Coffee-breathed greetings to you from barista-land, where I’m working seven (seven?) days of 10-hour shifts to prepare for my month holiday. I’ve just returned from a short trip out to Lakeland, Florida, where the Spirit of God has been walking through the room a great deal. As I process that enormously encouraging trip, I will tell you stories from the espresso cup.

Our birdies have finally been born.

The love birds at the entrance gate have successfully hatched their eggs without dropping yet another to an early demise. (We think they’d dropped nine.) Every other one of our morning regulars walks in and oohs and ahhs their parental congratulations towards the lofted nest.

The cast of characters are alive and well. We’re all here.

First we have the strange snakey lawyer who orders a medium Kona blend. He is surely old enough to my grandfather, and in keeping with his age sometimes refuses to button down his suit collars. (“I’d rather use scotch tape. I’m just defiant like that.”) He has some of the worst lines I’ve heard in awhile.

“You know honey, I make a horrible mate, but I’m a great date.”

Mercy, old man. (It gets worse.)

“Hey Miss, could you come over here and tape down my collars?”

Then we have the smiley three-shot Latte lawyer who never wears the same arty tie twice. Most notably, though, he is a card-carrying UFO specialist. We’ve seen the card. It is legit. Quite professionally laminated.

This morning a nice parakeet showed up, too. Friendly little guy. But I’m sure that its presence means that right now there’s a four year old named Lucy crying into her pink ruffled pillow somewhere in South Pas. Mama shouldn’t have kept her windows open. But Lucy, it’s so hot in Pasadena and we can’t be bothered with air con.

(Parakeet photo by Lip Kee)

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