I had settled down in my normal seat in the bar. Jess and Lauren came by to say Hi and ask, “The normal?” I nodded absent-mindedly, then opened the book I was reading. The goal was to get a couple of chapters under the belt over a glass of wine. Sharmila is in New York, so I had no travel planning to do, I guess.

Now, I mentioned that I was a bit absent-minded while responding to Jess and Lauren. And that is because I saw a very young kid going around and cleaning up the place. You know, putting things back in their place and that sort of thing. I had never seen the kid before.

“Who is he?” I asked Jess.
“Nolan. He is my younger son.”
“Oh! What is he doing – cleaning up the place?”
“Oh! He wants to be a help around. He loves it.”

He must have. Because, right at that moment, he showed up and asked, “Mom, what else can I do?”

Well, I introduced myself and found out that Nolan is a fourth-grader and that his favorite subject is Math. My idea of reading the book was defenestrated almost immediately. For the next hour or so, I taught him a few tricks rooted in math (like guessing your number and all), and then he would go try them on his mom and Lauren and impress them!

Eventually, it was time for me to go. It was getting late. We took a picture and parted ways. I am hoping that I will not have to wait till he comes of drinking age before I see him in the bar again!

Chris, Zeke and I went to an Italian place for dinner in downtown Fort Wayne. Unfortunately, it was closed – like every Monday. So, we strolled over to another place. Moment I entered, I thought I recognized the place. We sat at the bar. I asked the gentleman at the bar if somebody called Izzy worked there.

“Yes. She is here. She has gone to the back right now!”

Eventually Izzy came out. A few years back, after a full day of work at office in our engineering center in Fort Wayne, I had stopped here for dinner. And over dinner, made friends with Izzy. Got to know about her life and her family.

“Did you finish up your course in pedtrician nursing?” I remembered that was her goal.

“Almost done. 6 more months”

We caught up for a few minutes, took a picture and we went back to our own work.

Hope to see her next time when she is a full fledged nurse already!