Starbucks at the Mall, 6:54 p.m. - It is really noisy in here

Yeah. It is super noisy in here and there are a lot of people. There is a woman trying to maneuver a gigantic baby buggy - the kind with a car seat on top - and stacked with packages out from the restroom.

She obviously has no sense of space or proportion. None of dress either - or she wouldn't be wearing enough make-up to plaster a three-bedroom house and an extension and have some left over.

These teenagers over to the right of me are very annoying. One has bleached blonde hair and the other has hair dyed black as night. Ten to one their natural colors are the exact opposite. I can't make out the conversation over the annoying as hell music up in this Starbucks - but it seems to revolve around some boy, a class or some ginormous trouble that surely isn't.

God. I never knew that jazz music could be so annoying. And here come the howler monkeys. There's a young mother with an awful haircut with two howlers and an aged mother in tow. ARE YOU GONNA GO WITH GRANDMA? OK. LET GO. LET GO. GO WITH GRANDMA. Damn bitch. Kick it in the ass and send it across the floor if it won't let go. Grandma yanks the howler back toward the bathroom and mommy proceeds to order even more sugar for her hopped up little heathens.

The kids are now describing some "throw-down party." HEY, HERE'S THE CAMEL LIGHTS. I LOVE HASH. THAT'S WHAT I SAID. None of them look old enough to be in college, much less smoking hash. Kids today.

There must be a sale at the Victoria's Secret - because every third woman in here has had a Vicky's bag. Old women, young women, fat women, skinny beyotches - they've all had Vicky's bags. Here is my question - WHAT THE HELL IS VICTORIA'S SECRET? I'm dying to know. Is it locked in a vault at the back of the store somewhere or what?

There is a woman in a horribly ugly green and brown shirt and a cutoff denim skirt that has additional rips in it at the counter now.

Ma'am. I'm going to give you some free advice. If a skirt is short enough that you have to slide out of car seats so as not to flash the planet, you DO NOT need to put further slits in the sides or front. NOT NECESSARY. The population of suburban south Florida is certainly not your gynechiatrist!

The woman with the howler monkeys is walking by me. I think her mother is trying to shoplift. The staff here is so slammed with customers that they would never notice some ugly Christmas merchandise walking right out the door. I mean really - why is small and easily pocketed merchandise located right by the entrance.

The woman right now is practicing a classic grifter move. Put the drink down. Put the purse down. Adjust the purse. Wrap napkin around drink. Examine Starbucks Christmas ornaments. Think about it. Think about it. Think about it. She sees me looking right at her. She leaves. Damn. I deserve a free venti iced mocha for stopping this shoplifter.

Ladies. Unless you are doing some en pointe work, you do not need to be wearing ballet flats. Especially if you are tipping the scales at several multiples of a hundred. It don't be working for fashion. Please. Spare us all. Unless you're going to be doing the dancing hippos from "Fantasia" routine. Then, I'll sell tickets, popcorn and gladly watch.

Here's another question. When did tights - and nothing else - just tights and a T-shirt become acceptable outerwear? I know this is South Florida and the temperature - even in December - never goes below 70 - but no one needs to see your butt cheeks hanging out.

This Starbucks is apparently so busy that they have had to implement rudimentary crowd control measures - by which I mean they actually have LINES roped off for people stand in. The way these yuppies are reacting you'd think the concept of LINE never crossed their caffeine-addled brains. Sir, I need you move over here. SIR. SIR. CAN YOU MOVE OVER HERE PLEASE!

OK. The teenagers just got up to leave and I swear to Kali one of those girls had on flowered pants that were barely enough to cover her copious buttocks. More underwear as outwear. Flower garden as pants. I have seen it all.

OK. My head hurts like MF-er and I feel like crap. Peace, love and and coffee grounds.

Tropical Smoothie Cafe, 6:06 p.m. - Bored white girls boss a Mexican woman around

The two bored-ass-looking white girls running things here are just standing around yakking and ringing in the orders once every 20 minutes while the Mexican woman in the back is working like a dog making sandwiches, slicing bread for tomorrow, slicing meat, cleaning, etc. The American dream - let me show you it. Or, reality according to the GOP!

I wonder if the management here ever actually watches the security cameras? I saw the heifer that looks to be higher up in the food chain disappear into the bathroom while the other one was taking the order for my smoothie. She was in there when I sat down. She was still in there when I GOT my smoothie. She was still in there when I got my food. She was still in there when I'd finished half the sandwich and most of the bag of chips. Finally, twelve minutes later, I saw her come out clutching her cell phone.

