Today we slept in until noon. I can't remember the last time I slept in so late. This implies a victory on two fronts: (1) I have been successfully waking up early for the sake of being a well-adapted human being in spite of shit circumstances, and (2) we've been meaning to sleep in one morning and we've finally done it.
Around noon we walked to Seattle Center Park and stopped for coffee at Caffe Zingaro on the way. There were two baristas, both of whom were sharing a cigarette outside the entrance. I asked what drip coffee they served, and the barista said was, "We serve a medium-dark roast, nothing special." It felt like an intentionally-anti-snoot response that gave off a too-cool-to-care vibe. This was appropriate. The barista didn't oversell the coffee, which is good because the coffee sucked. Managing expectations is an important skill in the service industry:
A ghost says: Woo them with magic where you can; otherwise, candor is king.
In the cafe there were a dozen or or so 1'x1' oil/acrylic paintings hung up in the cafe which I thought sucked. And it's fine to showcase mediocre art, but they were trying to sell it at a steep price, which is, in my book, a faux pas. Maybe I'm missing something, and the featured artist has a meaningful backstory or a talent that I lack the perspective to appreciate. But I'd bet good money it was done by an amateur because I saw a lack of three-dimensional form, and there was no real expression of color values, meaning that I think that the artist heavily relied too heavily on colors that came fresh out of the paint tube. —Not that I could do any better.
We spent around an hour reading at Seattle Center Park. She is reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, and I was finishing VALIS by PKD. Despite COVID-19 there were still plenty of people walking through the park, but they were doing a good job of keeping their distance. I guess one of the biggest changes is that it's not okay to pet strangers' dogs anymore, which is tragic because we saw two of the most AKC-perfect French bulldogs being walked by their gay-couple owners wearing matching outfits made of well-fitting light-blue denim jeans, and well-tailored spring-season patterned button up long sleeve collared shirts—quite dressed up for Seattle.
We came home and make a late brunch. I simultaneously burned/charred and undercooked diced sweet potatoes. In order to protect my growing-and-delicate chef's persona, I charitably interpret this as a sign that I have been chosen to be imbued with culinary greatness: I have squared the circle by creating a paradox in the kitchen by having unified two opposites, the overcooked and the undercooked—may my pan and spatula navigate these two poles.
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