A regular guy in a red jump suit

At the restaurant I realized I had forgotten my brother's friend's name, even though I remembered her last name was a fairly noteworthy product name starting with ``H'', which did little to bring it to mind at that moment. (It actually begins ``F''.) But I thought there was little chance this small restaurant, nearly empty, would have two reservations for five people at the same hour, and said I was there for that, confusing the hostess thoroughly. She suggested I take a seat toward the back, and I hoped I hadn't just created a second five-person reservation. Ah, but what would be the odds that this wouldn't get sorted out swiftly? I sat down and waited for the imminent arrival of a party of four people or so none of whom I could know on sight ... and ... waited. And waited.

My phone buzzed. I might have noticed sooner but I keep it in my messenger bag and it's not so obvious when it wants attention from there. There was a text message first sent about when I was getting on the subway: they were running late coming in, sorry about that, please don't worry. I texted back, I'm at the restaurant and not worried. I read. There would come more messages, including a request to increase the size of the party as they had another person coming to dinner. I wandered around until I found someone who looked like a waitress to explain this --- since several tables were fitted together all that was really needed was getting another set of silverware --- and sipped my green tea while waiting, and assuring the waitress that everything was fine and I didn't need anything more as I sat almost alone in the back of the restaurant, drinking tea at a table set for six.

Text messages started arriving, more frequently, but also later as they were getting near an hour past the scheduled starting time. The thing killing them near the end: they wanted to find a place they could park from dinnertime through the end of Cinematic Titanic, somewhere maybe five hours in the future, for free. In lower Manhattan. I admired their optimism but started to suspect I'd never see them, when a lone woman wandered in and was guided back towards me by an unsure hostess. She was one of the friends of my brother's friend and she was there to make sure everyone knew where to assemble. Sometime soon they would be parked, and we'd get dinner started.

Trivia: San Francisco's original street grid layout was laid in 1845 nd designd by Jasper O'Farrell. The basic unit of measure was the Mexican vara. Source: Measuring America: How The United States Was Shaped By The Greatest Land Sale In History, Andro Linklater.

Currently Reading: An Edible History Of Humanity, Tom Standage.