Outdoor Dining

Every city likes to boast about its cute little sidewalk cafes, and New York is no exception. However I have to say that I do not enjoy eating outside. That's because of dirt and dust flying down the street, sitting in the hot sun on a hot day, tiny little bistro chairs are not good for big bottoms -- and the worst -- when homeless people come up and want money or part of your food. Ok, so that doesn't happen often, but it does happen and it has happened to me.

I don't want to be too hot, too cold or in any way uncomfortable when I'm enjoying a restaurant meal. Fortunatly most of my friends feel the same way.

But today, with my monthly lunch with Barbara, we had the best of both worlds. I'm not sure what you call this, but the place where we had lunch had the normal front door, but the front of the restaurant was like French doors so the front opened to the street. Right in the middle of this opening was one table where we sat -- so it was the best of inside dining along with the feeling that you were outside, a nice breeze, great people watching, without garbage flying in your food.

The other thing about this lunch that's noteworthy is that Barbara gave an unusual compliment. We were sitting very close to a mother with her 10-month old baby -- a precious little hunk of baby named Aiden who was quite a flirt with his looks, dimples and smiles. I had gotten there first, and I was looking at the baby sitting in his stroller and he starts smiling right at me. When I said something, his mother said, "Oh he loves the ladies." He really was adorable. He did the same thing when Barbara sat down, and she was smitten with him too.

Turns out Aiden says Mama, Daddy, and No. He can shake his head no, and wave bye bye. So when the mother and Aiden were leaving, Barbara said to her, "If there were a baby store where you could choose your baby, I would pick this one off the shelf to buy." I don't think the mother was quite sure if that was a compliment, but then she realized it was -- and it is a nice compliment.

On the way home, I saw a truck driver being handcuffed and led into a police car -- funny it's an image I've seen 1000 times on TV and it's weird to see it happening for real. The poor schnook probably had some traffic violiation and then had an outstanding warrant or something. Not a good day for him.