the verdict is in

three twentysomething teachers-in-training, chewing the early morning pedagogical fat:

guy: i'm more of a cat person myself. you know what's great about cats? (he asks this in a tone so sincere -- *cough* condescending -- that, for a brief moment, i wonder if he actually believes that his fellow educators might not have already encountered a cat at some point in their lives. or thought about what a cat is. or developed an awareness of how cats behave.) they're independent. they clean themselves. (one of the girls, with a little giggle: oooh, self-cleaning!) they do everything they need to "do" in a little box. basically, they're the perfect animal. this last statement is practically punctuated with a gavel hitting its sounding block.

given my admitted pet bias (aka my personal disdain for felines, on account of allergies to dander and impertinence -- atchoo!), i find myself thinking many things. but mostly: 1) i'm not sure how i feel about the fact that it's just a matter of time before this guy's educating a litter of young'uns (or maybe i am, for better or for worse, very sure about how i feel about that); and 2) he's surely single...maybe i should set him up with Little Miss Memo?

and now back to translating...

Mat(ters of the heart)

[march 19, 2014]

one of the baristas, who isn't working tonight, has just waltzed in -- excited -- with news for her colleagues: so, i'm on this date! (as in, at that very moment.) it's this guy i met at the lieutenant's pump the other day. wanna come join? (is that how first dates work now? y'bring your co-workers along for the ride?! *takes detailed notes*) i went into the date with zero expectations...but he's coooool!  to which one of the working baristas responds (subsequently receiving an affirmative reply): oh, this is the guy named Matt, right? but Matt's nowhere to be seen. (he's apparently next door at a pub, waiting for his date to reappear.)

this promptly reminds me of the first guy i fell in love with. i was fourteen. too young, i suppose, to know what love really is. and, as is often the case in the Department of Romantic Affairs (perhaps particularly when you're "too young [...] to know what love really is"), the feeling was not reciprocated. wa wa waaah. but i made a friend. and, while we were hardly best friends, a long-standing acquaintanceship emerged, involving regular razzing-and-banter and, on rarer occasions, the kinds of conversations that feel (and therefore end up being) "profoundly important." you know the ones: a mushroom cloud of adolescent epiphanies -- the stuff you'd be truly mortified (though surely also curious) to hear played back to you verbatim but that you now still thoroughly enjoy through the delightful fog of your selective memory, where the feelings associated with raw and riveting conversational communion remain fully intact. his name was also Mat (no second "t" in this case). well-liked, sincere, and sufficiently cheeky, he had a big laugh, tended to underestimate himself and, throughout our friendship, did wonders for my self-confidence. in other words: he, too, was coooool.

suddenly, a crash test dummies song begins to play. "afternoons and coffeespoons." i'd loathed this single when it was released in high school. (probably a knee-jerk reaction to my younger sister being such a fan.) in any case, that was long before i knew about the song's links to T.S. Eliot's 1920 poem -- which i (not unlike gadzillions of other people) quickly grew fond of:

[...]

For I have known them all already, known them all:

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

[...]

that was also long before the song was retroactively inserted (without my permission; possibly by my sister...) into an as-yet-unreleased musical tribute to my high school years and all the people in it. like Mat. who celebrates his birthday today. and who, a few years after graduation, just as he was glimpsing adulthood, was involved in a very bad car crash and, weeks later, died. now nowhere to be seen. 

then again...how should i presume? perhaps he's waiting next door, at the pub. or maybe he's right here, calmly tucked beneath the music from a farther room. 

and now back to translating...

[this entry is (also) dedicated to another Matt: the friend who wrapped up and mailed me a chuckle, a hot chocolate and a hug. all of which arrived this afternoon.]

when the cat hasn't got your tongue

the other day in the coffee shop, one member of a forty-to-fifty-something female trio gleefully shares: oh, you can never have too many cats!

