Fifth Wheel

Having decided a last minute cancellation would be rude, I went though with the dinner plans last night. It was a mixed affair. The food was good, though the setting was awkward in the sense that it was a "couples night" sort of dinner. Well, two couples and me. I have no idea why I was invited and it was a rather uncomfortable thing being the fifth wheel. Most of the conversation revolved around two general topics: their work (they're all employed by same organization) and weddings (my sister's forthcoming wedding, the other couple's wedding, and various weddings recently attended), so my contribution to the conversation was more or less limited to such things as "oh really?" and "that's nice." But mostly I just sat there quietly, wishing I had pager duty (paging oneself is a great way to get out of bad situations. BEEP BEEP BEEP. "Oh my. Gotta go. BYE!")

Pager or not, I was able to escape about halfway thought the evening. After dinner, the group was going to walk down to the Bier Garden a block or so away to meet up with some more of their friends and have a few beers. I seized this opportunity to politely excuse myself and flee back to Norfolk. Perhaps had I been in a more gregarious mood, the evening may not have been so tedious and I wouldn't have minded spending the sixty dollars for dinner (per person, counting food, wine, appetizers, and tip). Ah well. Such is life.

As the weather has deteriorated (cloudy, cool, with rain on the way), I won't be making the trip to the Outer Banks today. This is unfortunate as it leaves a gaping hole in the plans for my only free weekend until late August. So I think my two chocies for today are 1) Go to the university library to research some topics of interest, and/or 2) Drop by the office to work on assorted tasks that are difficult to accomplish with the distractions of the workweek.