Parknic: A Picnic in the Park

Last week I had a brilliant beyond brilliant idea. Most of the people I eat with at work all bring their lunches and eat it in the NRA Cafe downstairs. I go through phases of bringing my lunch, going out, or working right through, but I have been boycotting the cafe lately because, well, it's a dungeon. Okay, part of it has to do with just wanting to get away from the building all day and eating downstairs makes me feel like I have been cooped up all day long, but mostly it is just freezing and I can't enjoy a meal if my teeth are chattering.

Anyway, on to my brilliant idea. I would put blankets in the back of my car and then whenever it was sunny out we could all just take our bag lunches to the park to eat! This entire week is supposed to be gorgeous, so today we all planned to head to a park fellow lunch-mate Holmes had scoped out for us beforehand that was only a stone's throw away from work. But sometimes plans swerve in new directions and for a moment there, I thought it might just end up being me and Holmes (and for a moment before, I thought it might just end up being me). I swore to him I wasn't trying to make it a romantic lunch for two- but within minutes of setting up camp on the lush-green fields, everyone else started rolling in to enjoy the sunshine.

Speaking of Mike K. Holmes- we have a guest blogger today! After lunch today I got an email from him recapping the first Parknic Lunch in narrative form...

There was a Tuesday morning… and everything felt like it was the day after Monday, a long Monday. The usual group was at its wit’s end. Amber, our humble protagonist, was having a particularly difficult morning, not that anyone could actually tell due to her usually chipper countenance, but difficult nonetheless. The only one truly able to notice was her iMac, but let’s face it… the lack of opinion and inanimateness makes it fairly useless in this scenario.

She enlisted the help [I told him I needed help snapping out of a bad mood] of a guy with the middle initial of K, but his writer’s block would not let him get past the picture of the mountain goat hanging on his calendar. 

Yet, in this day of frustration there was a glimmer of hope, a journey to the land of Kutner [Park]. A small oasis in Fairfax. The protagonist bravely surveyed the land to make sure no other people had come off the road and set up camp (gotta be wary of cannibals [a witty reference to the novel we read in our two-person book club- "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy). 

Eventually, the guy with the middle initial of K, also known by some as Holmes, arrived. He was just as impressed with the land as our protagonist Amber, but both were concerned that the rest of the crew would not arrive safely. We were well armed, hoisting a giant yellow club with a projectile [the always fear-inducing wiffle ball and bat] just in case we ran into trouble. We also had two safety blankets with the hopes that it would be enough for everyone. 

However, not everyone was as prepared. Person with the first initial of K, also known as Kara, arrived without a safety blanket, but merely a towel. Luckily, we had some room to spare. Eventually more and more travelers arrived filling out the blankets to the brim. It was tight, but it made due. 

Unfortunately, it was not safe to stay too long. Around 1:00 the area gets relatively dangerous [and our lunch hour is up], so we had to pick up and travel once again.

The group dispersed and I’m not quite sure how anything resolved. Yes, it is unfortunate that the narrator does not know how it ends, but that always allows for a second or third, or at least an anti-climactic cliff hanger...

The End?

If I was in a bad mood before, I wasn't anymore. The Parknic Lunch was just the pick-me-up I needed, and the narrative recap was icing on the cake. 

I have a sneaky suspicion that lunch in the park might just be a reoccurring getaway destination!