My Special Angel

Hey look!  It's December already, for Pete's Sake!   I'm doing Holidailies again (graphic above takes you to that link) and I'm also going to try to do combine that with a photo-a-day December challenge, hosted by a content housewife and hope that the photo will inspire a journal entry (where Sunday Stealings fit into this, I'm not quite sure!  May put those on hold for a month.)

Here are the photo-a-day prompts

(I got this idea from my inspiration for All Things Meme, Kwizgiver.  There are all sorts of things she's doing, which include Tweets and Pinterest and Instagram and all sorts of stuff.  I probably won't get that complicated, but I will give it a try.)

The challenge topic for today is "Your view Today" and, as you can see, it doesn't look particularly interesting.  But ahhh...it's in the story that it becomes (a bit) more interesting.

Today I was scheduled to meet my old boss, Derrick Bang, the former Entertainment Editor of the Davis Enterprise, and Janice Bisgaard, Publicity Director of the UC Davis Department of Theater and Dance. Janice and I have coffee once a year to discuss upcoming publicity for her department and what I can do to help.  We both bemoaned the loss of Derrick as the newspaper's entertainment editor and we decided that the three of us should get together for lunch, just for old time's sake.  So today was the day.

Janice chose the place, which is near the university, but a place where it is almost impossible to park.  Add to that the fact that we are in day #2 of a 4-day storm, and there was rain.  I decided to get there a bit early and hope for the best as far as where to leave my car. 

Not only is parking downtown notoriously difficult at lunchtime, but many of the streets near The 3rd and U Cafe do not allow parking unless you have a special sticker.  In fact, there are only 1-1/2 blocks where anybody can park anywhere near the place.

I have mentioned several times that I have a parking angel.  The morning after Gilbert died, when I was going to be driving his family all over San Francisco, I gave him the job of finding me parking places.  He's been dead 26 years now and I assume that "time" in "eternity" is not a 24 hour day like it is here on earth, but I am surprised that he's still finding me parking places.  I drove around and around trying to find either a legal parking spot or a place that didn't require a special permit.  Ultimately I drove up to the restaurant and there it was--the only legal parking place in about 8 blocks, and it was right next to the front door of the restaurant.  

I'll tell you, this happens so often, I don't even think it's unusual any more.  I just thank Gilbert, once again, for devoting his eternity to helping me park.

I got to the restaurant first and noted that it was very noisy.  When Janice arrived, we had to shout to hear each other, so she decided to check other places on the same block and we ended up at a lovely, quiet Indian buffet next door.  What a delightful lunch.  Derrick is no longer entertainment editor, but still writes inciteful (long) movie reviews for the paper (check out his web site), so we talked a lot about movies and it made me sad that Walt and I have not seen ONE movie this year.  

Best of all, we managed to finish lunch and our conversation just in time for me to move the car so as not to run the risk of getting a parking ticket.  I love days like that!

In the evening, Walt and I went to see the second of three plays for the weekend, this one Inspecting Carol, a very funny show that still had us laughing about various bits when we returned home.