THE HOURS CREPE ON APACE

9 February 2003

That would be a very clever title if (a) you were a Gilbert & Sullivan aficionado, and (b) my brunch date had worked out the way it was supposed to.

Ellen told me that she and Shelly were meeting some friends for breakfast at "Crepeville," a new crepe place across from Saturday's farmers' market and asked if I'd like to join them. Never one to pass up a chance to eat out, I said yes. It was mostly for socializing, but also Ellen and I are going to work on writing an article for a local newspaper about an "activity" that's happening on Valentine's Day (which I'll probably talk about in a later entry--after it has taken place).

I was, I thought, supposed to meet them at 9 and my plan had been to get up and go for a Saturday morning bike ride and end up at the crepe place.

There were two problems with this plan. First was not getting to sleep until nearly 2:30 a.m. and second was the weather report I heard when I woke up at 6, which talked about frost warnings and said that the temperatures were currently in the high twenties and low thirties. This did NOT make me want to leap up and get out on the road on my bicycle!

Instead, I added a second blanket, burrowed down, and went back to sleep, waking up at 8:15--an unheard of late hour for me. But perfect time to get the morning ablutions done, bundle up in several layers and bike down to Crepeville.

On went the long sleeved t-shirt, the long-sleeved sweatshirt, the down-filled parka, the ear coverings, the bike helmet, the glove liners, and biking gloves (I chose not to put tights on under my jeans).

I arrived at Crepeville promptly at 9 a.m., and there was no sight of any of the women I was coming to meet. I thought that a bit odd, since I thought they were coming separately--Ellen & Shelly from Davis and Jess & Sandy from Sacramento--and one pair should have been there. Then I thought perhaps Jess & Sandy were going to meet at Ellen & Shelly's and the four of them come together. So I waited and examined the menu while I waited. I was tempted to order a crepe whether they came or not, but thought about my diet and decided that if I wasn't going to do it communally, I wouldn't do it at all.

Finally at about 9:25, I decided I must have misunderstood the time and that I was supposed to have been there at 8, not 9 and had missed them (though I admit that I thought it odd that they had come and gone in less than an hour).

I had brought a slide show for Jess and Sandy and wondered if they'd gone to Ellen & Shelly's after breakfast, so biked by there on my way home--but nobody was home, so I just came on home. Unfortunately, later I heard from Ellen and the time had been 9:30, not 9 a.m. and if I'd stuck around another 5 minutes, I would have met them. Owell!

But I did spend the rest of the afternoon working, taking a break mid-afternoon to go get some lessons in how to operate a JVC digital movie camera, since I'm going to photograph a wedding for the son of the camera's owner in LA next weekend.

Back home again to work a bit more until "Says You" came on the radio. I sat down to listen to that ('cause it's one radio show I actually sit and listen to) and next thing I knew Garrison Keilor was finishing up his tales from Lake Woebegone, which meant I'd slept through not only "Says You," but the two hour Keilor show.

Now dinner is cooking and then...more work through the rest of the evening.