Clouds in my coffee

I never wanted to become one of those people who take pictures of their food.

However, sometimes, I become painfully aware of the transiency of life, and of lattés, in particular.

It's also a kind of Rorschach test. For example, what do you see here?

How about if I stir the coffee? (I admit it's a different coffee on a different day.)

I see a profile silhouette in the first, and a bird on a perch in the second. Not being a trained professional, I can't tell you if I'm deranged or not, although taking pictures of one's beverages is probably not a good sign...

Magic mushroom

In Victoria, weather forecasts are a wee bit less useful than in Hades, due to what I call "mushroom-cap clouds".

Not mushroom clouds. Now, that would be a real problem.

Yesterday, for example, I had walked into Cook Street Village to retrieve a parcel from the Post Office on a fresh and sunny morning. Having done so, I was standing on the sidewalk, juggling my parcel and bag, when I realized my phone was ringing. (One of my great Christmas blessings is a new FitBit which, because it's linked to my phone, vibrates when calls and texts come in. This is a great boon, because my winter coat is an effective phone muffler.)

Elder daughter was calling from Hades, having been blindsided by a work-related lapse in diplomacy on the part of her boss. I put my burdens on a bus stop bench, and when I realized she needed a lengthier vent, started trudging toward the coffee shop, only half-aware of how dark the skies had suddenly become.

It was one of those mushroom-cap clouds: broad, vaguely circular, brownish-grey. The rain drove me quickly into the patio of the Moka House - where a tall, elderly gentlemen, in his cohorts' uniform of leather jacket and jeans, dropped the door in my face.

With a bit of further juggling, I managed to re-open the door, held it open so two further men of a similar vintage could exit, then watched as oblivious elderly gentleman (perhaps "gentleman" is a misnomer) took one of the two remaining tables. I grabbed the other one, and sat to hear elder daughter out, discussing strategems and chatting about the impossibly girly baby shower she was to attend that afternoon.

Feelings soothed, I got my coffee and set out my work. Two tables away, two fellows sat down, got out their guitars and started playing. It was rather like a conversation between their instruments while the rest of us listened in. They leaned toward each other intently, improvising. I thought of Stéphane Grapelli, then stopped myself. No, he played violin.

Got out my phone, that amazing pocket-computer, and found Django Reinhardt.


Eventually, the staff got the hint and turned off the piped-in rock music. Outside, the sun shone once again on the shiny street.

A tall bassist arrived, unwrapping his instrument, which matched him in height, but it was time for me to go. I stopped by their table, and told them how much I enjoyed their music. One of the guitarists, his face suddenly youthful when not concentrating, grinned up at me: "Right on!"

I don't think I've heard "Right on!" in some time. Ah, Victoria....

The fellas at the next table

Two fellas at the next table are bullshitting about the Stones and the Beatles, the way they probably did forty or fifty years ago.  One guy's in cycling gear; the other is in a jean jacket and jeans - the Canadian tuxedo.  Short grey hair on both, well-groomed.

They don't really know that much about the Beatles.  They're saying Ringo was never that good a drummer, that old chestnut.

Oh yes.  I'm in Victoria.

I look out at a city I haven't seen outside of summer for seventeen years.  The Pacific moisture in air makes it feel colder than it is.  I thought I might not need my trusty Ottawa commuter coat, but I pull it around me -- and still feel the chill.

From the airplane, I saw mounds of white mist collecting in bays, caught between the Gulf Islands, spilling on to the land.  Like the foam in my cup.  (Clouds in my coffee?)

The aging adolescents across the way are now talking about their first cars. 

Some things don't change.

Java jive

At younger daughter's favourite Second Cup on Metcalfe Street, she retrieves her bright wallet out of the precious purse given to her by her godmother years ago - she won't part with it - and goes up to the counter to order for herself, checking carefully to see that I don't follow, but summoning me to check to see if she has the right amount.

After a diplomatic pause to allow her to pick up her order, I approach our favourite barista, and tell her we won't be back.

When I go to pay, she refuses my money.

"I admire you so much," she breathes.

Thank goodness she'll never know the truth.

All alone together

He's got one of those shaved-up-the-back-and-sides haircuts, with a lid of dark tousled hair tilting towards his forehead on top - the kind of haircut that will probably embarrass the hell out of him when he looks back on his selfies years from now.

