Tonight we ate at a Thai-fusion place in our new neighborhood. Typically, we don’t eat at restaurants that carry multiple cuisines, but we were lured in by the promise of Vietnamese Pho. We sat by a fish tank and in the shade of a fake palm tree. A girl with one pig tail, too young to be working legally, filled our waters.
My wife and I examined the menu of more than 150 items, ordered after a short discussion and began speaking when two different single people were seated next to us.
The young man, pimpled and shy, flicked the game of solitary on his iPhone and ordered without making eye contact with the waitress. Directly next to us, sat an Asian woman in her early 60s. I was unable to look at her directly, we were sitting too close; however, I did get a good look at her small, healthy hands as they pointed to the dish on our table, and as her knuckle nearly caressed our calamari.
Other than the phones visible on everyone’s table, nothing about the scene suggested a particularly place or time.
Behind us, a bratty child reached for the check before his mother could review it. The waitress apologized for not filling up our water on time. We discussed our favorite house guests of the past two years. And it all seemed to fit for an ordinary Monday night. But I wished it rained, rained sideways in the warm weather, rained endlessly, rained so that we found shelter in a place serving tea a perfect sanctuary from the week ahead.
A Life of Wonder 