After a couple miscues this evening, I finally located my husband and friends at one of our favorite restaurants.  I’m half an hour late and steamed because my husband hasn’t been answering his cell phone.  He claims he’s been trying to call me; our friends confirm this.  You can imagine a huffy, stressed-out guilt-tripping woman sitting tensely with three other people who are well ahead of her on the relaxation curve…

 

It’s awfully quiet this evening in this restaurant.  It’s a favorite with the older crowd, well-established and stable; there’s always live piano music and usually quality food and service.  But the crowd is thin, only a half dozen tables occupied in this much larger restaurant.  There is a large party, our party and some couples.  It’s not much business for a Friday night.

 

Friends and spouse try to coax me into relaxation; I’m really not in the mood, unfortunately.  The other wife unwittingly increases my edginess by asking whether we’d seen “The Passion” at the theater, proclaiming it a great movie.  If you know me, you already have an idea of my sentiment on this issue.  I practiced the “say nothing if you can’t say something good”; a tight-lipped smile with a negative nod was all I could manage safely.

 

We settle into our meal when it arrives, thankful for the diversion.  The Lenten restriction of no meat makes even this respite awkward.  We ordinarily share around the table – and we can’t this time since they’ve ordered chicken.  The seafood dishes are less than stellar, making the chicken dishes quite tempting.  It figures.

 

I try to take my mind off the continuing awkwardness and tension by watching the few other tables in the restaurant.  The party appears to be family and business friends; they are rather rowdy.  The couples are quiet; they are older and settled into that groove that comes from decades and decades of marriage.  The couple closest to us, direct behind me, is typical of this time-worn comfort; he is a rather largish man in a sport jacket, she a trim woman in an expensive sweater set, quietly eating in a well-rehearsed manner.  They predict each other’s moves; he passes the soy sauce to her, she pours his tea. 

 

There’s not enough distraction at the other tables to settle my mind.  I’m aggravated further, drawn into a conversation about the relative merits of the Tolkien movie trilogy; mentioning the concept of archetypal heroes only makes me the butt of jokes at our table.  That should teach me to discuss Jungian psychology with the wrong crowd, I think to myself.

 

Half-way through the not-so-crispy fish and the tepid scallops-string bean, there’s a disturbance behind me.  Someone bangs into my chair firmly; there’s a tinkling of glass.

 

Omigod.  There’s a man lying behind my chair.

 

A million thoughts race through my mind – and some thoughts bypass it altogether.  I am on my feet without thinking; pushing broken shards of glass away with my feet and my hands.  I am thinking about the large man in the sport jacket now lying prone on the floor; do I do CPR?  Does he need it?  His wife is talking with him and with restaurant staff, alternately pleading with him to make something coherent emerge from his mouth and asking the restaurant staff to call for an ambulance.  The man is not quite conscious, groggy, disoriented.  Has he had a stroke?  Just passed out?

 

I pull my coat off the back of my chair and fold it to put under his head.  We encourage him to lie still until the ambulance arrives; he does so without too much fuss.  He is puzzled – where is he, and why is he on the floor?  He’s not tempted to jump up and find out, though.

 

An EMT approaches with a large bag; another EMT behind him wheels another bag.  I step away, not wanting to watch or hear what feels quite personal and intimate.  I already know too much.  The man is a diabetic; he thinks he was choking on his tea, although I suspect otherwise. 

 

My husband and the other spouse are in the bar area, trying not to get in the way and to keep each other amused.  I move towards them, stand next to my spouse, then realize my finger hurts.  I’ve managed to gash my finger on some of the broken glass.

 

The restaurant owner gets me a band-aid and antibiotic; we try to chat about nonsense as the EMT’s continue their screening of the man on the floor.  We fail miserably at levity.

 

The EMT’s leave, having gotten the man onto a gurney and out to their ambulance; the woman in the sweater set is rattled, insists on driving her own car in spite of suggestions by our friend to let him drive or follow her to the hospital. 

 

The hullabaloo dies down; the restaurateur tries to offer us wine to make up for the disruption.  We politely decline.  It’s not as if it was her fault, after all.  This was just an unfortunate throw of the dice, and the poor man who’d been on the floor was the sorriest for it.  Or his wife – she could have benefited from the wine, I’m sure.

 

We try to finish our dinner; it’s not the same.  Even the tension is gone.  We struggle through and fail miserably; we break up and disperse into the night.

 

I don’t feel my guilt-trip(s) any longer.  I suppose there are far worse ways to spend a Friday evening.

 

  11:21:21 PM    comment []

 

Must be my Catholic upbringing – I’m guilt-tripping about everything today

 

I feel guilty because I’ve taken my kids to the sitter so I can have dinner alone with my spouse this evening.

 

I feel guiltier because my daughter was tired and teary-eyed when I left her there; this was unexpected to her since we had no idea we were making plans for dinner when I saw her last this morning. She doesn't deal well with unexpected changes and I don't deal well with tears when I'm stressed out.

 

I feel guilty because I made my spouse rearrange the dinner location and reservations because the sitter will be dropping off the kids at home at 9:30 – and the reservations at the new restaurant were at 8:00 pm.  It simply wouldn’t work; this place is brand new, its “sibling” restaurant by the same name in the next town over is incredibly slow.  I’m certain I wouldn’t see my meal until 9:30.

 

I feel guilty because my blog has been rather neglected this last couple of weeks since I started reporting on site for my contract work; readership falls off in direct correlation to the number of posts.  So does my interaction with my buddies who comment here.

 

I feel guilty because I’m giving into the blog monkey and typing this post right now, instead of running down to the pub to meet my spouse before dinner for a drink.  He’s waiting there with friends – and I’m here typing this.

 

Gah.

 

There’s more, but you get the picture.

 

I’m off now to try and check that next box off the list above, and then some.

 

More posting later after some guilt has been relieved.

 

  6:33:14 PM    comment []