After I sat and briefly greeted the birthday girl, I checked in with my 661 friends and told them all what a lovely evening it was to celebrate a birthday at this fantastic Hollywood restaurant. Six friends told me how they too had eaten there and suggested some dishes. Two friends lamented about how they had to work that evening. One friend mentioned she liked my haircut, and another friend asked a side question about whether or not I got that email she sent me yesterday. Meanwhile, the birthday girl was eyeing the menu and said something about how she had been craving gnocchi lately. I looked away from my entourage for a few moments to discuss the menu options with the birthday girl, secretly slightly dismayed that so few of my 661 friends liked where I was for dinner that evening.
We ordered our food, and of course I had to take the obligatory photos of each dish to then show to my 661 friends. It wasn’t that they had asked for the pictures, but I figured some among them might want to know what I was eating that night. And see, some in fact did. There was one especially fancy dish that caught so much attention and food envy that quite a handful of people from my entourage kept interrupting my conversation with the birthday girl with their oohs and MMMMs. I knew someone would like the photos. I was loving their reactions. Oh. Oops. My food was starting to get cold.
After dinner, the miniature cake with the candle arrived for the birthday girl, and another gal who sat at one of the five chairs at the table snapped a picture of the birthday girl blowing out the candle. My 661 friends waited so patiently as the five of us sat and chatted. Meanwhile, the birthday girl turned to her other 274 friends, and showed them her birthday-candle-blowing picture. We had her open gifts and cards, clinking our glasses of wine to wish her a most wonderful upcoming year, but she suddenly seemed just a touch distracted, as if waiting for something to happen. But she smiled and we smiled and the night went on, and eventually we all pushed out our five chairs, hugged, and headed towards the door.
Suddenly the birthday girl blurted, “I can’t believe none of you four liked my birthday-cake-photo!” Bewildered, we reminded her that we were sitting next to her, celebrating with her at the time of the photo. She was grateful for that and all, but she really did wish that we had liked her photo.
As I walked to my car, it appeared that my 661 friends had gone on their way and had all quickly become quite busy with their own things. I suddenly felt a little bit lonely. I don’t know why I was so surprised that they all had so easily forgotten about my fun evening out over a lovely dinner. After all, they had been there too, hadn’t they?
When I got home, I looked again at my friend’s birthday-cake-blowing photo, and I did like it. It looked like it had really been a nice evening spent together with friends.
a pilgrim's lens 