As for the barista, who served me my coffee but was cleaning up near the window when he said that, I think he was partaking of a little people-watching as a particularly attractive young woman walked by.
I sent my students a somewhat nasty or potentially snarky email early in the morning while I was preparing to leave.
You would have to know how I’ve become upset with their whining to know that there was a snarky undertone, and I doubt they’ll get it. I doubt I managed to put the “Fear of Me” into them, as I did once last semester when the quality of their essays left something to be desired.
I didn’t sleep. I did talk with Leena and with Nate … multipe times, the former as she was at work and when she was on the way home and when she was trying to get something from a dry cleaner that had closed and and and.
My taxi was scheduled for 4:40 but came 5 minutes early, so I had to dump my coffee and oatmeal, and both are probably clogging the kitchen sink now, which is full of dirty dishes that I didn’t get around to cleaning before leaving.
That scans well.
Cleaning before leaving.
Cleanliness is next to goneliness!
In any case …
The drive was painless, the driver was friendly and chatty, the check-in was simple (swipe credit card, punch buttons, go to security … do not pass go). I waited for a long time at the gate, but get THIS: There is an Ancora coffee (next to Gate 7, my gate), but what’s better is that their prices are typical Madison Ancora pricces, not inflated airport prices. Cup of Joe? $1.50. I can get behind that.
There is the fact that most of the women working there have female mullets or the equivalent.
More later.
Now I sit in a coffee shop in L.A., near Wilshire and Westwood, actually at Lindbrook and Westwood, called Peet’s Coffee. There is a homeless-like-guy out front with a cart full of black garbage bags filled with his “stuff.” He has a purple-ish rain hat and a winter jacket. He’s sitting at a table reading the sports section of the LA Times, and he has long, gray hair in need of a wash and cut. New-ish running shoes adorn his feet, but his fingers are grimy.
I’ll meet Leena at 7 her time.
