Tag: coffee house

Satyrdaz Wandering Thoughts

While going to the coffee shop, I often pass a cemetery. Not surprising as Ashland has three.

This one is the original. Located just off East Main Street, it sits beside some of the town’s oldest neighborhoods, including the Railroad District.

I often glance at the cemetery while driving by, looking for deer. Deer often visit the cemetery, grazing and digesting between grave markers.

A few weeks ago, I noticed teenagers gathering in the cemetery. Once was a curiosity, twice was a surprise, three times is a trend. They did this for several weeks, regardless of sunshine, freezing fall, or rain and drizzle.

We’re not addressing a few teens; usually ten to eighteen gather, typically a few minutes after eleven AM. I wonder, what’s going on there, and at what grave are they gathering?

Here’s the kicker, though. School is out for the winter break. The children are not gathering. Instead, that same gravestone was host to five deer. I kid you not.

I really need to stop by and see the name on that grave.

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Mundaz Wandering Thoughts

I park the car and head up the street towards the coffee house. As it happens on other days, four more people are making the same trek. We all share an urgency and focus to our movement. I think again, we’re like ants going toward a piece of food, and amuse myself again, thinking, coffee ants. I can almost picture the others with waving antennae…

Coffee ants. Coffants.

Brewants?

Espressants?

6

The Writing Moment

It goes well, satisfying, at the new (for me) coffee writing haunt. Actually, this is a return to this particular haunt, RoCo, which used to be formally known as Roasting Company. They’ve changed the inside tables, making better use of space. They’ve also changed their small parking lot into an additional outdoor seating area, with tables and chairs under black netting. It’s better than I’m describing it. Besides those two areas, seating is available on front and side porches. The side porch features a fire pit and makes it cozy. The place reeks with sociable, companionable, inviting vibes.

My third day back here last week, I noticed the woman beside me was editing a typed manuscript. She struck up conversation about the weather because I’d just come in and she was preparing to leave. It came out that she’s a local cozy mystery writer. Published her first last year and was working on her editor’s feedback for the second. We’ve exchanged names and greet one another regularly since. She introduced me to her husband, who directs the local Peace Choir. Several friends sing in it, and I’ve attended dozens of their concerts. Six degrees, you know?

Another time, as I was sitting and writing, I noticed several others basically doing the same on their laptops. Today featured a conversation beside me between a man and woman. They were discussing a curriculum for a theater class. Included topics that I overheard were screenwriting and directing. Sounds fun, I thought.

So RoCo has good writing vibes, IMO. I’ve written about forty pages since coming here, and edited more. What I thought was the novel’s end, wasn’t. And the coffee works for me. Staff is friendly and professional.

Think I’ll keep coming here, as long as they’re here and will have me.

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Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts

I witnessed a coffee house conversation that threatened to escalate into violence.

It was a mildly busy day as people gathered and socialized with pleasant autumn weather outside. Many were bent over phones, laptops, or notebooks.

One table hosted an octet of chatting women not far from me. Their age hovered around my own, which is to say sixty to seventy-five years young. They were mostly laughing and talking about books. Somehow their conversation rolled into the important question everyone wants to know, “How much paste should you put on your toothbrush?”

I haven’t read any books on the subject, and I didn’t study it in school, but I agreed with one brunette woman. She said, “Oh, I read that you just need a dab. Especially with an electric toothbrush.”

“No, no, no,” a red-haired woman erupted. “That is wrong. You need to cover the bristles from end to end with paste.”

Coffee shop conversations dropped off a cliff. Focus went to the table of women.

Other women at the table started disagreeing with paste woman. You’d think they were assaulting her grand toddler from her reaction. Voice rising into a screech, she declared, “No! No!” It was like she was channeling Khruschev addressing the United Nations. “The paste must be on all of the bristles! Anything else is wrong!”

I expected a duel to erupt. Pistols at twenty feet on the sunlit sidewalk outside.

