ground. I tell you.

So last night my friend and I went to one of our favorite restaurants in Norman, OK, Misal (seriously tasty tabouleh salad, and the veggie samosas are one of my new most frequent cravings), which was busier than it’s ever been because of some unknown event that was screwing up traffic like a game day. We sat behind (before? near? beside?) a large-ish family with two young children who behaved as young children often do. The boy, who was the younger and by far the louder of the two – probably three years? four? – was sitting directly behind me. So as I’m trying to listen to my friend’s conversation I’m hearing a simultaneous stream of “Strawberry shortcake? Where’s the guy? That guy? That guy! There he is!” as the waiter comes over and laughs. (The wait staff are all awesome, too.) So he orders strawberry shortcake, kind of. All sorts of fun. He leaned over the back of my booth at one point to gaze at my purse (which I moved out of his reach … ) but that got shut down pretty fast. It was really more a source of amusement than frustration or annoyance. As the family left, the (I think) grandmother came over and apologized to us. That was … nice, in a way. Refreshing, that someone acknowledge the disruption.

I feel like there’s a great piece of commentary that should slide in here, but I can’t think of it, so I’ll just sign off. Hopefully I’ll be back soon.