I'd like you to meet my new friend, Greg.

I'm back on the West Coast, Internet, and I don't know how I feel about it. Actually, that's a lie - I do know how I feel about it. I feel a little bummed. It was a good trip and a much needed break from real life. I wish it could have lasted longer.

But, here I am. 10:57pm on New Year's Eve, cuddled up in bed, blogging. That's how I ring in the new year. I'm a regular party animal.

I thought about writing a Christmas recap (complete with pictures and all the details I know you've been dying to hear) for my last post of 2008 but decided to do something a little better. I'm going with a story. Sort of a combination of my favorite type of posts - "Conversation of the Day" and "On the bus today...".

Except this conversation wasn't on the bus. It was in a restaurant.

And it wasn't short and sweet, like most are. It went on and on. And on.

On the evening of my first full day in Michigan, my parents and I did a little shopping and had dinner at the Beale Street Smokehouse - a small restaurant tucked away on a side street and attached to a gas station.

Sounds shady. Looks a little shady. Totally legit.

I'm a sucker for a pulled pork sandwich. In a perfect world I would eat one every day. And after we left that night I couldn't stop thinking about the one I had just eaten. I kept saying, "Man, that was so good!" the whole way home. And for days after. So it was decided that we would eat there again before I left town.

A week later we hit up Beale Street again. We had no idea what was in store for us.

We sat at a table near the "bar" (three or four stools at the short counter). I was facing it, my parents sitting on either side of me at the square table. As we settled in I noticed the man at the bar watching us. I tried not to notice until he said, "You know, I'm watching you guys....I'm watching you guys, here together as a family...with love...and I just wish I had that growing up."

Awkward? Most definitely.

He talked at us (I can't really call it a conversation) from the moment we sat down until we got our food. It was so uncomfortable. He fancies himself as a people-reader and shared with us several things:

• I need to appreciate what I have. (He repeated this five or six times.) He wished he had what I have when he was growing up.
• I look like my Mom.
• I look like both of my parents.
  
• I'm a New York City girl. I don't belong on the West Coast.
• My dad is less expressive (I wonder how he guessed that? Maybe by the fact that he stared at his menu and didn't look at Greg for the first half of the conversation.) and that my Mom is more talkative.
• My dad was either an educator or a psychologist. He was totally thrown when we told him the truth.
  
• My dad is a people-person. (This is where my dad told him that he hates people. That shut him up for about 3 seconds.)
  
• My parents have independent children. And they gave us the strength to be independent, which is the most important gift you can give a child.
• I look just like my Dad.
• Back in the day, the city my parents grew up in was full of "corn fed" people. Farmers. Or not.
  
• I love my Dad. (He repeated this seven or eight times.)
• "I'm just going to say one more thing...she loves you, man. She loves you."

I thought the man was never going to stop talking and I was nervously waiting for the moment when my dad would snap and tell Greg to shut up. Surprisingly, that moment never came. Our waiter just stood back, like he didn't want to interrupt the great moment we were all sharing. I finally had to give him the eye so he would come and take our order.

Needless to say, my food wasn't as enjoyable as the first night. There's something about being stared at while you eat that puts a damper on the experience.

But hey, at least now I know that NYC is where I belong.