As none of my classmates seemed up for lunch (it being a
work day), I took the bus out to Ragin Cajun; got there
kind of early and had to wait until it opened. They let
a fairly considerable number of early eaters mill around
inside until 11, when we crowded the ordering window -
wouldn't it have made sense to take our orders ahead
and put them in to the kitchen at opening time, I mean,
the manager was just standing around, and it wouldn't
have meant extra time spent for his staff if he did it,
which he ended up doing anyhow.

I had an infected fingernail from the other day, which
always happens when I do crab or crawfish boil, so I didn't
go for the 1.75 lb $11 half bucket but instead got the fried
crawfish tail appetizer, which had to be close on a pound of
fresh sweet bugmeat in a very ehh flour coating, helped by
the shaker of steak seasoning (tasted sort of like crawfish
boil, but that's what the label said) and Rajin Cajun hot
sauce, the house blend of herbs and cayennes in not too much
vinegar. Pepperdoux hot sauce is also available, but it
tastes sort of like Tabasco, only not so good.

Boudin ($4 for a big link) was, though shot with black
pepper, otherwise quite bland and tasteless - no match for
that at Bayou City.

Shiner Bock was $3.50, so my disappointment at the
characterlessness of the food was made up for.

=

Shiner Bock was $3.50 at the Ren as well, which surprised
me. I guess the hotels are finally figuring out that they
can't extort us as badly as they used to be able to.

=

My old buddy P.D. picked me up at the hotel. He was a little
preadolescent in high school and heavily picked on, but he
grew a half a foot the year after we graduated. He is now
about the third tallest person in our class and has become
good-looking in an outdoorsy way. I didn't want to go to the
rather sterile hotel bar, so we wandered randomly, ending up
at that Central Market, which turns out to be like Wegman's
but with Whole Foods prices. The idea was to get coffee and
sit outside and chat, but I found the to-go beer department
and had a Young's Double Chocolate Stout, which of course is
Stout flavored with cocoa. It was fine to sip slowly while
P.D. and I caught up on our lives over the last 40 years.

I could make only one event of my reunion, a dinner at the
home of one of our cheerleaders (the cheerleaders were
despite all that goes with cheerleaderism quite decent
humans on the whole, in addition to being fairly dazzling -
and, as it turns out, well preserved into their late 50s).

About half the class showed up (it had been a tiny class),
some with spouses, some without.

Lots o' divorces, a few involuntary retirements, but more
lucky got-out-while-the-getting-was-goods, a couple of
trophy wives. On the whole an affluent and well-fed bunch.
The most beautiful girl in the world was still beautiful
44 years after I'd met her, not a big surprise. On the
whole, the women are better preserved than the men, or
else perhaps camouflage techniques and cosmetic surgery
are extremely effective these days.

People who didn't give P.D. the time of day back when were
clustering around his athletic-looking self, and not just
the women. I was amused to find him so suddenly popular;
I hope he was as well.

I had a fine time chatting with people other than the ones
I had come to see! I do keep in touch with a few still by
e-mail, so it wasn't a surprise or much of a loss, and it
was fun comparing notes with classmates I'd not had any
contact with at all over all those years.

There was a lovely buffet on offer, but, unlike my normal
self, I forgot to eat. When it was time to remedy this,
all the food had been packed up. I guess it wouldn't have
put the caterers out too much to ask for a plate to be
made up, but who cares. I hadn't seen food since noon, but
I hadn't seen some of these folks since the Nixon regime.