Minding My Own Business

Last night, J & I went to the Bike Portland Social hour at Roots Brewing. I decided I wanted more RAM for my Mac and Macforce is just a few blocks from the bar. Dual purpose/double occupancy always makes me feel better about driving. And luckily, we weren't stoned for arriving at the bike party by car.

When the noise level exceeded tolerance, we headed up to Hoda's Mediterranean restaurant on 34th & Belmont, where a helpful, familiar-looking woman helped me park the car (we were deciding whether we had enough clearance from the driveway--she thought we did. It was very SE PDX).

I hadn't been to Hoda's since last year after the Pedalpalooza Parade, where I had the misfortune to discover that I had contracted food poisoning (NOT from Hoda's--Sushiland on Weidler if you care to avoid it). Jess ate and I spent the whole time in the bathroom being turned inside out like a shirt. It was good to go back and have a more positive experience.

I was facing away from the door so Jess reported any interesting people watching opportunities. There was a young interracial couple with the cutest little boy (has anyone ever seen an ugly interracial baby?). They were seated behind us and then a few minutes later, Jess said, "That women is smoking outside the door. Do you want to go have a chat with her?"

I chuckled, thinking she was just referring to a random person creating a smoke gauntlet for us to run through when we left the restaurant, but in fact she was talking about the mother of the little boy. That really did make me want to go talk to her. I probably would've said something like, "I guess you don't want to live to see your kid's 30th birthday huh?" I resisted, knowing how obnoxious it would sound and that there was a .00000001% chance of doing any good and a 99.999999999% chance of pissing her off.

Just one more of the side effects of being half-orphaned--the sudden urge to confront almost every smoker I see and make them understand the real consequences of their deeply ill-advised choice.