Either she's got some real, real, real bad female problems or she's sneaking off to yak to her friend-girls or her man on the clock.

There's a WOACA in high-water pants at the counter now. She ordered a smoothie and then disappeared into the bathroom for four minutes. Maybe she had to purge. Maybe the other girl had to crap out a load of heroin and the housewife is here for a drop. Stranger things ....

She's the dainty type that's been influenced by too much "Desperate Housewives" and thinks that she'll one day look like Nicolette Sheridan. Maybe. If she wasn't equally influenced by Sara Lee. She's got cankles the size of Connecticut and tiny gold ankle bracelets stretched to the max around each ankle.

Oddly enough, her tropical print top actually MATCHES the strange menagerie of fruit flavors that they use for table-tops in her. She's rocking a fake white Louis Vuitton purse with the leather already starting to look aged and a bad home perm. She is very polite though. I heard her thank the girl for bringing her food out. So despite not knowing how to dress or accessorize, she gets an A in my book.

Oh my Thoth! There is a man with a literal rat's nest of hair at the register now. It .. Just .... DEFIES .... description. It doesn't look dirty, but it doesn't have that "just washed" look either. I think he's a hippie with thinning hair and no comprehension of the concept of product. Or conditioner. It is all wispy and floaty and wavy - sort of like a girl in a music video - and you just know that he would never dare put that head of hair into a convertible or else he'd have to shave it bald afterward because of the knots.

OH MY GOD. The register monkey is now ordering the tiny Mexican woman in the back around. Apparently HairMan ordered like six sandwiches and so the register girl is just WATCHING the Mexican woman make them. I can see sandwiches spread out on the counter as far as the eye can see. The register girl is just holding a piece of paper and waving it around and going "THAT'S NOT THE RIGHT BREAD!"

OK. Feel free to jump in and help any time here.

I would get onto HairMan for reading at the table, but I'm typing, so we're pretty even there. He's reading what looks like an anatomy textbook though, so that's a little more unusual.

OK. The register monkey woman finally started helping to wrap and bag the sandwiches when she realized that OMG IT WAS GOING TO TAKE A WHILE TO MAKE SEVEN SANDWICHES! How do these people ever get put into positions of even minor supervision?

And I just realized that she is being extra squeamish about touching the food. She's got on gloves, which is like the law, but she doesn't even want to touch the takeout bags or the bags of chips. Surely in a small cafe you can't expect to just run the register all day - especially not with just three people on duty. Logic would dictate that if someone is sick or on break you're going to be called on to help out.

OK. The bad fashion parade just got a thousand times worse. The WOACA from earlier is Jackie O compared to this lot.

Three teenage girls. One has on Converse All-Stars that lace all the way up into boots. She's wearing skinny jeans and a white T-shirt with stars. Another has on short-shorts so short that her T-shirt covers them up. She has on pink socks and brown shoes with a leopard print and she's headed to the bathroom to go purge right now. The chunky girl of the bunch - who got stuck paying for the order, has on Umbros and a normal-looking T-shirt. If only her blonde hair didn't look like it came from a bottle and she didn't have roots that a sequoia would envy. Le sigh. Kids these days.

I couldn't hear the order over the giggling, purse-swinging and "LIKE OMIGAWDS" emanating from that general direction, but I don't see the Mexican woman making food. I do hear multiple blenders going.

OK. I have a headache and the giggling is making it worse.

Also, the thought of knee-high Converse All-Stars is a little odd. I'm not sure I can handle that right now.

My couch, 11:06 p.m. - My Santa suit, let me show you it

I left the apartment exactly once today, for about fifteen minutes. This period involved a trip to the Sonic for a breakfast burrito - even though it was well past noon - and a subsequent stop at the 7-Eleven.

My efforts to flirt with the 7-Eleven checkout boy who looks like a Sasquatch married to a Q-tip (he's short, but with big hair and a beard, and very cute) were marred by a stupid German tourist who demanded relish for his hot dogs in a very loud voice. Thus, some old man named Butch with an emphasemic wheeze scanned my items but failed to properly check me out, if you know what I'm saying.

Anyway. Let's continue the holiday theme, unless you want me to describe my living room, complete with piles of magazine, dirty laundry and a dining room table with three months of unsorted mail. I have unread magazines that haven't seen the light of day in months and are likely touting trends that are already out of style. Mukluks anyone?

When did I stop believing in Santa? Although the alternate title here could be "When I learned that all parents lie to their children."

Back in the dawn of antiquity, I lived in a tiny hamlet in a poor rural parish in one of the poorest states in the Deep South. Even now, the entire population of the parish is just above 20,000. But that's beside the point. The social life was akin to something straight from Laura Ingalls Wilder - centered around the church and the school.

