“…on my stereo…”
The lyric, and I might have it wrong, is from Dale Watson’s Trucking Sessions.
The gentle, ever-present patter of raindrops kept beating a tattoo, not unlike “reveille” on the roof, yesterday morning. The gray sky with water falling left me restless and irritable, but I was bound and determined to wear shorts and sandals even if I froze. Which I didn’t.
I hit the road early, working my way through the rain, up to the old Ruta Maya and the post office, and from there, I crossed on over to a bus line that popped me right on into the other office. I was a little early, but after a despondent feeling few days, I needed some kind of a lift.
I dealt with rain, rain issues, leaky toilets all day long. Nothing exciting, except for coffee.
For some reason, that first big cup of coffee at the place, which used to be Ruta Maya, was some of the finest tasting coffee I’ve ever had. Maybe it was the dreary rain, maybe it was the fact that I was wearing shorts and sandals, maybe it was the way the rain would bounce off the ball cap I was wearing and dripped right onto the end of my nose. Maybe my pallet was cleansed. Could very well have been the fact that it was the first good coffee day in a long time.
Whatever.
A few hours later, as I was cutting back through downtown, I stopped off at the Hideout for a homeward-bound cup of brew. I challenged the Virgo making the coffee with that first cup, a few hours earlier, and that lead to a discussion about my T-shirt [“Grinder’s Coffee: Life’s too short for bad coffee”>, the merit of a long-draw espresso versus a short-draw espresso, and she wasn’t sure she was up to it.
Poor Virgo barista.
It was good, but it wasn’t quite up to that first one of the day. I think it was the rain, as much as anything. The barista did note that that for the last three times she’s seen me in her place of employment, I was wearing a different shirt each time, and each time the shirt had something to do with coffee.
“Raven’s Brew: served in bed, strong enough to wake the dead.”
Looking at the local, state, national and international news is just too depressing these days. At least we have some serious mud-slinging politics going on now. Politics in Texas are best regarded as a blood sport.
I’m sticking to sampling coffee, much better place to be.
