May 15 2002
Lunch break
I had an unaccustomed lunch yesterday. That is, I hardly ever take a lunch break, but rather, work at my desk all day with positively Japanese devotion. But yesterday, my friend Richard lured me out to the little park by the Transamerica pyramid. I hadn’t been there for a while, and I’m pretty sure that the charming, oxidized copper leaping frogs and lily pads in the fountain are new. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and we sat on a bench in the sun. Now my arms are pink with unusual sun exposure (though I religiously wear sunscreen on my face, even when it’s raining, I almost never do on my hand and arms).
I helped Richard eat his lunch, and while we were talking, I eavesdropped. It is one of my many, many character flaws that I can never resist eavesdropping or looking into lighted windows when the curtains are open. Well, if they didn’t want you to hear, they would talk quieter, and if they didn’t want you to look in their windows, they’d close the curtains. My friend Alice, now a longtime Amsterdam resident, told me that it’s an old Dutch custom to leave the curtains open to prove you have nothing to hide.
Overheard at the Transamerica park (does it have a real name?):
“Well, of course they laid off Yates. Everyone hates him.”
I immediately wondered if it was spelled like the poet and why everyone hated him, and whether he himself was aware of the fact.
“She has nothing to do there, so she just shtups everyone in sight.”
Again, not sure about the entirely correct spelling of “shtup”. And I wonder where is so boring (and if it is, why are there so many men there?).
“So I asked her for another date, and she said she didn’t know we were dating. She already has a boyfriend.”
Oh, she knew you were dating. She was just auditioning you to see if you were better than her current boyfriend, and guess what? You’re not.
When I was about a block from my office on the way back, there was a guy playing Beethoven on a Jamaican steel drum.
I really should take lunch more often.