Every Christmas, the community - which was basically an off-ramp off the Interstate with a gas station and a high school with some cotton gins nearby and - would gather at the high school cafeteria on the Friday night after school let out for a big community celebration.

The high school cafeteria was used because it was the largest open space in the parish with a big kitchen. The rural churches had neither the space for the people - nor the facilities to prepare food for five hundred people.

I loved the community Christmas parties. It was AT school but wasn't like BEING at school. The food was certainly much better - because the cafeteria ladies weren't cooking it - some of the big fat church ladies were. Plus I could get a soda instead of milk if I wanted - and seconds and thirds. There was singing and music and small fireworks and lots of people. It was just lots of fun - especially for child of six or seven who was just that day free from school for at least the next two weeks. Plus, the almighty glory of Christmas was in the future.

There was always a Santa Claus children - and parents could either bring a gift from home for Santa to give their child or sign up and pay money for the organizers to buy a gift off their child's wish list. Kids actually got something they wanted - instead of generic toys or trains or dolls.

I remember thinking that Santa was so wise and so powerful to be able to produce EXACTLY what I wanted just minutes after I whispered it in his ear. Of course, all the adults in the room got a huge kick out of watching the kids tear open presents.

The very last time my parents took me to this shindig, I remember that my dad was late and didn't come with us. My mother said that he was running late and would find us later. He did and helped me navigate the dinner line and ate dinner with me and took me outside to watch the fireworks that older kids were shooting off. I loved sparklers at this age and he found a box and lit sparkler after sparkler for me and watched to make sure I didn't catch my fool self on fire.

I was running around with a sparkler and then I looked up and he was gone. It was just one of my uncles there - who told me "Your daddy had to go. Someone came and told him that all the cows were out and he had to go home." I was really pissed off at all those idiot cows, but they had a habit of getting out, so it was nothing unusual to me.

I ran around for a while longer and my uncle took me back inside, because Santa Claus was about to show up.

My uncle got me a piece of chocolate pie so I would have something to occupy me (and not bother him) and parked me in the line to visit Santa. Then he went off to find pie of his own. "You stay right here and follow these kids. I can see you from across the room. If you need anything, just wave." I was fine though. started working on my pie and thinking about what I was going to tell Santa and if he would be able to give me everything on my list this year.

Noisy crowd, smallish space, little kid. It wasn't until I got to within four or five kids of Santa that I began to get a little weirded out. For one, Santa was not fat. Two, Santa seemed to have a red beard. Three, Santa sounded just like my daddy. But my daddy was supposed to be home, chasing runaway cows.

Anyway. When you're seven, you don't dwell on these things, not with chocolate pie to lick off your fingers and wish lists to make up. Anyway. I get to the batting circle, so to speak, and the girl ahead of me jumps off Santa's lap.

Santa leans down and goes "Ho Ho Ho, have you been a good little boy?"

And his fake beard falls off.

Me: "Daddy?"

The rest of the night is pretty much a blur, although I apparently "ruined" Christmas for all the kids who thought that my father was Santa Claus by crying and carrying on like I did. My parents scolded me for acting like a baby and said that my dad was only "filling in" for Santa while he was busy somewhere else.

On top of everything, I got a bunk gift, because my mother forgot to bring one from home for me - and I got one from the donated pile that they used for poor families. What the hell did I want with $4 Wal-Mart plastic train?

We never went back to the community Christmas celebration - and two years later it broke up so that the Baptists and the Pentecostals wouldn't have compromise over not singing hymns and having a proper Christmas sermon on school property.

The Methodists and the Church of God people didn't care - they just wanted to eat and spend some time with the community - but the Baptist women were the ones that did all the cooking. Plus one of the new Baptist ministers was raising a fuss over how people were taking Christ out of Christmas - what with gifts and fireworks and food and no mention of the Lord.

So it all fell apart. I forgot about the whole thing for a while, until about three years later, I was playing in my dad's closet - and saw that Santa suit hanging in there.

My dad - secret identity - Santa Claus.

Starbucks #2, 10:28 p.m. - The kids are DEFINITELY not alright

When I rolled up, I nearly creamed what looked to be the cast of “High School Musical,” only dressed as preppy goths.

Turns out there was some high school event tonight – and the resulting crowd flocked over to Starbucks for tall chocolate chip frappuccinos. As a result of all their giggling and general space-hogging antics, I scored a free venti coffee from one of the baristas.

