May. 27th, 2013 09:18 pm
Sidetracked
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muckefuckIt took a bit of convincing to get ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monshu to come to Sidetrack with me today--especially after I let drop that there's no smoking allowed on the patio any more. His legs are giving him trouble and he was not up for doing much standing. I told him that we could time our arrival for about 15-30 minutes after the doors opened, so that the line out front would be gone but we'd still be able to find someplace to sit.
Turns out I had the opening hour wrong, so we ended up having to kill some time in the coffee shop across the street. Not a bad thing--it's a good coffee shop and neither of us realised it was there. After the first busload of eventgoers arrived, we began to get nervous about securing our spot. I tried to make the Old Man feel better about queuing up by telling him, "Sometimes you meet people."
Not five minutes later, we'd struck up a conversation with a soft-spoken visitor from South Bend. Fifteen minutes after that, I discovered that he'd owned and sung along to Nena's debut album. Not long after that, I found out that he knew Icelandic from living there when he was younger. I recited English lyrics to some of my favourite Sugarcubes songs and he translated them on the fly. Who'd've thunk I would end up next to one of the few people in a thousand-mile radius I could conceivably do that with?
I'm trying not to have any regrets about not getting his contact info. After a while, he said he was going to the rooftop deck, and I told him I'd be heading up myself in a few minutes. We never saw him again after that. I did, however, not only run into Frenchbikerbear but meet his lovely English boyfriend as well. Hope I didn't bore him, but how often do I run into someone who has hefted an genuine Viking sword, can name more than one Geordie comic, and knows what mitochondrial DNA is? So yeah, I probably geeked out a bit.
All in all, not a bad day: the weather held (though heaters were necessary to keep the deck pleasant) and it was a good crowd (if not a very singy-alongy one). I reminded myself of how many wonderful people there are in this world who I've never met and--even more importantly--how many I can already count among my friends and acquaintances. And best of all, I don't have to be at work tomorrow.
monshu to come to Sidetrack with me today--especially after I let drop that there's no smoking allowed on the patio any more. His legs are giving him trouble and he was not up for doing much standing. I told him that we could time our arrival for about 15-30 minutes after the doors opened, so that the line out front would be gone but we'd still be able to find someplace to sit.Turns out I had the opening hour wrong, so we ended up having to kill some time in the coffee shop across the street. Not a bad thing--it's a good coffee shop and neither of us realised it was there. After the first busload of eventgoers arrived, we began to get nervous about securing our spot. I tried to make the Old Man feel better about queuing up by telling him, "Sometimes you meet people."
Not five minutes later, we'd struck up a conversation with a soft-spoken visitor from South Bend. Fifteen minutes after that, I discovered that he'd owned and sung along to Nena's debut album. Not long after that, I found out that he knew Icelandic from living there when he was younger. I recited English lyrics to some of my favourite Sugarcubes songs and he translated them on the fly. Who'd've thunk I would end up next to one of the few people in a thousand-mile radius I could conceivably do that with?
I'm trying not to have any regrets about not getting his contact info. After a while, he said he was going to the rooftop deck, and I told him I'd be heading up myself in a few minutes. We never saw him again after that. I did, however, not only run into Frenchbikerbear but meet his lovely English boyfriend as well. Hope I didn't bore him, but how often do I run into someone who has hefted an genuine Viking sword, can name more than one Geordie comic, and knows what mitochondrial DNA is? So yeah, I probably geeked out a bit.
All in all, not a bad day: the weather held (though heaters were necessary to keep the deck pleasant) and it was a good crowd (if not a very singy-alongy one). I reminded myself of how many wonderful people there are in this world who I've never met and--even more importantly--how many I can already count among my friends and acquaintances. And best of all, I don't have to be at work tomorrow.