This afternoon Tyler and I took our new baby kitten, and our sweet Jennie to the vet. After the appointment we were set to meet someone, and since we had quite a while to wait, we decided to have a beer at the pub next door. Since we had two animals with us, and they had outdoor tables, it seemed the perfect spot.
An older man was sitting alone at a large table, with a nice shady umbrella, and he invited us to sit with him. It was a kind and generous offer, and he didn't seem like too much of a crazy, so we thanked him, and sat down.
He was missing several teeth, and sitting in the heat so that he could smoke. He told us about his life, his family, and Philadelphia as he had experienced it; his father having been born a few blocks away on south street 105 years earlier. But the amazing thing was that he knew us so easily. When he asked Tyler what he did, he asked, 'so, are you an engineer?' Where we were from, 'Upstate New York?' what I did 'University of Penn? A secretary?' All of these were initial questions, we had never met him, or even spoken among ourselves in front of him, and all of them spot on (well, I have a fancier title, but, to a 70 year-old, yeah, secretary works). It was a little eerie. Or, maybe we are such a standard boring couple, that the assumption when you meet two people, carrying two cats, having a refreshing afternoon beer, you just have to assume, 'oh, yeah, engineer, UPenn, Central New York.'