He was in a very bad mood. “We made like fifteen frappuccinos – and they all wanted them LIKE NOW! It was insane.”

Now the kids are singing lyrics to something. They are badly out of tune, but it sounds like something from the stage version of “Wicked.” I can distinctly make out the words “bring her dooooooooowwwwwwnnnnn.” O-kaaaaaay.

I guess my plans for a little quiet contemplation and some writing just went out the window.

Two old WOACAs just came in and perched on the only two vacant chairs left in the Starbucks – said chairs which happen to be far too close to the bratty kids for these over-dressed and under-sexed ladies’s tastes. These old birds are giving the teen-agers some nasty looks. Think “I found six and a half roaches in my sandwich” nasty looks. That kind of nasty.

The baristas are doing some heavy duty flirting – with me and with each other. I guess cleaning is kind of moot since there are currently twenty-plus kids up in here shouting the place down.

The kids are screaming so loud the departing manager can’t even get her staff to hear her orders. “Clean up outside.” Louder. “Clean up OUTSIDE.” PRACTICALLY SCREAMING. “CLEAN UP OUTSIDE!” It is insane. These kids seriously need to leave. Leave or learn how to act in public.

Appropos of nothing, I love red. It is my new favorite color.

OK. One of these heifers is doing a full-blast old school Montell Jordan up in here “This Is How We Do It.” Really? I could totally believe you act like this all the time.

More tragic? I just noticed that half of them have their cell phones out and are yakking away at the top of their lungs or are text messaging. It is the ultimate in friendship. Let’s meet up and text message. What happened to just hanging out?

Kali bless me for not smashing someone. The timer on one of these pots of coffee is gong off and the baristas can’t get free to shut it off. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. It’s like the freaking roadrunner of coffee timers.

I wonder if I could call in an anonymous noise complaint on these kids? Hello, police, there is a disturbance at the Starbucks on First Street. Can you send a paddy wagon?

My free coffee is not that good. I know, I know – never look a gift coffee in the mouth, but still. I would have paid for it to be acceptable.

Oh. From where I’m sitting I can see the “Green Apron Traits” message board. These baristas are supposed to be suggesting the Christmas blend and trying to get some extra add-on sales by pushing pounds of coffee to customers by telling them they make excellent Christmas gifts. Let me know how that goes.

Score. Free pastry because they’re marking them out and will just throw them away. I asked if they donate them. They said they do – but the food pantry doesn’t come pick them up regularly. That’s just sad.

OK. The kids have moved outside to wait on their mothers. They all have the cell phones out trying to locate the she-beasts who squatted in a rice paddy and squirted them out. Most of them should have been strangled at birth. Or drowned. I’m an equal-opportunity teen howler-monkey life-ender.

I’m just in a crappy mood tonight.

Drink my coffee. Eat my free chocolate mint cookie. Flirt with barista. Leave.

Just a note, the Starbucks I write from most often will be Starbucks #1. This one will be #2. There's a third one I visit, but haven't written from yet. That one will be #3.

Starbucks, 8:52 a.m. – Morning fashion is no better than evening fashion

Yes. I struggled up from my crypt in time to give you kids a morning edition today. Just don’t get used to it. If I had my way, I’d work from 3 p.m. to midnight every day.

Oh, yeah. I’m at the Starbucks. It is old man central up in here. Six, no, wait NINE – counting the ones outside – old men sipping lattes and reading the newspaper. I guess this is what retirement is like. Someone shoot me now. I hope my retirement involves a yacht and Brazilian boy named Paulo or Santiago or something.

Anyway. Aside from the Metamucil Literary Brigade, the action here is slim. I cannot bring myself to describe nine individual old men slugging down coffee and reading the paper.

We’re right at the 9 a.m. hour though, so things may start to heat up.

And they just did. Some self-entitled a-hole of a customer just walked in and GRUNTED at the barista. I know you’re a regular and all – but at least make the effort.

There’s a woman here with an iPhone. She’s the chunky “I work in an office” type that doesn’t really need an iPhone, but really wants to show up her friend Janice. Anyway.

She is in line, but still wearing her knockoff Ray-Ban fashion shades that she got at the Old Navy, some Rack Room shoes, faded blue jeans and the ugliest leopard print top this side of the Atlantic. Real leopards would die in shame if this print ever showed up on one of their kin.

But this woman has one of those fancy leather iPhone cases that she’s hung off her right pants pocket – not the hip – the pocket – just so that everyone can gasp in awe that OMG THAT WOMAN HAS AN IPHONE!

Her drink is insanely complicated too. Three people went through the other register while she was ordering.

