I have a lot to think about today, so I had an idea that I would decamp to a cafe for a change of venue to help in the thought process.

Little did I expect the weather to come right out of central casting.

It is a comfortably warm day, but rainy and grey.

As chance would have it, I got a seat at the communal table right by the totally open front wall of the cafe, and my cappuccino arrived just as I sat down.

I take a deep breath and inhale it all…

To my left I perceive the cozy warmth of the cafe, its hum of conversation, the noises of its espresso machine, the clink of small spoons against porcelain, and people whiling away the afternoon – a couple of twenty-something sparsely-bearded fellows talking intently, a pretty single young woman working on a paper across the table from me, a woman sitting on a dark wood bench with her husband and holding her swaddled baby, a middle-aged, short-haired woman at a table by herself staring into space, and a youngish father with longish blond hair and his friend treating his daughter to a sweet drink.

To my right, I’m comforted by the cool breeze from the outdoors, the sounds of tires squishing the water as they roll through it on the road, the parade of umbrellas, and little birds hopping about on the sidewalk. The rain today is a mere spraying, scarcely worth a driver turning on her wipers. But the coolness it brings along with the drop in humidity makes the air light and pleasant, and the cloud cover means there is no blazing sun with which to contend.

The barista delivers a perfectly-made cappuccino to the blonde fiftyish “Abercrombie & Fitch” woman sitting outside on the ledge beside me… A weird home-modified jeep-type car goes by… and then a delivery truck, followed minutes later by a transit bus.

Mmmm… the sounds of the city…

I could sit here and daydream forever…