A Change of Pace

We only had a half day at school today and Paul had a play date for the afternoon, so I drove downtown to Capitol Hill and met Ben for lunch. We planned to meet at the Matchbox, a cool place on 8th Street that we had wanted to try. I found a parking space about three blocks away and walked through the freezing cold wind only to find that the restaurant didn't open until 5:00. Grrr..... why don't we ever call ahead to find these things out? It was 16 degrees and that's not counting the wind chill, so it was way too cold to stand around waiting for Ben. I tried his phone, but no answer. Grr...why do we have these phones if we don't turn them on? I was getting a tad ticked off. Ben was walking up from the Library of Congress so I started to walk to meet him, hoping that he hadn't taken some other route and that I'd be lucky enough to run into him coming my way. I was. It's amazing how my irritation fell away when I saw him. After all these years he still makes my heart leap. We immediately headed towards our favorite Hill place, the French restaurant Montmarte near Eastern Market. Another three blocks in the freezing cold wind, but once there we received a warm welcome, had a calming glass of wine, and then a fabulous meal. Oh, yes, and the pleasure of adult conversation without interruption! So nice.