Saturday conversations

***Right now, I'm sitting on the (hard) floor in my bedroom, working through season 1 of Friends while the boy is watching a movie on the tv.  My Saturday nights are off the charts.***

I hit up the local Panera this morning for a (few) cup(s) of dark roast and a mediocre book while the boy wrangled the Elder and the Younger.  There's nothing quite like it: sunshine, coffee with cream out of a travel cup, and 50 pages finished.  Sometimes the local color distracts me, though.  And today, I took notes because blog post.

Mid-50s woman, standard beige sweater & slacks, book half-way finished, table for two close to the door.  The woman was fascinating--chatty with all, friendly to all, and illustrative of all (the Midwest personified).

About the Palm Sunday tornado, approximately 50 years ago: "I'm a survivor..."

[My mom and dad's house that was turned 45 degrees by the tornado] "had a sunken kitchen...not a place to retire."

To make distilled water:  "...boil water on a stove and hold a paper towel over it...that's distilled water."  Use it to clean the screen of your Kindle "but that's probably not the best for it."

In reference to a fellow Saturday-morning-Panera-crony: "Art went over to his normal spot."

Apple watches "are supposed to do everything right there--email, and everything!"

Leaning across the table to help play a word game on her friend's phone:
  "I don't want to spill coffee on it."
  "You worry too much.  I want to freeze it [the game]."
  "You won a freezer?"
  "No, I want to freeze it for a second."
  "Oh, I thought you said you won a freezer!"

About that status of her yard on March 28th in the Midwest:  "I suppose I'd be doing some yardwork, but it's just too spongy."  (This reminded me immediately of my grandmother who told me at the end of January--also in the Midwest--that she had been out in her garden a few days prior with a spade to see if the ground was able to "be worked" yet.)

To her friend who walked away for a quick minute to refill a drink:
  "Your phone went off."
  "Oh, cool!"

Saturday morning coffee conversations are fabulous to people watch, which is what literature majors do for a living.  We make connections and understand what is not explicitly stated; this morning, I understood the solidity of the Midwest.  We understand purpose in seasons and order in what has happened as well as what is to come.  We are neither crippled by the past nor floundering while we wait for the future.  We are here and now, and friendships are paramount.  I'll drink some coffee to that.