On Friday I caught up with some good friends over dinner. We live in two different towns, so we rendezvous-ed at a big shopping center halfway between them. The dining options were somewhat limited, and we picked a mass-market Asian fusion kind of place. The food was not unpleasant, but really sub-par as far as Asian food goes. I had a dish with tofu and broccoli, and the tofu was just as it would be if you opened a package of smooth tofu and cut it into pieces--bland and slippery, not crispy or flavorful like it often is at Chinese restaurants. The sauce was thin and not particularly flavorful either. Nevertheless, the whole experience was very pleasant because I was there with friends and the weather was great. We got to be silly just like we always are when we hang out, and we got to catch up on what's been going on in each other's lives. After dinner we had planned to see a movie, but nothing that was playing looked too good, so we just wandered through a bookstore instead. The evening was a prime example of the power of simple pleasures to bring joy.
