My Last Monday.

it was your typical sort of monday - relaxed. everyone likes to ease into their work weeks, and everyone is very serious on mondays, as if it's the most important of all days for getting things done - the prime day of the rat race of the working world, from what i've observed, at least. business suits are pressed, collars neatly folded, briefcases held with such an air of importance.

i've spend every monday for the past year making cappuccinos and trying hard not to spill soup or drop stacks of dirty dishes. i've spent every monday pouring dark roast coffee to the woodshop men, and conversing with P about her Middle Eastern/Islamic studies, and she recently told me that she's thinking about moving away, and I think she's grown more lonely; A got her usual large iced tea, and L got his usual salad, and between all of these people, I have started to wonder about the nature of routine - why we stick to the same thing every day, why we are so inclined to order the same sandwich each day from the same place at the same hour, why we are so opposed to changes, or left to feel as though we are floundering around in the middle of the ocean when our favorite coffee flavor has run out.

yet, i do appreciate the routine same old same old. it allows me to think about other things as I swipe their credit cards.

as always, M got his chocolate chip cookie, no bag; B got her French roast coffee and chatted aimlessly to mostly herself about the recent water contamination in Boston; D came in and had his five shot latte with skim, and he asked me how i have been, and he seemed very troubled.

i performed my usual routine of staring longingly out the windows, pretending to clean things i'd already cleaned so as not to be yelled at by C, and had my break on the back porch with my black iced coffee.

black coffee. there is something so fresh and so real tasting about plain, black coffee, especially over ice. it's bitter and raw and real. as real and close to the original as can be.

these cafe mondays - the man with the root beer and chips, the women & their 'stitch and bitch' group and their piles of beautiful yarns in the sunlight, the peaceful solitude of empty chairs, pushed in neatly and waiting to be filled, the railroad man and his toasted muffins - were all so good to me, so colorful, so comfortable, so steady and predictable and sure. i will miss them.



on a lighter note, the walk-in freezer broke today.
so long, cafe mondays.