Ladies, if your “girls” are one of your assets, more power to you. However, you probably need to restrain them somewhat, either with a brassiere, a sports bra or clothing that fits properly. Really, the last thing I need at 9 a.m. is a gigantic pair of bouncy balls doing the rumba in my face.

Mr. Chocolate Chip Frappuccino is here. Every morning that I’m here, he’s here, ordering a grande chocolate chip frappuccino. And wearing the same clothes – complete with black baseball cap. I’m dying to know his story.

Mon dieu. A horde of tourists and the place is crowded all of a sudden. One of these women is wearing black velvet tights, a black velvet tunic and a burgundy velvet cape. She’s got a full head of blonde hair, which she’s chosen to pin back with a black sun visor. Yow.

And the exercise crowd. Ma’am. We all know you work out. We can smell you. However, we do NOT need to see your buns hanging out the back of your gray bicycle pants and your boobs hanging out the front of your blue sports bra. And really, is coffee all that good for any exercise regimen?

Men should not wear Crocs. Ever.

There is a grandma here with her granddaughter – they’re trying to find a place to sit down – and granny is giving the old man brigade the look of death because all the tables are taken with the old men reading the paper. The kid is clutching a book like her life depends on it.

Gun alert. Sheriff’s deputies make me nervous. Not that I’ve done anything wrong, but that we’re only one crazy person away from something really going wrong. And they get free coffee too. This one got a free pastry as well.

Exercise chick is looking severely unhappy. She must not be a yoga practitioner.

I just saw an old man with a Dali T-shirt. I love Dali. The world needs more surrealism.

And now a woman is complaining that the girl on the register slammed the cash drawer “too hard.” They have to explain to her that the drawer sticks and sometimes they have to slam it to close it. It was not a statement on her being difficult.

Public library, 2:55 p.m. – How do you copy a pattern without really trying?

Yay for free WiFi, boo-hiss for non-functioning power outlets at the workstations.

It is a lovely Saturday afternoon – and the public library is lousy with old people and children.

And the kids all have technological toys. I guess the library is just the same as an air-conditioned playpen. I’m staring straight at a daddy who is chaperoning his pair of howlers – both of whom have Sony PSPs – and neither of whom can sit still for more than two seconds.

Think about that for a second. Sony PSPs – in a library. Surrounded by the greatest literature that centuries of mankind’s greatest thinkers can produce – and you’re banging away on a damn video game. Epic fail.

Ohh. Snotty librarian. “IF YOU’RE USING THESE COMPUTERS, THESE ARE NOT THE ONES YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE USING. YOU NEED TO BE OVER HERE.”

Why do you have multiple types of computers if you don’t want people to use them?

There’s a WOACA in a black and white striped pants and a black shirt with a pair of chic sunglasses tucked into the collar of her shirt. She’s got a knockoff Louis Vuitton handbag slung over her arm and she’s asking – in a decidedly non-library voice – “IS THIS THE WAITING AREA FOR THE INTERNET?” Well lady, you see that sign, where it says “Waiting Area for Internet, Please Sign In & Take a Seat” – please read it. Unless you’re here for remedial English lessons.

I can understand a line for the catalog computers – there’s never enough of them – but do so many people really not have the Internet or even a basic computer at home in 2007?

These are not kids here either – these are adults who look like they make enough to afford one of the cheap laptops put out by Wal-Mart or Best Buy – at least enough to get on the Internet or do basic word processing. Then again, most of these people probably think that the Internet starts and ends at AOL.

Wow. The Internet line is now six people long and there are eight people on the computers.

That old myth about libraries being quiet enough to hear a pin drop is so totally false. I can hear the residual spillover noise from the DVD area – as well as see the action back there – and it is a complete and total madhouse.

There are about ten howler monkeys back there – all running around unsupervised – and the poor old lady trying to restock movies looks like she wants to serve monkey brains for a snack or something.

One little boy – can’t be more than two – keeps taking movies off the shelf and handing them to her. God bless, she is very patient and thanks him each time. But after he leaves I saw her twitch just a little. Keep knocking back those nerve pills lady.

Cute boy alert. Too bad he’s still in high school. A friend of mine gave me good advice once – “Sixteen will get you twenty.” Remember that girls.

I unwittingly choose a spot right by the copy machine. Which is more noise than I expected or needed.

And a source of unexpected drama. This old woman in a black sack dress has a HUGE stack of receipts that she is trying to copy and collate for something and she’s having obvious difficulty.

I hear the scanner going WHIRR WHIRR WHIRR and then a “Drat!” and the paper being crumpled.

