Tag: coffee shop

The Lost Shoes Dream

I dreamed I was with a bunch of people. All were nice, and seemed like friends, although nobody was recognized from real life. Some kind of outdoor function, we were socializing after eating when a man arrived. He was identified as Colonel Campbell, stealth-aircraft fighter pilot.

All of us were impressed. Pilots are one category, fighters are another, and stealth is the bleeding edge techno. He sat at a table and we gathered around to eye him. Evening was on us so I decided it was time to leave.

A dream shift found me in a Starbucks coffee shop. Busy, the place was a labyrinth of rooms, all with white walls or stone walls. Some rooms were large, where dream catchers, turquoise and silver jewelry, and black feathers were on sale. Others were rooms with tables where people could sit, drink coffee, and chat. A few halls and bathrooms finished the setup.

I got a coffee and went through the rooms until I found a table. Dissatisfied with it because I thought it too noisy and busy, I moved to another table. I eyed people as I sipped coffee. The employees interested me the most. They were familiars in the dream although again no one known in RL.

Finishing my coffee, I decided to leave, but struggled to find the exit. Each room seemed to take me into another one. In one room, I found the Starbucks employees preparing to start a celebration. They fell silent and waited for me to leave before resuming their festivities. I heard several of them say something about me but I wasn’t sure what they said. It sounded like they liked me and wished more customers were like me.

But I’d gone on. Just as I thought I’d found the exit, I realized that I’d lost my shoes. I’d been wearing sandals, I remembered, and thought that I must have kicked them off to be more comfortable. Rushing about, I tried retracing my steps to find the table where I’d been. Dodging people was required, and I almost stepped in someone’s chocolate cake, jumping over it just in time. I also had to swivel to avoid knocking over children.

Eventually I came into a room where a man was sitting at a booth. People were whispering, he’s a pilot. I approached him and asked, what does he fly? What’s his name? I wasn’t certain it was Colonel Campbell.

He wouldn’t really answer me or look at me. Announcing, “I have to go,” he leaped out of the booth and then crouched down and duckwalked out, stopping to look at toys on the floor. Catching up with him, I asked if he was okay, as another man approached to check on him. I told the other man that who I though the man was. This explanation put a silly grin on Campbell’s face (I was pretty sure it was him by then). His eyes were glassy and he started acting flighty (sorry for the pun).

Still trying to find my shoes, I went into a bathroom. Seeing my reflection, I was stopped short by how my face had changed. I knew it was me but I didn’t recognize myself. My face was large and squared off, with a towering forehead. I speculated that the mirror was distorted but saw that everything else was properly reflected.

My final thought was that I’d done something to myself.

Dream end.

2

A Move Is Made

I was settled in and writing — but —

First came the cat, Tucker. The big black and white long-furred character kept muttering about something. Food? No. Not a desire to go outside into the cold wind, surely. Nope. Water? No, not water. Just give me attention, he suggested.

“Sorry, but I gotta write, buddy,” I told him. “I’ll brush you later, I promise.”

Tucker was like, okay, I understand. He jumped up on the desk, went to the hand holding the mouse, and went to work on it with his head as a huge volume of purrs rolled through the space. “I love you but that’s not conducive to writing, buddy,” I said, moving my hand and mouse away.

Well. He sat a while, considering my response before resigning himself to a nap on a stack of papers a foot away. Writing like crazy commenced again.

My wife arrived home from her exercise class about ten minutes later. Energy bubbled out in vocal expressions. Setting into her office space, she began playing videos on a high volume, laughing aloud at what she went, turning to him to say, “You should see — oh, sorry, never mind, you’re writing.”

After four of those interruptions, I needed to find a writing refuge. The laptop was tucked into the backpack, the winter coat and gloves donned. The real question was, what’s the destination? Ashland’s coffee shop scene had changed during the pandemic. Two favorites had joined my longtime haunt, The Beanery, on the rolls of places that used to be. A new place had opened, not conveniently located, but run by a person I knew who used to run one of my favorite coffee shops. Named Moxie, I’d try it.

I walked in. “Michael!” everyone inside shouted.

I started, embarrassed to be in the spotlight. The owner was behind the counter. “Michael was one of our favorite regulars at my other coffee shop,” she explained to everyone. I knew three of those people. The other six were smiling strangers.

Not a large space, Moxie had gone through a soft grand-opening as furniture and style is acquired and employed. It had key ingredients that I need in a coffee shop: a table with a plug. Coffee. A good vibe.

After catching up with people, I settled in with a double-shot mocha. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

0

A Coffee Shop Dream

A pleasant and sunny day had emerged. In shorts, I was out walking through some thin woods and arrived at a stone and wood building I knew. Pausing on some steps, I cleaned off my shoes. Cat hair was just coating them. As another couple — strangers — passed, I briefly attempted to explain to them that I was cleaning cat hair off my shoes — but why would it matter to them? Stopping, sitting down, I removed my shoes to better clean them. At last, I continued, in socks, shoes in hand, up into the building.

This was a cozy book store-coffee shop combo. I visited the book store section first. A white male with glasses was behind the counter. I told him I was looking for fiction books. He asked for more details. I then asked, “Do you have a McCall’s? It lists every fiction book ever written.” He went off in search of, then returned with a red book with white lettering.

I moved to the coffee shop. It was a tight place — large counter dominating one corner, a waste can and several small, round tables taking up the rest of maybe a twelve by twelve foot space — and busy. I took a tall chair between two male customers at the counter. The woman behind me was a pale, slender redhead. She said, “Everyone was here dancing last night, Michael. You should have come. You would’ve had a good time.”

