ch-ch-changes

settling back into the neighbourhood coffee shop, after being on the road for a couple of weeks (woo-hoo!) and sick in bed for a couple of days (doh!), reminds me that lots can change in a short period of time. oh, sure, some things stay the same: this no-whip hot chocolate still rocks (even in 35˚C heat), and Tumbleweed -- currently sporting the disturbingly popular white knee-high + brown sandal ensemble -- is still kicking around. but some other familiar things are noticeably different.

take the art on the back wall, for instance. whether featuring close-ups of peeved cockatoos or watercolours of trees on distant hillsides (*cue the violin*), the rotating artwork is consistently pretty. that's "pretty," as pronounced by a five-year-old girl who worships pink (the colour, not the "artist"). by contrast, this week's works are a series of distorted, abstract images. on the upside, perhaps they suggest that this clientèle isn't as mainstream as i'd thought! on the downside, nobody should quit their day job: this stuff's "pretty" ugly.

next: get a load of these Regulars! shouldn't they, by definition, remain unchanged? instead, they're over there behaving irregularly. for one, there are three of them here right now. (i've hardly seen even two in the coffee shop at the same time before. and, ps, would it have killed them to invite Professor FLQ and me to their little convention?) but far more notable is that each member of today's all-male cast has the same yellow short-sleeved golf shirt on. atypical, to be sure. plus, it's giving me painful flashbacks to a very bad date (not unlike an evening with the Snore Sisters...though with fewer opportunities to escape) with a guy whose own yellow golf shirt basically summed up his personality. (eek!) luckily, the shock of this "what not to wear" episode is tempered, albeit only slightly, by the fact that yellow is my favourite colour. (phew!)

finally, there is a definite shift in demographics: three mini-muscled, american eagle, swaggering twenty-year-olds have just descended upon the table next to me. ta-da! it's the coffee shop début of generation z! and -- oh, goodie! -- it's a double feature: a few minutes later, two of their female peers bounce in and over to the same spot. but the scene that follows proves more perplexing than entertaining:

Girl 1 giggles over to Boy 1, clearly signalling that they're "together" in some way. (Girl 2 looks on, mostly silent, occasionally giggling, and just a tad jealous...like any good sidekick.) B1's response -- some slapdash kiss -- indicates more or less the same togetherness. however, he's focused more on not looking like some kind of a "wuss" in front of his (awkward, chuckling) friends than on being sweet with G1. within moments, B1 and G1 have made vague plans to talk later on, and the Giggle Girls depart. as soon as the duo are out of sight, the trio morph into a 21st-century skater version of the wannabe boys from Madmen (aka Pete Campbell & co.): they begin roaring with laughter and, with broad smirks still in tow, rolling their eyes at G1 and taunting Pete.

as it turns out, Pete is totally uninterested in Giggles. as it also turns out, he can't let her in on this bit of information. why's he so tongue-tied? well, he's just in short supply of two round objects that would normally be found dangling loosely from his nether regions. ah, yes. unfortunately, current dating experiences of women of all ages keep pointing to a recurring phenomenon: that, regardless of the girl, many "grown" men are just as "mad" as young Pete. these are the cute/sweet/bright/down-to-earth/original thirty-one -- or forty-one or fifty-nine or seventy-six -- year-old guys who've spent three and a half weeks dating a woman, have initiated plans with her for two months down the road, and have then left for a work weekend in victoria, never to be heard from again. she's disappointed when it doesn't work out, i suppose. (though losing Mr. "Original" can hardly be considered a big deal.) but no notice? no short-and-sweet straight-talk? *sigh*

i guess, hot chocolate and Tumbleweed aren't the only things that endure the test of time, after all.

and now back to translating...

loonie bin

you know that busker-type who stands frozen on the sidewalk for what seem like eons and moves only after someone tosses a couple of loonies into the upside-down, gold-glitter-spraypainted top hat on the ground in front of him? well, imagine that, instead of one busker, there are two. and instead of standing in crisply held mime-shapes on the streetside, they're sitting face-to-face lethargic right next to you in a coffee shop. and instead of surprising you by mr. roboto-ing when you drop loonies into the hat (which, of course, doesn't actually exist in this scenario), they talk. and instead of enchanting you with their impressive stillness and concentration, they bore you stiff (causing you to begin inadvertently resembling the mid-freeze busker) with their debilitatingly dull topics of conversation. and, even though you've stopped throwing your "loonies" into the "hat" (truth be told, you've yet to throw even one because you'd never been all that interested to begin with), they always find something else to say (usually monotonously) after their long pauses, so you can never make it stop or make them go away.

well, this is pretty much what's happening here right now. these two 50+ sisters (i guess?) launch into something about how lipstick melts. (long pause. would-be loonie toss.) then, on to how chemicals break down the spandex in bathing suits. (pause. loonie.) later, it comes up that some mutual friend named Marla has lots of stuff. gripping. even their rants (so-called) are a snore: you know what i hate? kitchen stuff. (what that could possibly mean, i will never know.) or how about: you know flip flops? that thing between the toes? i can't wear those. they're not realistic for walking. on a scale of boring to BO-RING, this is a bazillion times worse than any bridgehead hot chocolate. i'm on the verge of falling into a very deep coma. and of gouging one of my own eyes out. possibly with a loonie.

forty-five minutes into the Snore Sisters' conversation, a glimmer of hope. Sister 1: do we need to get going? i mean, what time's our show at again? (oh, if ever there were a god...) but then, Sister 2: 7:30. current time: 5:45. oh, eff.

some time later, at the same table -- now occupied by a 20-something woman who's wearing her black Jackie O sunglasses indoors (which i understand about as well as i get "hating kitchen stuff") -- there's another freeze-busker moment. a 30-something man-on-a-mission enters the coffee shop and makes a beeline for Indoor Jackie. he kind of reminds me of the stapler guy (aka Milton) from office space, except thinner, with darker hair and less ridiculous eyewear. anyway, he stands behind the chair that's facing Jackie and remains there, completely still, mute and erect (no, not like that) for a solid sixty seconds. it's awkward. Jackie's very busy texting, and (reminder) she's wearing sunglasses. indoors. so, this whole time, she doesn't seem to see him. when her eagle eye finally does spot him, she throws a question (instead of a loonie) dryly his way: are you looking for someone? he doesn't even answer. instead, realizing Jackie's clearly not the blind date he's come here to meet up with, he does a 180˚ (like they do in the military) and takes a seat at a neighbouring table to wait for his real date. frozen again for an indefinite amount of time. until the next loonie drops.

and now back to translating...