Then Sunday night, a couple, retired school teachers, on their way to the Dumbarton Oaks concert series pay me a visit to have dinner with wine.  They bought a copy of my book, and have brought a copy to sign.  Barry has come in just as the door opens as well, sitting at the bar, then joined by Michael and Dennis.  Familiar people, the wit comes out.  "Your hair is so long!”  I explain to them, well, I've been on the road a lot.  Michael's 50th is coming up early in March, they want to book the wine room, so I go to the reservation tablet...

Then Mimi arrives, to be followed by Carmen, friends of the big boss...  Oh, shit, here we go.  I'm sat also by a table in the corner, diplomats, a couple.  He sounds Belgian.  Goes for the mussel soup.

Then John and Vera.  Getting in before Happy Hour ends.  John, get a stool and pull it up to the bar, and Barry squeezes over as he takes his onion soup.  He's just had an operation to replace a bit of his humerus, another bone cancer tumor, with titanium.   The bar is full.  Another two, a couple, tall, slender throughout, elegant, Ethiopian.  And two young women, one a familiar face, pull up at the bar.  A few weeks ago, John’s elderly mother was due for eye surgery.  A lot came out between us, the difficulties...

Mimi orders an onion soup.  Carmen, I’ll have one too.  The soups come.  Carmen:  I didn’t order this.  She has half of it.  Too salty.  Africans like too much salt, she says, referring to the chef, jean baptiste, from Gabon.  Later, after pot au feu, she’ll go down and chastise chef.

(Jean Baptiste tells me the story later, when I enter through the basement a day or two later.  “Bruno is coming soon, eh?” she says to chef.  I do my best, he tells her.  He did not add any salt at all to the pot au feu, by the way)

So that's how it goes.  Full Moon night.  Mimi and Carmen like to hang out late.  Others have gone.  Like the boss would, Carmen rolls a cigarette.  I pull my piece of liver out of the oven, after the singing of Happy Birthday and the candle, sit down at the bar, pour out a little wine, and have some dinner.

Back behind the bar, the boss's lady friends praise me, how I entertain, at such a level.

The woman with the Irish background stays a little while longer.  We need to process the night anyway.  She tells me about a story about Martin's Tavern...

I try to walk her home, but by the time I catch up with her, as I walk on the street, she has her headphones in, and I don't want to cramp her space, she is at her front door, putting in the entrance code as I stand out in the street.  Okay, she got home okay.  I go the CVS, to put some more money on my Metro card pass.

And I wake up, a couple of times, then falling back into dream and waking again to the workmen making their noise, but still a strange mix of soreness, waking, tired...  I get up, find some tea, call mom, slump back on the couch.   I sleep more, dreaming again, and before two, at the normal hour for the night shift, I come back to life.

Earlier, before work, walking up from the closest bus stop to work, Mom is irritated.  You made me look for two hours...  But Mom, I just wanted you to keep your cell phone charged.  We got that done, I thought.   I explain where I'm going.   You should get a job that allows you to be a human being, she tells me.