Chris Hansen’s blog

Sunday at 11 am I was compos mentis enough to attend the Church of the Holy Apostles on 28th and 9th Avenue. Unluckily, it was the Sunday of their annual meeting, so I didn’t get to schmooze much. The liturgy there is very Hebrews 13:8, but the news that the Rector is retiring in July was a surprise. Somehow I thought he’d go on forever. We chatted (I hadn’t departed the parish in good temper with him, but that was in 1990 and 18 years is a long long time and a galaxy very far away). There is one parishioner whom I remember; she is English (but a war bride) and 86 years young; we chatted away for quite a while.

Then on to brunch with my friend David H. David is timelessly young and cool and even kewl. We found a Turkish restaurant at which I had soup and two appetisers, and talked and talked. What I didn’t do is have the waitress take a picture…I am so silly sometimes. Must have been jetlag.

That evening I took my two Indian assistant QA managers, who had arrived in New Jersey the day before from India, to dinner. I thought to myself, “Well, I’ll take them to 6th Street between First and Second Aves., where all the Indian restaurants are. WRONG!!! They are all Bangladeshi restaurants, of course (like most “Indian” restaurants in the UK), but even my assistants didn’t twig to that, and chose a restaurant called the “Taj Mahal”. The food was awful, they tried to feed beef to a Hindu, and another of them got an upset tummy from it somewhat later. I have learned my lesson. Take people to restaurants you yourself are familiar with, not to ones that seem to be of their ethnic food. There also weren’t any other subcontinental people in that restaurant. We should have known right away.

Monday was the first day at work. Found my way around, discovered that the receptionist was, as is often the case, one of the nicest people in the place: she found me a desk after all the other desks were taken as there had been a mixup. I bought her a box of chocolates today in thanks. Always good to give tangible thanks to people who are nice to you. It pays dividends.

Last night I went to dinner with , whom I had never met before. What a wonderful smile and grin he has! He is really so nice and full of smiles that even though I was jetlagged I was uplifted. We went to a Japanese buffet, which he swore had things other than fish. Did they! It was wonderful! I didn’t overeat, even though karen, our server, professed herself to be unhappy that we didn’t eat more. We talked about immigration, New York, gay life, lovers, ex- and current, and all sorts of things. I am so grateful to LiveJournal, as I have met so many lovely people though it that I would never have met otherwise.

I’m about to leave for dinner with my old friend Jerry and almost as old friend John up in the Bronx at the Piper’s Kilt pub. More later, as it happens.

There will be a pic of myself and as the waitress duly obliged us.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 09:23 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.