No-Freddie Friday

I have not eaten at the Golden Arches in decades--well, except for the time I got an Egg McMuffin craving a couple of years ago. I also haven't been drinking coffee on weekdays for the past many weeks. I lost my travel mug; then I just got tired of taking time to make it with the time-hog French press; then I got the Kona Beans-of-the-Week at Fresh Market, and didn't like it. Now, understand that I am a coffee snob. I don't drink Folgers and I don't drink coffee from large metal pots. But I once saw a "We serve Seattle's Best" sign in the window of the McDonald's I pass on my way to work. Wednesday morning I head for work earlier than my usual early, and I really want to enjoy a cup of java at my desk in the solitude before the rest of staff arrives. And I don't want to pay $3.62 for it at the over-roasted Starbucks I also pass. What the heck, I think, for a buck it's worth a try. Can they really mess up SB coffee?

As it turns out, the coffee's really quite acceptable. But the real treasure is Freddie at the pick-up window. A young Hispanic man, Freddie has a smile beneath twinkling eyes that lights the world one person at a time. "Good morning! Have a wonderful day! See you tomorrow morning, Miss!" Okay, for Freddie (and coffee), I do return on Thursday. And Friday. But Friday he isn't at the window. The young woman at his post is perfectly nice. But she is not Freddie. I am disappointed. Is the coffee not quite as good on Friday?

For a person who likes rearranging furniture and moving to new dwellings and planting new things in the garden and adventure in general, I do like my favorite things. And I don't like it when they disappear from view.

For about twelve years, I have purchased a blueberry scone from The Fresh Market to enjoy each weekend with coffee and my journal at this or that coffee shop. About three years ago, when the scones were inexplicably removed from the shelf for nearly year, I was a lost and angry soul. "They weren't rising right," was the response to my complaint. "They were perfect," I snarled. I searched out and tried other scones: the Cowpie at Starbucks, the Pop-tart at Harris Teeter, the Doughboy at Whole Foods. Dear Friend Dori (who also disappeared from my view a year ago) joined me in scouting. I discovered they served the very same scone at the coffee shop in Salem, VA where Emma was in college. And at O'Hare airport. Both inconvenient. Finally, turning to All Recipes.com and other web sites, and armed with the ingredient label from my last FM jewel, I set up a research and test center in my kitchen. After weeks of experimentation, I finally got it pretty darn close. Then, out of the blue, the scone returned--in its original form. I was ecstatic!

Thursday I make my usual trek to Fresh Market to pick up the two scones held for me each week, and WHAT IS THIS?, they have changed the scone! New vendor I am told. Not good, I respond. So. Not. Okay. I am trying it this morning. And declaring it "Not Okay." It doesn't taste bad, though it is pretty blueberry deprived; but it's too chewy, too small, too puffy, too not the "right" one.

My old weekend journaling place was the Bear Rock Cafe, first the one in Cary's Saltbox Village, and later the one at Crossroads. After I moved, it was too far to drive, so I switched to Cafe Carolina. But I still miss the fireplace, the fake rustic ambiance, and the ability to hide in a corner at Bear Rock. It pops into my head once in a while, and my thoughts wax sentimental. I find myself at the shopping center yesterday, and needing lunch. I decide to indulge my nostalgia at BR. I drive up. "Yopops," the sign over the door announces.

In the garden, a favorite, the Balloon Flower, didn't bloom last year. I missed it. The plant is up this year. So far there is no sign of bloom. The dove whines "hoo hoo hoo" over and over and over as I lie in bed each morning. Give it a rest I think; the girls don't want you today. Perhaps I would miss him if he weren't there. But a couple of times a week, the dove stops for a moment and gives up its space on the sound waves to the owl that calls "Whoo whoot who-whooo." Twice. That's it. I want more.

I am cleaning out books this week and run across one my dad gave my Emma for her fifth birthday. It is inscribed with his dear and distinctively-Daddy printed hand-writing. Seeing it is a treasure. Emma turned 28 this week. Her papa has been gone for almost 17 years.

Things die. New things take their place. Piling up, one on top of another. The sunrise is beautiful, and fleeting. The dragon fly and its shadow paints a picture on a stone in the garden, then flits off. Everything leaves, making room for the next thing waiting in line to take its place. Even the Seattle's Best Coffee logo has changed (not for the Best, in my opinion). Always. Moving. Forward. I want my scone back. I guess I will dig out my recipe. Or maybe it's a sign; time for a new adventure for me. And I think I will write Freddie a hand-written note tomorrow to exchange for the coffee and smile he hands me.

“Life’s irrefutable forward motion...I was raking leaves one day when I felt such a vast chasm of what was gone that I had to stop and sit down...All this raw material, from new shoots to compost in what seemed a single breath…. I was raking dead leaves in the shelter of my garden while the bulbs, patient and thoughtless, waited to be planted. It seemed obscene.... How to live in a world where loss, some of it unbearable, is as common as dust or moonlight.” (Gail Caldwell, Let’s Take the Long Way Home)