Wrapped in the snuggliest scarf I have, a soft pink cloud on loan from my grandmother, I stepped outside for the first time around 9 pm.Mr. A and I decided to get dessert and coffee at Cream, a hotspot in our future neighborhood.
He was getting over laryngitis and exhausted from sleeping two hours per night since Saturday. Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. And I was coughing and feeling generally run down because of this virus.
We ordered a chocolate cake to share, and driven by my latest compulsion, I thought I'd get a chai latte. Plus, it would soothe my throat. But would it be drinkable?
"Hi! Do you make your chai lattes with powder?" I asked.
"Yes we do."
"Do you have the regular chai black tea, too?"
"Yeah, I have that."
"So, do you think you could make a latte with that, instead of the powder?"
"Old school? Of course. You're one of the few diehards. Starbucks totally ruined chai lattes. People want them all sugary and milky. I can make you one. It's nice to see someone still remembers what they're like."
Sweet!!
The guy was quite tall, wearing black from head to toe, and once we got our drinks and sat down, Mr. A and I speculated about whether he had a PhD and in what. I suggested Russian studies, or nuclear physics, graduated in 1983. Instead of teaching or working for the CIA, he did the peace corps for three years and then hiked Mr. Whitney, and by the time he started looking for work, everything he'd learned was irrelevant.
(What a relief I'm studying something that's irrelevant, all the time.)
But we didn't talk long... a few seconds after the cake disappeared, Mr. A was asleep, and I needed to rest my vocal chords.
Gained: an old school latte. A potential hang out close to my future house. This was no monumental asking, but there's only so much I can dream about or aspire toward when all I really want to do is sleep and get this cold out of my system...
Since the obvious picture for this post would be Cream cafe or a drink, here's something else. I am opening the New Yorker to page 3, since it's 1:03, looking at word 17, for Dec 17, and posting the first picture I find on google images of that word. Ready?
Damn! Page 3 was an advertisement. Mary J Blige and her citi card. And... it's not on google images!?
Ok, now it's 1:06.Try page 6. Same thing.
"George."