He ferries things to his chosen table - laptop, expensive-looking leather backpack, iced coffee, wallet - all the time talking softly.  He's got earbuds in and continues his conversation, sometimes looking into the middle distance, sometimes rubbing the closed lid of his laptop with his fist, circling and scratching some imperfection.  He lifts the lid, closes it, lifts it again, talking all the while, turning his head to listen as if the person on the line were sitting in front of him.

When the conversation ends, he moves to the other side of the table to face out, rather as if his phantom partner has left, and the bench is now free.

Within seconds, he's speaking softly again, his hands hovering over, but never touching, the keyboard.

Fifteen years behind

Since last spring, I've been spending one the first hours of my morning in coffee shops. I'm fortunate to have four of them within walking distance -- it's a caffeinated sort of neighbourhood. As I scribble in my various notebooks, I half-listen to the piped-in music and every now and then, I hear something I like:

This is from 2001 - no one can accuse me of being up-to-date - and for once, I really like the accompanying video, which features a lot of lonely and distracted people, plus some fine hula-hooping.

Cafe society II

The micro-macro-economist-barista makes me what looks like a feather atop of my mocha latte.

He turns the cup and tells me, as I exclaim over the image: "Here's a trick. You can get a Dr Suess effect."

He dips the tip of his barista-coffee-stirring-tool (not a euphemism) into a dark edge near the rim and adds two eyes.

"There's a even a way to make this an elephant…"

But he squiggles chocolate syrup across it.
"Now I'm defacing it."
"But I know it's there," I say.
"It's the artistic ephemeral moment," he smiles.
I return his smile.
"Very Buddhist."

Cafe society

The barista (baristo?  he's a fella) is blending the steamed milk into my morning mocha.  It's like a Japanese tea ceremony, only with coffee.

"Is it extra tough working after a Saturday night?"  I ask, breaking the holy silence, which is not at all silent with the hiss of the milk-steamer.

"Well, I'm not up to much interesting on a Saturday night, so not really."

It turns out he studying two courses in economics, one micro and one macro - the economics, not the courses.

"Yes!" he smiles.  "Really exciting stuff."

"I used to love summer courses,"  I tell him.  "The students were always that more motivated, so I learned more."

"Well, these are online."

Of course they are.  This is the twenty-first century.

We affably discuss the pluses and minuses of online study.  He's definitely in favour of it.  For one thing, he explains, you can read the lectures in a fraction of the time that it would take the professor to say them.

"How economic!"  I laugh, and I saunter out into the Sunday sunshine with my decorated mocha.

The café of requirement

With younger daughter consistently coming home on her own for the past three weeks or so, I'm suddenly faced with the challenge of finding a new way to shape my day.  As time-consuming as the round-trip out to Bells Corners was, it got me out of the house.  So does walking the Accent Snob, but elder daughter needs to get out of the house too, so she's been seizing the midday stroll, leaving me the late afternoon one.

I've always found that getting a start on what writing I'm to do works better in a library or coffee shop.  The library is one kilometre up a hill and has rather irregular hours.  I can't always find a seat at our local Second Cup, the local Bridgehead is draughty and smells a little like a barn, and the SconeWitch has scones which are not a great idea for daily consumption -- not for me, anyway.

So this frosty morning, on a tip from the Resident Fan Boy, I strolled up Beechwood to try the Red Door.  It's been open about a year, but is easy to miss, you really have to be looking for it, like Hogwart's Room of Requirement. I managed to find it; it's a house with a large red door, oddly enough.

I walked in to find a rather small café with an unsurprisingly hipster vibe.  The coffee was very strong, the croissants flaky and I found a table at the back which was very comfortable for the most part, except when they took a series of deliveries through the back door.  An older couple with their granddaughter grimaced sympathetically as the cold air blasted past my table and helped me close the door until the young deliverymen tramped outside for the last time.

I wrote a bit, gazed out at the white-edge branches, and rather enjoyed the music they had piped in.  As I prepared to go I asked the girl if it was an album, but it was, of course, one of those computer mixes.  I said I'd particularly enjoyed a particular song and she obligingly punched a computer screen, wrote the artist and song title on a post-it note, and I happily headed home.

I gather they're very crowded at lunchtime with a daily soup and half a dozen variations on grilled cheese sandwiches, so early-ish in the morning would probably be best for me. I could do it on a rotation with the Second Cup, SconeWitch (a scone a week is unlikely to do much damage), and the barn.

