“A moment unfolds differently because someone arrives five minutes earlier than expected.”

As the 'Queen of the last minute', she had ten minutes to finish getting ready before her friends came over for dinner. In those ten minutes, she had to set the table, shower, pick an outfit, dab on some makeup and finish cooking dinner. With six minutes to go, she jumped in the shower, leaving the rice on the stovetop. The doorbell rings five minutes early! She makes a mad dash to get dressed. In rushing, she slips on the floor and rolls her ankle. Friends are knocking on the front door, checking if she is okay. The front door is locked, so they can't get in to help. By the time she manages to get up from the floor and make herself presentable, the rice is boiling over on the stovetop and the gas flame is flaring. A kitchen fire was not on the menu for tonight's dinner. Luckily, there is wine in the fridge!

No one. Absolutely no one aat this place. I was told 8:00pm sharp and the room is completely empty. See we're mant to be having a work get together tonight. But all I'm standing in is an empty banquet room with a massive lazy susan. God I'm hungry. I could really do with a loaded lazy susan right now actually. I'm sure they'll turn up , well at least I think they will? They've never stood me up before. Maybe I got the wrong place? Amy takes our her cell phone and frantically scrolls back threough months of emails until she finds the reservation that her boss George made. Right, okay. I got it wrong. Not only wrong time, wrong date, wrong place.

I steo out side of the restaurant, Huagngs Dynasty, and into the sstreet. NYC is hot as all hell at this time of year and especially this August. I contemplate hailing a cab and heading back home. But like, I'm out right now? I'm dressed? I haven't been out in so long! And boy does NYC feel alive on this Friday night. I look over near the arch and people are dunking themselves into the fountain water. I mean, gross, but still, I could go a dunk right now. Maybe that's what I kneed. A proverbial dunk, but a dunk into this city!

Off to haven bar I go. It's only a few blocks from here . I check my phone to see if anyone else made the stupid miustake that I did. I mean, maybe they're trying to walk as fast as I am from that place for fear of being embarressed. No idea how I got that date wrong. But off to Haven I go. I am dying for a pineapple martini . An odd combination I know, but still, on a hot night like tonight, its that or a bunch of frozen margaritas. Hey. Why not both?

I arrive at Haven and Andrew is minding the door. "Wassup Amty? How we doing tonight:?" I don't want to tell him, but I could have actually done with some of that Dynasty fried rice in this belly before a Pineapple Martini. "Yeah, not bad Andrew. Pretty sure I must have been hit over the head by someone picking up a bus and whacking it over my head though. I'm not with it this week so it seems?" Amt I said. "Yeah, well , You're in thr right place Amy, NYC, who's actually with it with all this crazy stuff going on right now?" "True that, thanks for making me feel not like an idiot."

I step in, the airconditioning hits me as if I just had come out of the shower and into bliss. My skin sweaty from the hike over, now feeling dry and replenished with love. I lean over the dimly lit bar and grab a menu. Like I need one, but still. Nothing new. Haven has been here for 25 years now and I doubt much has changed apart from the health of its clientele. I put the menu down, turn my head to wards back the door, and there he is. No. Fucking. Way. George....