Yesterday, I was driving back from hanging out with a buddy of mine that lives down in the city. We've been friends since we were in highschool and he's one of two friends that I have that I'm still very close to since then. He became my lab partner in science class Freshman year and we've maintained a very close friendship over the last 20 years. He moved away for a while and lived in San Francisco for a few years, but he came back to the Chicagoland area and there were periods when we didn't hang out or speak to each other with much regularity, but like I always say, a mark of a good friendship is that we picked up right where we left off no matter how long it's been since we've spoken to each other.
Now that he lives in the city, we try to hang out at least a few times a month. It's not easy to coordinate the schedules together, him being a working man and living in the city, and me being a general lazybones and living in the suburbs, but he is one of the few people that I will go out of my way to spend time with, since he is one of my closest friends.
On my way down, I saw a guy doing a wheelie on a motorcycle on the highway. He was just getting on the on-ramp, and as he was speeding up, he lifted up his front wheel and disappeared into traffic. There were a lot of cars on the road while I was driving, so it probably wasn't the safest thing to do, but it was a cool thing to see. I also saw a firetruck with the lights on and the sirens blaring behind me, stuck in highway traffic. Cars were trying to move over to let the firetruck pass, but where are the cars going to go in the middle of gridlock traffic? Some had to move over to the shoulder to let the firetruck pass.
Then, a little ways down, I saw the firetruck stopped in the middle of the highway and there was a car on fire on the side of the road. I mean, smoke was pouring out of the car. Next to the car was a guy with his hands on his head, a look of utter disbelief etched on his face. He looked absolutely crushed. I felt bad for him, but I have to admit, I was glad I wasn't him and stifled a chuckle as I inched passed him crawling at 15 miles per hour.
When I got down to my buddy's place, we walked to this Thai restaurant and grabbed a meal and just hung out at his place watching baseball. Nothing exciting, but enjoyable nonetheless. It was a pretty relaxing evening. But seeing as how he had to work the next day, I decided not to make it a late one and headed back to the burbs around 7pm.
As I was driving home, I was on the highway and listening to music. A song came on the radio that made me think of someone very specific. Someone very near and dear to me. I remembered the beautiful time we spent together, and I imagined her sitting next to me in the car. The sun was in my face and I pulled the visor down to cover the sun from my eyes and I also pulled the visor down on the passenger side of the seat so that the person that I imagined sitting next to me wouldn't get sun in her eyes.
Silly, no? :)
I wondered what the person driving behind me would have thought to see me pull down the visor on the passenger seat with no one sitting there. Probably though I was crazy or something.
That is all for today.
Thanks for stopping in to take a peek at this slice of life. :)
-Grape-