This was the song.  Part of me probably recognized it, because I gather it's in the soundtrack of Shrek 2, another of younger daughter's favourites.

Name that tune

It's 4:15 in the afternoon, so the sun has nearly set and the relatively balmy afternoon that has hovered around 0○ Celsius with golden sunshine slanting off the melting snow suddenly plummets to a markedly cooler evening with the wet pavement whitening into ice.

Younger daughter has homework and thus has requested that we duck into our neighbourhood Second Cup for a consoling hot chocolate. All tables are in use, but a couple of armchairs are available. A dapper gentleman occupies the third, studying his laptop.

I get the warm drinks. As I carefully settle into the unaccustomed seat, I focus on the music playing in the background and search my daughter's face for signs of recognition.
"I don't know it, Mom,"
"You heard it last summer when we went to see Jersey Boys," I tell her.
"Oh, yea-ah!" She brightens. "Which song is this?"
"It's 'Sherry' by the Four Seasons, and the song before it was popular when I was your age."
She doesn't seem particularly keen to know, so we go back to sipping our drinks.

A lady standing by the pick-up counter is checking her cellphone and absently croons, "Sherry, won't you come out tonight?" I also detect a rather tuneless croak from the neighbouring armchair, but I may be imagining it.

Cradling my vanilla bean latte, I strain a little to hear the next song. Younger daughter excuses herself. Another tune begins, and I'm nodding my head to it, when the dapper gentleman smiles at me.
"I was about to ask you what this one is."
"It's the Traveling Wilburys. 'Last Night'.
"Really? You get a point, then."
"Yep. And the one before it was 'Wild Life' by the Talking Heads."
"Wow, you really know your music!"
"Well, certain eras. If you asked me about hip-hop…"
Or Lady Gaga, I think to myself. I could manage "Judas"...

The fella is packing up.
"I know this one," he says, rising and leaving.

It's "Eight Days a Week". Well, anyone would know that one.

Inveigling in Victoria

She's plump with red hair reverse-French-braided back from her temples which glow with tiny golden sparkles. Behind her, another barista, whose auburn locks hang down her back in gentle corkscrews, offers her opinion on my mullings over the possibility of a raspberry crostata. I seem to have stumbled into a Pre-Raphaelite Starbucks -- except that the Starbucks is across the street from this locally-owned coffee shop in one of the older neighbourhoods of Victoria. In a few minutes, these ginger sirens have talked me into heating the pastry and adding whipped cream blossoms. The girl with the twinkling temples fashions a three-dimensional rose atop my mocha. Tellingly, the design begins with a spiderweb. Heaven knows what they would have convinced me to do had I been a susceptible, heterosexual man of a certain age. Like, say, the Resident Fan Boy, who is a safe three time zones away.

I make my way to the patio where cheeky sparrows bob along the tops of empty chairs in search of breakfast.  I lay a Hansel-and-Gretel trail of shortbread crumbs along the top of the brick partition near my knee, to see how close they will come.

In single spies, then pairs and trios, they steal the crumbs farthest from me, fleeing at the approach of Saturday morning joggers and dog-walkers.  Several minutes later, one daring bird comes within inches of my elbow, but vanishes at the soft click of the camera shutter.

Bird brain.

Ironic, doncha think? (Write of passage number twenty-six)

Not all of my "writes of passage" take place on buses. This one doesn't:

One evening, I go down to the corner to buy hot chocolate mix from our local coffee shop. It's quite quiet, and since I'm the only person in line, I decide on the spur of the moment to also pick up some hot beverages for the Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter. I put my order in and go down to the end of the corner to wait for my drinks to be ready.

Wouldn't you know it, three people pick this moment to come in for coffee and there are only two baristas on duty. The girl is hastening to complete my order and find a tray so I can carry it home, while the boy fetches things. The first two following me seem pretty relaxed, but as I get ready to cart my drinks away, the third man is starting to fidget.

"I've been in coffee shops all over the city and it has never taken this long," he tells the barista at the expresso machine testily. He has stepped up close enough that I can spot the OC Transpo logo on his pullover.

"I've been waiting ten minutes; this is unacceptable."

I debate inwardly whether to point out that a) he hasn't been waiting anywhere near ten minutes and b) this is damned funny coming from an Ottawa bus driver, but I decide this won't help the barista and, being a non-driver, my chances of encountering this oblivious grouch on the transit system are excellent.

I depart into the night, balancing lattes and smothering a grin.