I thought I recognized her. She knew me but I didn’t know her name. Stalling, I replied, “Who was everyone?” She began reciting names as I wondered what her name was. Then a large man threw the remains of a scone and hit me in the chest. He began a string of earnest apologies. I realized that he’d been trying to get the scone into the trash can behind me but it was so tight and crowded, he’d instead hit me. It bothered me not at all. I took the scone and turn to put it into the trash.

I struggled. The trash can was carved out of a thick and twisted tree trunk. Two holes were there. An upper one was for recycle and the lower was for the waste. I figured this out along with other people who were attempting to use the trash. We all talked it through out loud. Then, scone dropped in trash, the dream ended.

0

The Corner of Concentration

I was just settling into place, unpacking my laptop and stuff at the coffee shop corner community table. (Saint Seata had rewarded me again — thank you, Saint Seata. Now, if the muses will cooperate (yeah, they’re even required when editing and revising.)

A young woman approached. “Are you expecting someone else or saving these seats?”

“No, join me.” I indicate the rest of the table.

“Thank you. I like working at this table.” She’s unpacking her computer as she speaks. “I get a lot of work done here and it has a plug.”

Yeah, people call it a plug, but it’s an outlet, innit? Whatever; she’s young. I reply, “Yes, I notice that people who work in this corner tend to be focused. I call it the corner of concentration.”

“The corner of concentration, I like that,” she says with laughter. “You have a good vibe. I like it.” Before I can do anything more than smile, she says, “I’m a writer.”

“What are you writing?” I ask.

“A cookbook.”

“Oh, cool.”

“It’s for women and will have recipes for women to help them manage their energy for different situations.”

“Sounds like an interesting idea. Good luck.”

“Thanks. What’re you doing in the corner of concentration?”

“I’m a writer, too.”

“Oh, what do you write?”

“I’m working on a novel.”

“Is it fiction?”

Isn’t a novel by definition a work of fiction, I don’t say, because I’m non-confrontational and I don’t want to spoil my good vibe. “Yes.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s a speculative novel about life and memories.”

“Interesting. I think I want to write a novel someday.”

She goes off to get her coffee. I sit down, take my first sip, and settle in.

Time to write like crazy, one more time.

6

The Flirting

He approached the common table. Two young women were at one end. As they looked at him, he asked, “Do you mind if I occupy the other end?”

“No,” one said. Gesturing to a chair that was pulled out, she said, “Not at all. We already pulled out a chair for you.”

The other woman said, “We were just getting ready to go, anyway.”

Nodding as he began unpacking his gear, he said, “So you saw me coming, pulled out a chair, and prepared to go?”

Their laughter made him smile.

0

Sunday’s Theme Music

This song, “Goodbye Stranger”, arrived in the stream after watching people at the coffee shop and on the streets, and inadvertently eavesdropping (they speak, I have ears…it happens).

A woman regularly brings her dog into the coffee shop. She usually sits back by the community table, where I like to work when I can. Her dog is often a cause for conversations with others. So I’ve learned that her dog is a rescue from an animal hoarding situation, that she’s had to work with him, that his name is Atlas, that he does much better now, but that other dogs’ barking makes him nervous, that he is her service dog. I’ve learned others had dogs like him, or saved from similar situations. He’s often compared to a Ridgeback but he isn’t one, not a true Ridgeback, she says.

But I’ve never heard her name, or why she needs a service dog, nor why she is bald. She wears dark glasses, but she watches people, back from her space by the wall, with her service dog beside her…

I’ve decided that I don’t want coffee shop friendships. I’m there to work. Cruel of me, innit? So I keep myself to myself, but as I leave each time, I feel her eyes watch me, and imagine I turn my head and say, “Goodbye, stranger.”

But I don’t. It has caused the 1979 Supertramp song to find itself in my stream.

 

0

The Competition

I always interact with the Boulevard baristas. Intelligent, personable, charming, they seem to enjoy it as well. This isn’t limited to me; they interact with everyone. After all, they do get rewarded with tips. The interactions are about snippets from personal activities and lives but also about the drinks. They get serious about making the drinks, which serves me well, because I’m serious about drinking my coffee, especially my writing mochas.

As part of our daily rituals, I often admire their latte art. They typically fill my drink to the brim, forcing me to slurp some away before walking lest I spill some of it on the way back to the table, so I comment about its taste. They’ve come to wait for those comments, and some of them are competing to see who makes the best-tasting drink, and who has the best art.

I didn’t know how serious this had become until I made a comment to Meghan about three weeks ago. “I think your drink tastes the best,” I said, “but Lexi has the best art.”

Meghan responded, “I make your mocha different. I put the cocoa directly in the steamed milk at the bottom.” Chrissy stopped what she was doing and leaned in to listen. “And I add a lot of cocoa powder because I know how much you like it. I can make better art but I’m being lazy.”

That changed immediately. Her drinks started sporting more serious latte art – flowers, trees, and hearts. Lexi also heightened her efforts, along with Chrissy and Chelsea. Madi is still learning it, something we both acknowledge, and often covers her efforts up with extra cocoa powder (which I mind not at all). Sam, ironically an art student whose wonderful water colors are now on display in the coffee shop, is also still learning latte art. Allison, the owner, doesn’t try.

But Meghan raised her game the other day. After calling my drink out, she waited for me to pick it up. “Look at what I did. Do you see it?”

I looked into the cup and laughed; she’d spelled out my name above a daisy. “Wow,” I said. “You’ve upped your game.”

Eyes bright and smiling big, Meghan nodded. “I have upped my game. You have to tell Lexi that I upped my game. But don’t tell her how. I want her to have to ask me.”

To be continued, I think….

 

4

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