More whirring. More “dratting.” More paper crumpling. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Finally she goes to fetch the attendant – who walks past the copier with a cart full of books that need to be re-shelved. Go to the Kinkos lady!

Ok. More copier drama. This woman is trying to make a blown-up copy of some patterns – looks like craft patterns or something. The copier is out of legal paper. Because I’m sitting here, PatternGirl asks me if I know where the paper is.

Um. No. I am typing on a shiny silver computer that is miles newer than what the county can afford. Do I have a nametag on? Do I look like I work here? MY DAYS OF SERVITUDE ARE OVAH!

But I tell PatternGirl to talk to the snotty attendant. “Does he know where the legal paper is?” Well, he’s got a higher probability of that than I do!

He goes to get the paper. PatternGirl asks him for help on getting her patterns embiggened – because apparently she needs mega-large sizes.

His answer “I don’t really work with the copier.”

Your tax dollars. At work.

My stars. This woman with the patterns is making a hella amount of noise. Buttons. Squeals. Noise. The dude put half a sheaf of legal paper in there – and she’s going to go through all of it if she keeps this up.

OK. I’m leaving. PatternGirl and this copier are about to drive me insane.

Bad Ass Coffee, 3:48 p.m. – Oh baby, bat those eyelashes in my direction!

We’re coming at you live – well, semi-live from downtown’s hot new controversy – Bad Ass Coffee.

Named for the “mythical beasts of burden” – the donkeys that hauled heavy loads of coffee beans down the mountains of Hawaii – Bad Ass Coffee purports to brew the finest cup of coffee this side of the Kona Highlands.

Whatever.

This bunch of high-school-age brats doesn’t know an espresso shot from a tequila shot.

My iced mocha tastes like a cup of decaf that someone dumped some chocolate into, squirted some whipped cream on top and shoved it over the bar. For this and a muffin, I paid the princely sum of $8.

On the other hand, the WiFi is free. So I suppose I’ll be down here a lot – especially since I’ve nearly arrived at the decision to abandon the cold bed of Comcast for warmer pastures elsewhere.

Anyway. This is basically a Starbucks without the intense Starbucks-themed branding campaign. Instead, I’m being treated to a theme similar to what you’d imagine if a pair of Hawaiian shorts mated with a Starbucks.

There are life-size fake palm trees, a grouping hideously ugly rattan furniture with ghastly tropical palm cushions and posters all over the place screaming TROPICS TROPICS TROPICS. Get real people. It's a coffee shop with a cute name! Not the second coming of the Godchild!

There is a sad old granola WOACA in here, out for her daily bike ride or something. She’s got on an urban camo top in gray and yellow and black cargo shorts that are splattered with paint. Her hair is twisted up on top of her head in that careless “I’m worth more than you’ll ever make” way. And she’s sweaty as all get out and pawing through the T-shirts and tumblers like no one’s business. “WHAT A COOL PLACE!” she announces to the room at large. NEWSFLASH! We don’t really care.

Bored teenage tourists are the same the world over. A pack of Dutch tourists just walked in. Either Dutch or Swedish. The mother is yelling into a super-modern cellphone at the top of her lungs in some language and the Dad is digging money out of his fanny pack.

Swedish I think. Their clothes have a certain Ikea-ish style and their hair is kind of blonde and blocky. But the teenager with them just looks so perpetually bored by his parents that I truly do feel for them. His poor father is trying to engage him in conversation and the kid is just leaning against the condiment bar and twirling his sunglasses. They’re gone now.

There is a summit meeting happening over to my right. There’s an older bald man and his twenty-something girlfriend. They just wanted to sit on the rattan “couch” and catch their breath. Then this idiot in cutoff khakis and a sleeveless cutoff tee plopped himself down and started a discourse based on the headlines flashing by on CNN Headline News. “Bush is innocent in the Valerie Plame thing! It is all a Democrat smear job.”

They don’t really want to talk to him, but I guess they think it would be rude to just get up and walk away. They’re both giving one-word answers and hope he will shut up, but he’s leaning back (oh my Kali, a forest of armpit hair) and settling in for a debate.

Cute boy alert. He must work in one of the shops or offices around here. Grey pants and a red shirt. Hair cut very short. Hmm. His ears are kind of big though. He’s very polite to the “baristas.” (Are they called baristas anywhere but at Starbucks?) And he pays with cash. I need a man with cash. And he has pretty eyelashes. Sigh

This man talking about Barack Obama and how he’s an idiot who doesn’t know anything about politics needs to shut up. I personally don’t plan to vote for Obama, but Obama did change the game as far as online political organizing goes.

