We met our friends Bill and Marion for drinks at the local Fish House Restaurant late yesterday afternoon. We arrived to find the parking lot jammed, with people wandering about in Hawaiian shirts and belly packs. Two large tour buses loomed ominously in a tiny side lot.
“Uh oh,” said Marion. “Something’s going on. Looks like some kind of tourist convention.”
“I didn’t think tourists still dress like that,” said Bill.
“We’ll never get seats,” fretted Turk.
We elbowed our way in and nailed 4 at the bar.
“Jackpot!” sang Marion. The joint was jumping with brightly plumed revelers.
"What's going on?" asked Turk of the bartender.
"Jimmy Buffet's at the Pond, and the Angels are playing a home game!" shouted the barkeep. I looked around ~ sure enough, smartly dressed in their own colors like a very tidy rival street gang were red-shirted Angel fans mingling amongst the Parrot Heads. We ordered before a turf war could break out. From the restaurant sound system Jimmy sang:
Haul the sheet in as we ride on the wind
that our Forefathers harnessed before us.
Hear the bells ring as the tide rigging sings.
It's a son of a gun of a chorus.
"So you missin' the pope yet?" Bill, a devout Catholic asked my husband, a very lapsed one and no great fan of the church.
"Can't say as I am," he replied, drinking deeply of his frosty pint. Bill laughed.
"Wish I coulda' gone to Rome," he said.
"I wish I coulda' gone to this concert," I moaned. Jimmy sang:
Where it all ends I can't fathom, my friends.
If I knew, I might toss out my anchor.
So I'll cruise along always searchin' for songs,
Not a lawyer, a thief or a banker.
Parrot Heads and Angel fans jockeyed for seats.
"Looks like Arte Moreno is going do alright in spite of us," lamented Marion. "The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim? What kind of idiocy is that? Makes us all look like morons!" We ordered cheese quesadillas and oysters and drank to putting a curse on the team owner's head. Jimmy searched for his lost shaker of salt.
"So you think the pope is in heaven yet?" asked Bill. Bill likes to talk religion with agnostics, Jehovah's Witnesses, lapsed Catholics and others he considers lost souls.
"Hasn't he got an express elevator to the top?" grumbled Turk. "The bouncer's at the gate wavin' him in right now, like this.." and he did his best impression of a burly club doorman giving a VIP a cool nod signaling go ahead ; a signal we ourselves have never experienced directly, I might add.
Bill smiled. "You really think so?"
"No."
Jimmy sang:
I don't want to live on that kind of island
No, I don't want to swim in a roped off sea.
Too much for me, too much for me
I've got to be where the wind and the water are free.
The Angel fans left for the game and we left for Chinese. Over Sizzling Beef, Szechuan Chicken, and Moo Shoo Pork we debated Social Security reform and tried to answer the Geography Trivia questions on the back of our cocktail napkins. We started in teams and disintegrated into three against Turk, who is some kind of geography savant. We drank sweet pink wine and jasmine tea. I ate with chop sticks.
"Ignore her. She's just showing off," said my husband.
I shrugged modestly. "It's a gift."
"Yeah, just you and 8 billion Chinese people."
We opened our fortune cookies and added the phrase "in the bedroom" to the end of each. Bill's said "You will travel far..." Marion gave him a dirty look. Mine said "You have executive ability...." I thought that sounded promising, and indicated I would look into putting it on my resume'.
We headed out to the lot for the short drive home. Bill, who still has high hopes for my husband although he has quite given up on me, hollered "See you in church!" as he got into his car.
"Don't hold your breath!" replied the Hubs good-naturedly.
And in my head Jimmy sang:
And there's that one particular harbour
Sheltered from the wind
Where the children play on the shore each day
And all are safe within
Lakes below the mountains
Flow into the sea
Like oils applied to canvas
They permeate through me.
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