Breakfast at Pazi's

Source

I need a break from being creative so let me entertain you with a tale of breakfast. It was actually a bit more adventurous than it sounds. Not a lot more, but a bit more. But I digress ...

When I retired from gainful employment, my buddy Tom suggested we get together for breakfast periodically. I like breakfast and I really enjoy hanging out with Tom. He's a fun guy and we have a lot in common. I should have thought this through a little more, he did say breakfast. Which occurs, traditionally, in the morning. For some folks, early in the morning.

Tom likes to start his day early, so breakfast, as you might guess, is also early. I mean, not before the sun comes up early but early enough that Your Humble Scribe has to set his alarm clock in order to be there. Since retiring I normally set the alarm only on Sunday, and that's not too awful as I set it for 0830. But for breakfast, at 0800 Tom hath decreed, I set my alarm for 0600.

Hey, it's once a month, so I can deal with it. Thing is though, since I retired, I go to bed usually after midnight and get up at nine-ish on most days. Now I used to get up a few minutes before the alarm went off due to force of habit and having arisen early to labor for my wages for fifty years.

These days if I have to set the alarm on any day but Sunday, I swear I wake up every hour to see what time it is. Now part of that is the joyful anticipation of seeing my dear friends Tom and Liz.

I should note that Liz was my boss for the last five or so years at the paying gig, and a damn fine one she was (and is still). We became friends as well as colleagues. She has joined the breakfast club as she and Tom also get along very well.

Now Tom worked at CVS for a long time in a managerial role, then he retired from that. As some folks (I'm not one of them) get bored in retirement, they seek a new job, one that isn't quite as stressful or demanding as the old one. So Tom became a janitor, not just any janitor mind you, he was like the Wayne Gretzky of janitors, a superstar. And he was our janitor, he has a clearance so he could get into our lab.

Now the guy before him was, eh, not as fastidious as one might want in a janitor. The floors were almost never mopped, the trash was emptied every other day or so. When Tom took over, it was like night and day.

Anyhoo ...

So Saturday morning I met up with my besties Tom and Liz for our monthly breakfast. We went to Pazi's Place in East Providence, a 50s-style diner and it was really good. The food and the company.

This is something new for me, actually socializing with people outside of work. Seeing as how I don't work anymore, the family was concerned that I might become a crabby, old recluse. Yeah, I can see that.

While I'm still crabby and old, I do go out to breakfast with my friends at least once a month. (Except March, I was down in Maryland.) It's great to catch up with the two people outside of my family I get along best with. I've never really had a wide circle of friends, lots of acquaintances and work buddies, but not a lot of friends. (Had some for a while, but they all moved away! No, not because of me.)

So Sarge, where's the sorta adventure there?

Oh yeah, Pazi's Place is about ten miles by road from Chez Sarge, getting there was something of an odyssey, the GPS took me by a very roundabout way to get there. Well, that was my fault, I'd been playing with my phone, looking at alternate routes and had saved one of those routes. Not the one I'd wanted but a different one. It was a way I'd not traveled before but it was interesting.

Now Pazi's Place sits on a one-way street. I did not realize that when departing the diner to return to the manse. (Hey it was early and I'd had maybe four hours of sleep, 'kay?)

There was something off about the road, like, why is the center line painted white, rather than yellow? A car coming from the other direction beeped their horn at me, 'twas then that I realized that I was going the wrong way!

Oh shit, oh dear!

Fortunately it was early enough so that there wasn't much traffic and the weather was gloomy (which tends to keep people at home) so I saw the opportunity to make a U-turn and now head in the correct direction. Fortunately it was in the direction I wanted to go.

Unfortunately, my wild maneuvering had upset my GPS, or something. She began adding extraneous data to her instructions.

I noted that I had to turn onto a different street in about a quarter mile, then the GPS says, "Take the second right."

Uh, what? The first right was the street I wanted, what's up with this "second right" nonsense?

Eventually the GPS and I got that sorted out but I was in the backwoods of Massachusetts and not in an area I'd driven through on my way to the diner. Oh well, I knew I was going east by southeast so it was the correct direction. If I hit the Atlantic, I could just turn right, eventually I'd circle in on my destination.

It's something I've noticed about Google Maps lately, she will get confused, especially in Boston or on Cape Cod, don't know why. Roundabouts puzzle the hell out of her. (Note I say "her" as it uses a female voice.)

I've seen the arrow on the map pointing to the left and the voice saying "turn right." (And I'm muttering, "what the hell GPS, make up your mind.") I will eventually calm down and realize that the software ain't all it's cracked up to be. (I would know, I spent years as a professional software tester, maybe Google Maps knows that and hates me for it, but that's ridiculous. Right?)

The other thing it likes to do is mispronounce the names of things here in New England, lots of old Indian names around here, which the GPS voice will butcher in sometimes humorous ways.

Anyhoo, coming home from breakfast was a bit more adventurous than I care for, but hey, to see my old friends I'd even drive through Boston.

Well, dunno if I'd go that far.

But it was a good craic, can't wait until we do it again.