The Longest Conversation

It only takes one strange mind to warrant comment.

I have to revel in a January day warm enough - 59 degrees by 11 a.m. - to wear shorts on my walk to the river and beyond.

As I pass two guys standing on the sidewalk downtown, one comments to the other in a singsong sotto voce, "Shake it up, shake it up." Am I? I wonder out loud to them.

"Yes, indeed, you are and that is not a complaint," one says with a smile.

I have to wave good-bye when I see a favorite chef loading up a U-Haul behind his truck as a prelude to driving to Tennessee today to start a new life.

There's a lot to be said for that kind of nerve.

I have to marvel when after interviewing an older woman, she calls me today to clarify something and during the course of the conversation asks, "Do you have a computer?"

Apparently telling her I had no cell phone meant that I was a complete Luddite and not just a partial one. Yes'm, I do.

I have to appreciate when sending postcards from San Francisco means I get thank-you emails in return.

...Back to the note on your postcard. I would say - unequivocally - that you and I could have a good time together just about anywhere. Two strange minds bent on exploration, growth and the quest for a hearty laugh (usually at someone else's expense), what a combination!

Guilty on all counts.

I don't have to, but I do order the same shrimp po' boy salad (while my lunch date orders her usual, the chicken bean salad), making us those women with the exact same order the last dozen times we've been at Lucy's together.

Judge all you want, but the combination of lightly breaded shrimp over leaf lettuce, avocado, red onions and cherry tomatoes under a blanket of 10,000 island dressing is easily one of the best meal salads in Richmond.

And why eat salad for lunch if not to follow it with chocolate mousse with brandied cherries and lightly-browned meringue while sharing industry gossip?

And we don't have to, but after eating, we sit in the car for an hour with the windows down dishing about all the stuff we didn't want to say in a bustling restaurant. "I'm getting all teary, I'm so proud of you," she tells me after I blather a while.

I laugh out loud when she uses "bougie" to describe herself and her reluctance to use her resources to create personal time, but I am just as proud of her as she is of me.

Much the way I laugh out loud at a friend's response when he emails asking for out-of-town dining advice. I share my research, but worry about suggesting a place I haven't been. Will I be out on my ear if it's a bad suggestion?

What if you lead me astray? I wouldn't worry.

Sounds like a solid basis for another combination friendship.