Tourists. Swimsuits and flip-flops belong at the beach. Please, please, please put some clothes on your child before you bring them into an eating establishment. In fact, put some clothes on YOURSELF. Some sand crabs might drop out or something.

OMG. OMG. OMG. PrettyEyelashes just sat down at the table right across from me. He’s checking his text messages.

Look at me bitch. I’m smiling at you.

Seriously dude. This man yakking on and on and on about politics NEEDS to go die in a fire. Now he’s quoting Ann Coulter. Seriously. Ann Coulter.

PrettyEyelashes kind of looks like Orlando Bloom – although his eyeBROWS need a serious plucking. Caterpillars come to mind. And he’s totally not looking in my direction anymore. You little shit. Am I not cute enough for you?

And he’s leaving. Well. On that note, I guess I better pack up my stuff and go stalk him.

If there’s no update tomorrow, send bail money.

Starbucks, 9:32 p.m. – The ‘Anti-Kitty-Committee’ is out in force tonight

I’m trying out a new Starbucks tonight. I like the chairs. I mean, I REALLY like the chairs.

This is one of those Starbucks decorated in the retro-mod style, with the earth tones and the cocoa-colored stools and the raspberry faux-leather high-backed stools that spin around and the big chocolate leather easy chairs. YUMMALICIOUS!

It is also apparently a “no-merchandise” Starbucks, as I learned on my last visit – so there is only one stand of coffee, a tiny basket of the coffee of the week and a wall of ground coffee. No mugs, no huge racks of CDs, no screaming promos for the iTunes single of the week. No. Not even the free iTunes single giveaways. I’m almost crushed.

This Starbucks also stays open until 11 p.m. on weeknights, later than any other one in the city – and midnight on weekends – a fortuitous circumstance I am sure is owed to the near proximity to the nearby movie theater. If only it were not so crowded with screaming teen brats wearing next to nothing.

Do they really let kids out of the house wearing so little nowadays? I just saw more of a teen girl’s ass than I ever wanted to. She was wearing short-shorts that would have made Catherine Bach run for a cover-up and a shirt that read “Anti-Kitty-Committee.” Pair this with knee-high black socks and plaid Vans and you have quite the ironic hipster bad-fashion statement.

The bratty children have gone now. They’ve swept up their tall chocolate chip frappucinnos and flapped out the door – taking their proto-homosexual floppy-haired blonde emo boy toy with them. Fashion-forward that one was – kept pushing up the sleeves on his brown American Eagle sweater and trying to toss the locks out of his face.

The baristas are not even making an effort to look busy. There are five of them and they are lolling about by the drive-thru window just chatting it up. Yakkety-yakkety-yakkety.

I can’t hear them over this crappy mid-tempo something, although every now and again the occasional snappy phrase floats through. “What did I do Danny?” Um, not your job, obviously.

We have a customer now. Our winner is a bored-looking twenty-something in blue jeans and a white windbreaker from some tourist trap. She’s got a fake Coach purse slung on her shoulder and a nasty scowl planted across her lips.

I wonder what crawled up in her and died. Maybe it is her pancake makeup causing facial freeze. Yeesh. You’d think as much as she spends at a makeup counter someone would show her how to apply it correctly.

Oh. It gets better. The boyfriend is here. He’s in plain faded blue jeans and a gray tee. They both have worn-out tennis shoes on. They both look so “average.”

Just got a good look at the jacket. I pegged the tourist trap correctly. Like I said – Cancun. Ok. If you really are a ‘world traveler,’ you don’t have to advertise that you went to the Mexican version of Branson. Capische?

Grande white mocha and grande no whip latte. Predictable and boring. I bet they do it in the missionary position. Actually, I take that back. She looks like a total hooker. I bet she puts on a pair of cowboy boots and some spurs, mounts up in reverse cowgirl and goes to town.

Anywhoo. They’re gone.

It just hit me that this is the largest Starbucks I’ve ever been in. I don’t know if that is because it is minus all the crap that is normally in a Starbucks or if it is just physically larger. Either way, it is a nice change. It feels … spacious … and light and airy and open.

OK. This place is really dead. One of the baristas has taken off his apron. He’s just slumped in one of the easy chairs in the back, staring off into space. He’s already smoke two ciggies in the last ten minutes. I wonder if Seattle corporate knows about this?

Finally some good tunes going on the radio. A tinkling jazz piano riff. This, I can rock out with. There’s also a fresh pot of coffee brewing. I guess they have to do a pot on the hour, every hour. Whatever today’s blend is, it sure smells good. That’s the timer.

I just asked. Tonight’s blend is Italian roast.

