A Good Samaritan and a Swiss Bank Bag

Monday again.  I find these "Mondays" of ours particularly difficult to deal with coming off of a refreshing weekend, and refreshing it was.  That was the sound of a deep exhale.

Friday night the Chef and I decided to go to his place.  Trouble was we were at my place and had to make it over there.  This might sound like a small task, but there was so much to be done in order to make that happen.  Read:  catch up on Dateline, 20/20 and 48 Hours.  So by the time we pulled it together it was midnight and we found ourselves at In-N-Out Burger (aka manna from heaven - and for those of you not in AZ, CA, NV, UT please get to one of these locations stat to get a taste of what is rightfully yours).  As we were pulling out of the parking lot there was a man on the sidewalk amidst a bunch of teenage boys and he appeared to be asking them a question.  They all had the deer in the headlights look, so he began to cross in front of the car and I said to the Chef, "be careful.  This one might be packing the crazy."  He had made eye contact with me as he crossed in front and, sure enough, came to the Chef's window and began talking so he rolled it down a bit.  At this point the man asked where the nearest gas station was - which was well over a mile away - because he had run out of gas.  When we responded truthfully he asked for a ride.

Enter:  conundrum.  We are helpers by nature, but we are in Southern California - not the rural farming community I grew up in - this is no joke.  It was such an awkward moment because the guy looked a little disheveled and kinda dirty, but I guess I would too if I ran out of gas and was frantically looking for help after midnight.  And we truly did want to help, so we offered to take his container, fill it up, and return it to him.  He obliged and as we were returning with the gas I said to the Chef, "what a damn shame it is that we can't even give someone who needs a ride - a ride - for fear of our lives.  What kind of world do we live in where we can no longer feel safe helping someone?"  It truly made me very sad.  When we got back we gave him his container of gas and his change, and insisted we didn't want any compensation for helping someone who needed help.  And I apologized to him for not being comfortable to give him a ride, and even though he understood I pressed the point of the apology because I felt really bad to have had to leave him standing on the corner at bloody 12:30 in the morning.  Oy.

This is how the weekend began.  That experience, and several others of late, caused me to change my weekend cleaning plans.  Instead, early Saturday afternoon we hauled out of the house and decided to grab poolside brunch and cocktails at a small spot in the Chef's neighborhood.  We don't usually do this kind of lunch/brunch outing, but it was so nice and warm that we gave it a go.  What a wonderful idea.  If you follow me on twitter you saw a picture of our cocktails at, oh, roughly 5pm.  That's right.  We were there for hours people!!  I ended up chatting with a woman who grew up in the Bronx and now lives in Mexico with her husband who is a Chef, but has abandoned the profession to make handmade leather goods.  Yeah, get there ladies - he cooks and makes accessories.  She was the tiniest little bird who told me about her two kids, their lives in Mexico, that she's a trained dancer, did a little hip-hop imitation, took off her leather bracelet and tied it around my wrist...oh my gosh the stories I could release.  I never laughed so hard and had so much fun.  She was completely awesome (Chef says I have my first girl crush - hehe) and if I had stayed inside and done the laundry I would have never met her.  And what are the odds in LA where, no offense to anyone in LA because I love it, people are not always so down to earth and friendly?  She noted my handbag - made from authentic Swiss bank bags for reals - and I oooohed and ahhhhed over her belt and the rest was history.  I had been regretting the frivolous purchase of that unnecessary bag, but it ended up being the catalyst to a fantastic afternoon filled with laughter, a new friend, and a bracelet.  Life's too short.  The laundry can wait.

There's the lucky bag and my new bracelet.

Here's a close-up.  We were flying sans camera so this is it.

 Here you find the picture of a content woman post cocktails

...and an afternoon of stories and laughs. Yay!
(and yes that is a slight tilt)

Too bad there's a pile of work waiting for me this week, as well as a boatload of laundry, but that's okay because the weekend's coming. Ha! Wait a sec...I guess it may not get done then either?  Uh-oh!

What did you guys do?  Happy Monday!