Double jeopardy

I got stood up at lunch today. I was supposed to meet a young colleague at a nearby restaurant, to treat him to a farewell meal since he will be moving to NYC later this week. I have been his mentor for the last three years and feel a bit like his mother - very proud to see him move on to the next step in his career.

After 15 minutes of waiting, I asked the waiter to cancel my reservation. I picked up a small salad on my walk back to the office, and then emailed my missing lunch date that I guess something must have come up, and I'm sorry I wouldn't be able to say good-bye in person, and I wished him luck. And then I ate my simple salad and daydreamt a little about a more substantial dinner.

And another 10 minutes later, I heard running steps and gasping at my door - it was my young colleague. He had set his smart phone alarm for noon but didn't hear it go off, and somehow thought lunch was an hour later than agreed to, until he received my email and took off running.

So I ended up taking him to lunch anyway, at another restaurant nearby. We ended up chatting for 3 hours, about just about everything under the sun. This young man is only 2 years older than our son, and is smart, ambitious, energetic - it's really fun to think about what he might be able to do in the future. I was one of his references and provided one of the glowing letters to recommend him for his new position, and I'm very impressed by how hard he's worked to progress from his very humble background to being so driven to lofty goals.

And during our rambling afternoon, I had a second lunch - another salad. I logged both my lunches in and still managed to keep to plan. Good thing, because we're taking the kids out for an anniversary dinner later this week and it might get ugly!