My time is up. Thank you.

Downtown at the park, 6:05 p.m. - Don't howl for me, howler monkey

"And the wind began to blow..." I love that line. I'm sitting in one of the city's main downtown parks. It's the oldest park in the city and jammed with "stuff," like a bandshell, picnic tables, tennis courts, a stage and a kiddie play place.

The grass is lush and green and practically begs for a picnic blanket and lazy summer afternoons spent lolling in the sunshine with families and Frisbees and frollicking dogs. Not now though.

At this time in the evening, the human population is virtually nil. The sun is mostly obscured by clouds and the light is starting to fade fast. There really isn't much going on.

The main attraction seems to be the kiddie castle. A couple families have their children out for an early evening playdate. One young and harried-looking father in a pair of sandals, some ugly black-and-red shorts and a gray wife-beater is trying to shepherd his three young howler monkeys into the play area. Two girls and one little boy refuse to be corraled. "Look, a stone dragon." "Look, a picnic table." "Look, a water fountain. I want a drink. I want a drink. I WANT A DRINK."

The light has a particular eerie quality; it is more or less gone, but still present. There is no sun, just the last half-hour of twilight.

The birds are starting now, their last calls of the evening. Verizon would do well to tape this for a commercial. A thousands tweets are suddenly coming alive. I can hear feathered fiends squawking in the trees all around me. Deep cheeps, tiny tinny cheeps and every sort of cheep, cheep in between.

The breeze is picking up. It is colder and smells faintly of the salt of the ocean, even though the water is a half-mile away. There is a taste of rain on the air, the oncoming storm. One of the city's busy arterial roads straight through to the business district is less than twenty feet away and cars are starting to come by with their lights. People are heading downtown to the old theater, the restaurants and shops and flitting by in their finery for an evening of parade and promenade.

Here come two more young mothers. Well, at least one mother and one mother to be. One is obviously heavily pregnant; she is walking with difficulty. The other, who has that "tired mommy of a toddler" look, tries in vain to call out to her child, a raven-haired tot wearing a ruffled pink tee and white shorts who has picked up a stick and is running far ahead, waving it like a magic wand. There are fewer than half a dozen people here and the mother is still rightly worried about her child.

The mother amble into the play area after the tot and amble back out. I don't know what they're looking for. Amusement?

Now the child is crying. Maybe she fell down. The howls are getting louder, although I don't see any obvious sign of hurt. I just see a brat throwing a tantrum.

I never understand why children will insist on screaming in public places. The mother is asking her "Are you done? Are you done now?"

The mommies are walking off; now they're getting in a ratty minivan. The litle girl is still staring at the stone sculpture dragon, wanting to play. They call to her "We're leaving. Sorry, Brianna stays at the park." That doesn't elicit a response. Now the tone turns angrier. "Come on."

No dice. So the mother goes over and picks up her child. Now Brianna really cuts loose with the lung power.

There's a guy juggling. He walked up to a picnic bench right across from me during the drama with the mommies and the screaming howler monkey.

Juggler Man has two cans of tennis balls and seems pretty intent on his craft. The wind is ruffling his hair and tossing the balls about and he doesn't miss a beat. Two balls in one hand. Over. Under. Over. Under. Over. Under. The eyes are the thing to watch while juggling. The concentration it must take is amazing. I could never juggle.

The wind is still blowing. The juggler continues. He's got all three tennis balls out now. Over. Under. Around. Over. Under. Around. He's crossing his arms and doing tricks with the balls. There's a lot of practice that has gone into this routine.

There's a kid and his dad walking up from the parking lot across the street. The kid is just staring at the guy juggling. I love the sheer wonderment of children - even if I hate the children themselves. The little boy can't be more than three. He has a piece of string he's toting around like it is his best buddy and a tennis ball of his own. I wonder if maybe one day he will grow up and think of that guy he saw juggling in the park.

Old people coming up now. Power walking with a serious need for speed. God forbid anyone get into their path. They would be cut down like a protester at a John Kerry speech.

She's wearing a pair of olive khakis and a blue and pink striped polo. He's got olive shorts and a ugly red and blue check short sleeve shirt. They've both got walking shoes on. Old people with a health fetish. I wonder if they eat olives? Olives are supposed to be good for your health.

The juggler is still at it. He's holding a tennis ball in one hand and moving it up and down while juggling the other two with one hand to give the illusion of juggling.

The sky is darker now. The wind is colder and the warmth of the day is almost gone. I love the evening. I wish this time didn't have to end. It feels so special, the day slipping into night.

My time is up. Thank you.