That'll be awkward.

I first met Petty Bureaucrat in 2001 when I moved to DC. We were officemates until he accepted another position in the organization. A few weeks after he started his new job, a friend asked how PB was doing. I said, You know we don’t talk as frequently as we used to. He packed up his stuff and he moved out. My friend said, It sounds like y’all broke up. I laughed and said, you know, it kinda’ feels like we broke up and when I told PB, he laughed too.

About a year ago when his new job moved him to South Africa it really felt like we had broken up. I’ll admit it, I took several weeks to remember that I couldn’t call him up for dinner or a trip to visit a used bookstore. PB is a rather mellow laid back guy, and he’s always been pretty good at making me laugh at myself and at the world. He was also a pretty good cat sitter, and my cat seemed to like him. If Annie gives you the stamp of approval, I’ll forgive a lot of your misdeeds.

PB was back in town in late July, and we met up for dinner at Logan Tavern. How you can you not love a friend that greets you with a big hug, tells you look great, and gives you a cookbook for your cookbook collection?

Some would say dinner at Logan Tavern and the party at his friend’s house were the highlight of his trip. Granted the party included lots of great music and pigs-in-a-blanket and freshly baked cookies and brownies. So that was pretty close to the top of the list. No, for me the highlight of spending time with PB was devising a plan to get free wedding cake.

We went out for dessert and the bakery was offering wedding cake consultations. We assumed this meant free samples of cake. PB and I are always up for cake and free cake is among the best kind of cake. Our plan for the future: pretend we’re engaged, disagree about what kind of cake we want, and eat as many samples as we can. It’s not a complicated plan, but we feel it has great potential. Great potential for awkwardness and free cake. Now that is an almost unbeatable combination.