Maybe she’d had too much caffeine. Maybe she didn’t have enough. The other women, wide-eyed with alarm, were backing down fast, trying to placate the redhead before she whipped out a sword to defend her toothpaste position.

Thank God they weren’t discussing politics.

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Wednesday’s Wandering Thoughts

The barista yesterday asked, “How’s it going?”

“Going well, thanks. You?”

“I’m looking forward to lunch. I have leftover mashed potatoes and chicken.”

“Ah, comfort food,” I responded.

She grinned. “Exactly!”

Well, you can imagine what I ended up having for dinner: mashed potatoes, chicken, and brussies. Comfort food.

Right on.

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Wednesday’s Wandering Thoughts

He was busy typing at the coffee shop when a young woman approached. He’d been observing her as part of everyone in his orbit, just tracking people and their behavior, wary of anyone becoming a threat. Call it habit or training, it remained as a leftover from his military career.

“Excuse me,” she said, “but I have what probably will sound like a strange question.”

“Why are you bothering me?” he bellowed. No, not really; instead, he said, still typing, “Yes?”

“I need to go back out to my car because I forgot something, but I want to save this table.”

“So?” he roared. “What’s this to do with me, you puny human?” But he didn’t do that. He just tilted his head and typed.

“So I was wondering if I might borrow your hat to put on this table to save it.”

“How dare you disturb me with such insolence. No, you may not have my hat,” he retorted. “Don’t touch it.”

In reality, he kept typing, nodded once, and answered, “Yes, go ahead.”

He was still typing when she returned ten minutes later. Moving his hat from the saved table to his location, she said, “Thank you.”

Continuing to type, he replied, “You’re welcome.”

Then she went off to a different table.

He stopped table and watched, wondering, why did she change tables?

Was it something he said?

3

Monday’s Wandering Thought

I’m a regular at one coffee house in town. There are other regulars but I’m told that I’m one of the most consistent and dependable. I spend a few hours a day in there, drinking my favorite black brew while sitting in the corner, writing.

The baristas and manager all know me just because I’ve been coming here so long, and we chat when I’m ordering. We talk about football, politics, books, news, movies, etc. They know my drink — it’s always the same — so ordering is not necessary, though paying is. It isn’t unusual for them to hand me my drink when I step up to order.

I suppose this is why one small but touching practice has evolved. For whatever reasons — miscommunication or mistake — they’ll end up with food that the customer they made it for doesn’t want it. This includes pastries, cookies, brownies, cake, and sandwiches. So often, they walk across the crowded room to offer it to me first.

I am touched but usually turn it down. I have more than enough to eat. While I appreciate it, I think there are others who would appreciate, enjoy, and need it more than me. And, when I turn it down, they do find another who wants it.

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Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts

The ceiling fans are still. Baristas behind the counter are quiet. Low-key. Not like them.

The coffee house is a third full. Music plays. People chat and work phones and laptops, sipping beverages, nibbling treats. But a feeling rolls through. Something is off. Different. Like the building is waiting to inhale.

Maybe it’s not them or the building. Perhaps it’s only him.

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The Purse

She sat at a coffee shop table a dozen feet away, alone, attractive, maybe thirty, so he watched, a voyeur.

She probably knew but didn’t look. Setting her small black purse down, she opened it and took out a phone. An Apple laptop followed.

He gawked. Purse that small, little circular thing with a gold chain, couldn’t hold anything that big. That purse was like a TARDIS.

She drew out a power cord. A hardback book followed. Bottle of water.

No way, he told himself, no way. All that stuff from that purse wasn’t possible, and yet, he knew what he saw.

Looking up, she gazed at him with electric blue eyes and smiled.

Like she knew exactly what he was thinking.

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Thursday’s Wandering Thought

The standard coffee house greeting is, “Hi, what can I git ya?” It’s said so often but after a bit, it slides under the cover of other sounds as his mind fixates on his writing.

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