soup, poetry, waistbands

One time, my former friend Geo came over for a visit. I made soup that day, one of my all time best soups. He tasted it and said the broth was great with many interesting nuances. It was.  I wish I knew what I did that day. I have no memory of which spices I used.

We visited a bit in my living room, ate that awesome soup and then walked over to Moe's, a great used book store where Geo had sold 20 boxes of books and had accepted store credit instead of cash. You get more 'money' with store credit but it defeats the point of downsizing. You just buy more books.

Anyway, I had offered to buy a couple books, have him pay with his store credit and then I would give him the cash.

We walked over. That was one of the sweetest walks I have had. Ever.  We had both been working to lose weight, had both been succeeding. The time before that walk that I had seen him, I had showed off a pair of dress slacks that had not fit me in years but, slimmed down, they fit again. On that walk, we both almost skipped along, happy to be side by side, when he stopped, pulled up his jacket and then pulled out the waistband of the slacks he wore. He said "See these pants? A few months ago, they were too small!"  We laughed and almost skipped on.

At Moe's, I went to the poetry section, he to the philosophy. I was done quickly so I went upstairs to the philosophy section and saw he was on his smart phone, reading emails or something. I went back down, not wanting to rush him.

I quite dislike it when friends use their cell phones when they are, ostensibly, spending time with me. Using that phone upstairs in the philosophy section was still intruding into our time together. If he hadn't been on the phone, for who knows how long, we would have finished sooner. Not that we were in a hurry. It was time we could have spent together.

One thing I am coming to accept is that Geo didn't actually want to spend time with me. Why he spent any at all with me will likely remain a mystery.

I watched him a few minutes, scanning his smart phone with his hand, then went back down to poetry and then popped up again a few minutes later. He was off the phone, looking at books. He didn't buy any that day. He was looking at some of the many books he had sold in those 20 boxes, seeing how much Moe was going to get for them.

The walk home was just as lovely, although no one showed off their weight loss. Plus walking home from Moe's is downhill.

That was a lovely outing, from soup to poetry to waistbands.