TheBanyanTree: Lunch at the Portland City Grill

[Monique Colver]

We met a couple of Mr C's childhood friends for lunch today. Childhood, as
in pre-high school. This will be an important fact later. One of them,
Kenny, lives in the Portland area, but the other, Chris, was coming through
on his way back to Anchorage, after deciding Oklahoma wasn't a good fit for
him. He's a photographer, and going back to Alaska in time for a couple of
wedding shoots this summer. I've never met either either of them, which is
irrelevant to this story, but indicates how well my therapy is coming along
(being that I met new people).

That's a different story. We'll talk about how I'm helping my therapist
decide what to do with his life later.

By the time we got there, Chris and Kenny had seats in the bar next to the
windows, with a view of Portland. Thirty stories up means it's quite a
view, and I'd go for that alone, especially on a day like today, when the
sun is out and you can see from miles. One of these days I'll have to take
sash there for a lunch time celebration, but it must be on a clear sunny
day.

Our waitress was in her 20's, a nice mix of friendly and ditzy. Or maybe
it's just the age.

As the boys talked I admired the view, and tried not tell Chris he was dumb
for saying he had to pay $5,000 to become an LLC. I try to refrain from
insulting people when we're out socially. Both Chris and Kenny have LLC's,
which is apparently the thing to do in one's thirties.

At one point Andrew mentioned something about David, a friend from high
school. Chris and Kenny went to a different high school, since Andrew's dad
had moved the family to a better part of town, so they don't know David.
Chris said, "Oh, the Asian guy, right?"

I found this hilarious.

Yes. David is Chinese.

I found this hilarious because Chris is Korean.

Yeah, the Asian guy.

There was something in the way he said it, as if Asian was meant to
encompass a subset of something. Or other.

I don't know, and I didn't ask, and Andrew said, "Right."

We laughed about it later.

Kenny left first, because he had to get back to work, which was a block
away. (If I were a block away from the Portland City Grill I'd be eating up
there more often.)

The three of us talked a bit more, and when we left Chris said he was going
to visit some breweries, brewery visiting being the in thing to do around
here. But he didn't leave . . . instead, he sidled up to the bar and
ordered a beer, preparing to give the waitress/bartender his full spiel.
("I'm a photographer, I shoot fashion models . . . " which he does,
sometimes, but mostly he doesn't. Mostly he does less glamorous
photography.)

If you've never seen How I Met Your Mother, this won't make sense, but as
we left, Andrew said to me, "He's just like Barney," the perpetual sleazy
player.

Kenny's really nice though.


M
(I'm jumping back on the horse and am out of practice, so this is what you
get.)