where is the love?

a good friend regularly reminds me that it's good to make changes now and then. like switching up your morning routine: maybe starting with the other leg when you put your pants on. or taking a new route to work: say, going through -- instead of around -- the experimental farm. and, indeed, you find you pay closer attention to your habits (sleeping on this side of the bed feels so weird...) and surroundings (whoa, nelly! has that house on island park drive always been yellow?).

so, over the past week or so, for good measure, i've been introducing some small-scale changes: plugging lane swims and modern dance (back) into the weekly schedule; periodically drinking black tea or lemonade, instead of only hot chocolate; and, now, testing out a new coffee shop.

what's great about this spot -- located smack dab in the heart of downtown ottawa, among the bustle (well, it's really more of a drone) of nine-to-fiving public servants -- is the music: a string of omaha and wanna be startin' somethin' and brandy alexander. with every loop back to august and everything after -- aka my grade-eleven soundtrack -- i feel increasingly in the groove (which, incidentally, is no small miracle lately).

and yet something significant is missing. the staff manages the cash transaction just fine, and their delivery of the goods is in check. but their howareyoutodays are completely vacant. what?! where is the love? perhaps it's been sucked from their very souls, by virtue of the hours they've spent having bureaucrats bark eleven-adjectives-long orders at them (gimme a no-whip, extra-foam, super-skinny, soy XYZ with a double shot of ABC, lots of DEF, and, um, do you have something that will remove the wrinkles from my left knee? 'cause i'll take three shots of that) while carrying on with their fellow chatty-cathy suits.

there's no doubt about it. the love i'm looking for is right where i left it: at the other end of this long street, back home at my usual neighbourhood coffee shop. where they have extra whip cream and all the wrinkles a left knee warrants. and where the faces of baristas, regulars and newbies alike are not just very familiar; they're friendly and funny and frank.

so my friend's right (as he usually is). these changes are good. in this case, not because i necessarily expect to warm up to this new place. (some things are just too hard. and i'm not ready yet.) but because it makes me realize how spoiled i've been back home. and, what can i say: that's a good feeling.

and now back to translating...