Uncle Bill

Monday we took Tom's Uncle Bill to lunch.  He lives in Annandale and we tried to do this once before.  We had called to see if we could take him to lunch but he said he would rather go to dinner because he volunteers a couple of hours a day at his ex-wife's dry cleaner.  So we drove there, killed some time (as we were early) at Barnes & Noble then got out to the car to go pick him up and there was a message that he'd sent earlier in the day that he couldn't go after all.  Apparently, Tom didn't get that message.  

So, attempt number two.  Tom had an eye appt. near there Monday so he called Uncle Bill Sunday afternoon to see if he could go to breakfast after Tom's appt.  He said yes, told us where he wanted to go, called and checked on the place near him where they served breakfast and told us to pick him up at 10 am.  Sunday evening at 6:30 pm he called to find out why we weren't there.  Tom went over the plans again, reminding him we were picking him up at 10 am for breakfast the next morning.

We go to Tom's appt. then have about 90 minutes to kill so we grabbed a donut & decaf to hold us over and read in a parking lot till time to pick him up.  We pull up at 10 am and he's just coming out the door for his morning walk.  "I thought you were coming at 11!" he says.  No, that would be 10 AM.  Well, he wants to take his walk which is 2 times around the block and he says 1 3/4 miles.  He invites me to wait at the house but Tom assures him I'm up for the challenge.  We do the walk in approx. 20 minutes or so.  And no, it was much shorter than 1 3/4 miles.  So then he invites us in the house to visit.  I'm starting to think we're not actually going to breakfast.  So we sit and visit a bit and then he says…."Oh, we're going to lunch!"  So we get in the car and drive to what we think is his favorite eating joint and discover they don't actually open until 11 AM.  

So now, we kill some more time window shopping at this strip mall then we find a small 2nd hand shop to browse before finally making our way to the now open restaurant.  Turns out Uncle Bill has never been to this place…no, they don't serve breakfast…..only on weekends.  So we settled for lunch, had a lovely conversation and I only hope that my family will be as patient with me when I am his age.