Scenes from a sidewalk cafe


This is not my beautiful croissant.

I’m sitting at Rao’s bakery on Calder Avenue in Beaumont at the breakfast hour. Well, at someone’s breakfast hour. I’ve just had a sausage and egg croissant. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great. People pay for the ambiance at Rao’s both at their Calder location and at the one near Parkdale Mall. I’m not sure about the Rao’s in Memorial Hermann Baptist Hospital, or whatever its calling itself these days.

Hospital food, as long as you’re not a patient, can be surprisingly good or astonishingly bad. And it doesn’t seem to matter whether the food is prepared by an outside firm or the hospital itself.

I do like the big fan they have out here on the patio at the Calder Rao’s. The last time I was here they had a portable air conditioner. I think the fan works just as well, perhaps better. And even at 8 a.m. you need a fan out here in late July. The high is going to be in the upper 90s today. But it’s not just the heat. It’s the heat and the humidity. Jeez, I don’t want to think about it.

This week I’ve managed to get up early (6-ish) and go for a walk. It is just too hot at any other time of the day. Except for weekends this will probably be my schedule for awhile. I won’t get to see some of my neighborhood buddies as often. I say buddies, they are just those folks who wave and speak to me on my walks. Once in awhile I will come across my friend, Sarah, driving to or from work. I suppose it’s good to change the old routine every now and then.

Daylight is burning, so I better get busy looking. Looking for what? I don’t know. Maybe I am searching for a profundity. One large profundity to go, por favor!

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