Where No One Knows Your Name

Through a series of complicated interconnections, I had dinner tonight with three very nice people at what can only be called my neighborhood pub - the Latona - a welcome five blocks away.  Look Ma, no car!  I've never had a neighborhood pub before.  You might say I've never needed a neighborhood pub, given the fact that anything over a glass and a half of wine is a really big night of drinking in my world. Still, neigborhood pubs imply that you live in a neighborhood, the way "favorite coffee house" implies that there are a few to choose from (and there are.  But I'm going with Cafe Zoka.)  

In sleepy Greenlake, the Latona has been around for at least twenty years.  It's the kind of joint where you can pull out board games and pretend you're doing something other than gulping ale from giant glasses, and - I am not making this up - everyone turns around to check you out when you come in.

I don't mean check you out as in "nice ass" - I mean check you out as in "Hey, who are you?  Do I know you?  Will you buy me a drink?"  Thankfully, no one looks like Norm on Cheers.  I'm pretty sure that anyone with Norm's physique is quickly packed into a very large crate and sent postage due to Tacoma.  This is a city of healthy people.  Someone is always running around the damn lake in an endless loop - maybe it's all the coffee. 

Anyway, M. and her nice husband A. and another nice friend M2 and I all enjoyed our gourmet chicken sandwiches, side salads (no fries because undoubtedly they are harder to run off), and tall beers/white wine.  M. and A. have four dogs and no children and are transplanted San Franciscans.  A. works for Google.  I strongly suspect M. spends all of her time vacuuming up the dog hair. (Speaking of the Lake, tomorrow I'm going to walk it with another random group of people.  Having blind dates with potential friends is nearly as nerve-wracking as with potential lovers except that I'm not too concerned with what to wear - which is good since I haven't actually unpacked my clothing yet. I've only had one blind date in my life but I do remember thinking when it was finally over that I wished I hadn't worried so much about what to wear and more about suggesting a place with a back entrance.

I liked the Latona Pub so much I had a passing fantasy of working there like Diane on Cheers - an overeducated barmaid mingling with the common folk (except it never made any sense to me that she kept working there.  It was Boston. She couldn't have found anything else?), but I quickly shelved the idea.  It's just a little too upscale, with the arugula and all.