Bitter start, sweet end

I started the day off this morning rather irked given that all the carafes in the free café upstairs were empty. I brewed some fresh coffee and cursed the inconsiderate cretins who were nowhere to be seen.

It was brightened a couple hours later by a long distance call from London: my friend who is moving back in a couple weeks after 5 years away called to chat, so we reminisced and caught up for a little while before work beckoned.

I went out for lunch—the all-you-can-eat buffet at Il Fornello. I’ve been extraordinarily hungry this week, so I decided to indulge a bit. Normally, I avoid buffets like the plague, but at Il Fornello, the buffet’s not really big, and there’s high turnover for the pizza in particular, so I don’t mind it.

Aside from being really hungry, I’ve also been really bored and restless at work, so the afternoon just crawled on by. I had dinner plans to meet an ex-colleague from my banking days at 7pm, so killed time at the Indigo nearby. Normally I catch up on all my fashion and gossip, but I’d browsed the latest issues last week so ended up reading a cheesy romance just for kicks.

We dined at Mimosa, and it occured to me how unexpectedly some friendships develop because I was never particularly close with this colleague when I was at the bank since we never worked together on any projects. It wasn’t until after I left that we started going out socially.

We caught up over duck confit, talking about things that inspired indignation on the one hand and laughter on the other, including the news of a sr.manager(!) at the bank who is so inefficient and/or lazy-ass that she's punted off all responsibilities save for this one measly report that she can't even produce correctly. The kicker is that both of us had been responsibile for this report at one point in our tenure at the bank, in addition to other responsibilities, yet this woman is making more than twice our salary and is doing about 1/5 the work. Where is the justice in this??

We talked about our anti-social tendencies, our laissez-faire parents, the dynamics of modern romantic relationships, and, most importantly, eye gel to ward off the first signs of aging. I was chastised for being lazy in its application since I'm on the (gasp) cusp of turning the big 3-0 and won’t look the girl-faced woman any longer if I have crowsfeet around the eyes. I don't FEEL old though, and since I've been blessed (or cursed on days when I have a zit) with oily skin and Asian genes, I feel rather immune to the worries of other women.

The evening ended with us sharing the ubiquitous, but oh-so-yummy, crème brulee and flourless chocolate cake. Our attentive waitress brought us cream whipped with a bit of red and white wine on the side which was meant to top off our dessert coffees, but we ended up just eating it as is. All in all, a sweet end to a day that started off rather bitterly. :)