Out to Lunch

I'm a brown-bagger by nature. It saves money, sure, but really I think I prefer bringing my lunch from home because it saves me from having to make the agonizing decision about where to go out for lunch and the nutritional value of what I might order when I get there. To most, this is not a difficult decision, if it's a decision at all. Some amble out to their car and see where it takes them, Taco Bell, Whole Foods, what have you. I have never been blessed with the gift of such frivolity. Also, I don't like to lose too much time on the commute to and from a lunch spot. I find that time better spent reading crap on the internet I haven't been able to really look at yet that day (fantasy baseball). Good God, I am a fucking dork if there ever was one. For these reasons, my lunch hour, most of the time, is spent right here at my desk.

However, as the bitter Southern California winter turns to the blooming of spring(a net change of 7 degrees), I've found it less tolerable to sit under fluorescent lights for 8 or more hours of a beautiful, warm day without feeling the sun on my skin for even a brief spell. If I walk out at six as the sun is on its way out, I feel I've lost the day almost as much as if I had slept through it. Another negative is that as things get busier here at work, the chances of actually getting to enjoy my lunch with any degree of leisure or peace declines by the day. Into the wild, I say!

Today marks Day Four of my new lunch routine. The building adjacent to mine has a two metal picnic tables with umbrellas out front and, oddly enough, no one ever seems to use them so I have been taking my lunch down the stairs, out the front door, and across the narrowest path of our parking lot to sit in front of the Raytheon building. I angle myself in such a way as to absorb as much of the sunshine as possible and I eat and read. Call it my own personal Finer Things Club. I can't imagine a better book for such an occasion than the inaugural selection. A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle. It's quite the escapist pleasure. However, if you catch me bringing a lavender sac he to lunch, feel free to slap the shit out of me. I'll be asking for it.

The funny thing is how much of an escape my little trip is even before I've opened the book. These two picnic tables are no more than 100 feet from the front door of our building, which sees considerable traffic, especially at lunch. There is a wall separating the two parking lots of my building and Raytheon, but it's a mere three feet short. Yet, despite being barely at the limit of lip-reading distance from my building, no one ever seems to notice me as they come and go. That little bush-lined wall may as well be ten feet high for the amount of separation and anonymity it grants me. Another parking lot, another world. And thank God for that.