(uh-oh. somebody didn't get the memo...)

and now back to translating...

haiku

i can feel it kick!

womb-deep intoxication.

hot liquid cocoa.

and now back to translating...

even if he says it to everyone

when the tall, sweet, leanly bicepped barista (who's also blessed with a touch of 'rugged' and a smidge of 'dim') pauses after taking your order so he can -- almost under his breath and through a coy smile -- say happy valentine's, blushing is not only inevitable; it is imperative.

and now back to translating...

like nails on a...

a coffee shop is a great place for many things:

• a first date
• a little work
• perusing the newspaper
• crossword puzzling
• people watching
• catching up with a small gaggle of friends
• pitstopping in the middle of a long road trip
• looking for a new job
• drafting a letter explaining why you're leaving your current job
• googling, for no particular reason
• writing the great canadian novel (or just pipedreaming about doing it)
• enjoying some outside-the-house time with your eighteen-month-old
• blogging
• a fiftieth date
• etc.

something unfolding behind me right now, however, reminds me that there are also things that a coffee shop is not well-suited for: clipping your finger nails. guh-ross. the repeated, piercing *SNAP* is...unpleasant, to put it gently. worse, though (particularly as i attempt to continue enjoying my hot chocolate), is thinking about where exactly the discarded nail bits are landing. pretty sure they're ending up in the basket-like hood of my sweatshirt. *sigh*

and now back to translating...

shocks

last sunday night, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck the waters some fifty kilometres off the more westerly side of the north coast of puerto rico. from the condo in san juan (located on the more easterly side of the island), we could feel it. right around midnight. the condo, perched way up on the 25th floor, swayed dramatically back and forth for many minutes, sending the thick vertical blinds -- hung like ginormous al dente linguine from the ceiling -- clashing against one another, despite the almost absent breeze. in that moment, my friend and i suddenly wished we were back home -- um, like, as soon as humanly or technologically possible: to the portal! -- in icy-cold canada, where, bearly (yeah, that's gonna warrant a chuckle soon) a week beforehand, a woman had sat in the coffee shop wearing an i'm-a-bear-or-a-cat-or-a-bearcat hat (*insert prescribed chuckle here*) to stay warm indoors. (actually, it was more of a cranial costume: a furry headpiece covering her forehead, hair, neck and upper back, and definitely flaunting animal ears.) in short: it was weird, but it was also that cold.

quakes aside, however, things here are more or less the same as back home.

i mean, sure, sure, the coffee shop on condado village's ashford avenue looks out on palm trees, is littered with FLAHrida-style accents (not to mention the associated lax attitude toward sun protection: leather-skins unite!) and bubbling with spanish, and sports significantly more bikinis than bear headwear. and sure, here, that cheese-infused delectable (over there, by the muffins) has a label in front of it that reads "local favorite," which admittedly makes my commonwealthed, let's-add-a-"u"-to-every-word eyes nearly bug out of my head: boyyoiiiingg!

but it's the same ole starbucks. the same (albeit pricier -- yeesh!) ole hot chocolate. the same ole perfect workspace for thesising. even some of the same ole tunes, including paris or amsterdam, mushaboom and (from the archives) hideout.

this musical blast of canadiana is a small example of how the most familiar things can double as the most shocking: who knew puerto rico was equally enamoured of Sarah Harmer! another such example was on monday, when a woman walked in through the door and, almost immediately (as in, before even lining up for her beverage), was hovering over one of my books, "multiculturalism within a bilingual framework." i instantly got a sneaky feeling that i somehow knew her. testing the waters, i soon piped up: feel free to look at it if you like. she was practically giddy: scooped up the book and started investigating its innards. a-ha! i thought (not unlike Sherlock Holmes might), and then asked (not unlike a phd student might): are you a student? (but, at this point, my question was largely rhetorical -- merely a way of sparking conversation with someone i knew i had some kind of affinity with.) sure enough, the truth emerged: not only is she also thesising (at the tail end of a phd in philosophy at syracuse) but she's also studying multiculturalism. something or other about the mingling of afro-carribean cultures (let's be honest: we never fully grasp someone else's research the first -- or tenth -- time we hear it explained). who knew that, on my self-directed writing retreat (deliberately intended to take me away from the office, away from colleagues, away from familiarity), san juan's tourist hub would serve up a new colleague, an academic conversation, and a business card!

and, now, glancing out the window, another surprise: the dog of the (seemingly) homeless man, who sits across from the marriott each day, is wearing fluorescent-pink nailpolish. well...it is and it isn't a surprise, since sometimes the most shocking things can also double as the most familiar: Fashion Pooch, She-Grizzly; tuh-MAY-toh, tuh-MAH-toh.

and now back to translating...