2:00 Friday afternoon

Sitting at the Coffee Shop

Written at 2:00 Friday afternoon.

I decided to come out here since I hadn’t gotten out of the house yet today. I slept poorly last night, the usual sore stomach plus some. I haven’t slept well for a few nights, maybe its time to use one of Dr’s magic pills. Often, I use the pills once, and then I’ll sleep normally thereafter. In any event, I felt pretty crummy this morning. It was the first time I remember not finding the energy to get up before Kathleen left for work. I had vivid dreams while I slept in this morning. I dreamt Blue Funk wanted hire me back half-time, but I was too tired to get out of bed and get to work. I finally got up, but then the dream was over. I still felt crummy, so I moped around for the rest of the morning. At about 11:00, one of our sprinkler pumps started spraying like Buckingham Fountain. I reset the sprinkler timer so that pump won’t be activated, and left a message with Dave, our mow and blow and sprinkler guy. He hasn’t called back yet.

That, pathetic as it may be, is my life so far today. After this moment, I will go to the grocery and buy London broil on sale and some taters to cook on the grill, so we can have meat and potatoes around for a few days.

So far, no one is responding to my feeble efforts to contact the world of work. Ah, another day of reprieve from the stresses of the world of employment.

Seated at a table near me are two talkative fat women with high voices and inane dialogue. Think huge talking white fish wearing shorts and matching tops. They are bitching about the lousy service at some hotel they visited. Something about dirty rooms and massage service not being timely. I’d kill myself and a bus full of kids before I’d want to give one of those cows a massage! The fatter of the two just said she’d like to be able to get TV on her PC, you know, for important things like September 11 and the Simpson trial. I am at risk of succumbing to the intense exposure to stupid radiation. I need to move operations inside.

Back indoors, I left the dirty hotel ladies out on the terrace. I was hoping this place has the New and Review (SNR), Sacramento’s weekly newspaper, but I don’t see it. One of my math students is a high school Junior from Redding. Her parents just moved to a suburb so white and conservative, I have never even seen a Mexican there. She likes indie music, which certainly isn’t found anywhere in the suburbs. Sacramento’s far suburbs are about the most boring suburbs I have ever seen in my life. Nothing but square miles of houses with box stores on the big intersections. I was hoping I could find SNR for her, since it’s full of ads for indie stores, which are almost all in Midtown or downtown. Alas, I am sure she’ll figure it out on her own, or she’ll spend the rest of her life in Rocklin watching TV and amassing debt, as is they way of her suburb and its moneyed hillbilly residents.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.