Refreshing Coffee

It's lab day.  I made an early appointment for which I went NPO, generally feeling worn and coffee deprived but mostly OK.  En route to the lab, I considered whether I should follow with breakfast at a diner I wanted to try or go to a place just for coffee.  The session went flawlessly, other than inability to provide the urine they needed at the time, so I took the cup and headed to the Brew HaHa.  It being a little chilly I preferred to purchase it for indoors consumption but they are not yet offering that so I just left.  While there is a restaurant that serves breakfast across the street, one that seemed open and always provided me a decent breakfast on past visits, I opted just to head home.  Egg over easy on pumpernickel came out well but on a cramped table surface I knocked the hot coffee, almost the entire cup, onto my right leg and environs.  After wiping with a paper towel, I just went upstairs, changed pants, and rested a bit.  When able to make urine, I filled the cup, dressed into a warmer shirt, and delivered it to the lab.  Then off to Panera which I know was open with indoor options.

Their coffee options had changed, price largely as I remembered it.  Ample tables available with Covid-19 compliance.  One 20 oz. paper cup later, Colombian dark roast supplemented with a packet of brown sugar and a splash of almond milk, I picked a table isolated against a wall.  I had taken some paper and a pen, intending to jot some notes, but on reaching into the pocket of my replacement jeans, I had not transferred the pen, so back to surfing my cell phone.

By mid-morning, dressed a little more warmly with a jacket, I then headed outside for the last 3/4 of my coffee purchase.  Good decision.  While my view included mainly the parking lot, the rest of the ambience supplied what I needed. No paper, no cell phone.  Had this been on a city sidewalk I would have done people watching much like Rick Steves likes to do when he sips a beverage from a café on his European travel shows.  I could focus on the coffee, now optimally cooled to allow larger sips without guzzling it.  Just a few sips at a time, relaxed in a chair at an outdoors table with nobody else around.  Like I would have done on vacation.  As good a reminder as any that I need a vacation, or at the very least a comparable café to sip coffee

someplace else.