The Day

It was a sleepy dark morning and I didn’t get out of bed for no particular reason save the fact I was lucky enough not to have to do it.  At some point, the cat settled in making noisy bathing sounds and I was reminded of a Hallmark Channel TV special I saw nearly 10 years ago in Taiwan, where a pet housecat magically turned into a grown-up human overnight.  The show did not adequately address the inherent creepiness of the lonely boy owner hiding the grown, 30-something, lazy man, who seemed to be attracted to brown velour tracksuits and licking his hands at inopportune times, in his closet so his parents wouldn’t find out.

This motivated me enough to head out of the house, to a cafe I often go to with free refills on tea.  The food is nearly always the same, but there is often pleasure in eating the same things because any positive randomness introduced into the routine will put you in a fine mood.  When I was much younger and used to frequent the same diner on Sundays with my family in a big Finnish swarm, we would prognosticate our day by what flavor of jelly we were served with our breakfasts:  raspberry portended the best fortune, strawberry slightly less, grape a mediocre outcome and orange marmalade was a harbinger of dark days to come.  Mixed fruit was the wild-card and could go either way.  If only one could swap one’s fate as easily as breakfast jellies.

At any rate, today they had pu-erh tea instead of the normal fare, and it was so unexpectedly delightful (being my favorite save for Lapsang Souchong) that I even tried to express it to the waitress in unsolicited Japanese.  Pu-erh tea is mysteriously earthy and rustic and smells deeply of old forests and rich dark soil, entirely the opposite of anything refined or man-made.  The refills kept coming and after five large glasses I was transformed from neutral to quite happy.  Wine makes me maudlin and coffee desperately anxious but tea is the perfect antidote for having the temperament I seem to be blessed with.

After the warm tea, hearty simple food and Japanese lounge stylings of “Bad Romance” and “I’ve Got a Feeling”, I was ready to face the day.