A Room With a View

Daily I walk into Starbucks with the wonderful blue mug Carly H. gave me for Christmas a few years ago.  They don’t know my name there, but often they say, “I know that blue mug.”

The perks:
1) I save $.10 a day (Hey, I’m Dutch)
2) I’m earth friendly (Unlike the chick in the Prius who uses a new cup every day)
3) I stay clean (the lids on the paper cups just don’t work for me)

Today, after I parked.  I looked over at my center console where I usually keep my mug.  Not there.  Oh, well.  I guess I can do without my three perks for one day. 

I walked in, and one of the managers looks at me.  “Where’s your mug?”

I innocently said, “I think I left it at work.  I’m not sure.  I don’t know where it is.”

She held up a finger.  “I’ll take care of that.”  She walked around from behind the counter and over to a display. She grabbed a light blue mug, peeled the price, washed it out, and filled it up.  No charge for mug or coffee.

I can’t believe it’s already Monday.  Where does the time go?

Saturday is always a work day for me.  But it feels like a half day since I’m finished at 1.  After that, I was off to Tempe for the Great Arizona Beer Festival.  This is the second time I’ve gone.  Basically, if you cough up a Ulysses S Grant (or if I’d bought my tickets in advance online, two Andrew Jackson’s) you get almost unlimited tasting of microbrews from 2 to 6 while enjoying beautiful Arizona weather.  This year it was a bit smaller than last, but still fun.  Good beer.  And though you may be tired of hearing about Raymond leaving, this was one of the last chances to do something with him.  He leaves Friday.  Two years ago he went with our friend Marcos.  That year Marcos feel over the fence into the VIP area.  When they told me that story, I decided I needed to go next time.  And now it’s a two year tradition.  Sadly, no one toppled over any fences.  Besides the beer, a lot of tall, good looking guys.  Most gay guys I meet are like 5′7″ to my 6′4″ (or so it seems).  I guess to be straight, you’ve got to be tall.  And I had my fingers crossed that since these guys were willing to experiment with different beers they might apply that to other areas of their life.  Kidding!

Later that night I headed to Kobalt to see players from the softball teams I cheer for, the Phoenix Phire and Phoenix Phusion, perform in drag as a fundraiser.  So crazy, but fun to watch.  I stayed for just a bit, then headed over to Charlie’s for dancing.  No Jose.  Haven’t seen him for two weeks and I’m loving it.

Sunday was a quiet morning reading “Lean Mean Thirteen” by Janet Evanovich while sitting in the sun at Starbucks.  Aaaahhhh.  Then some chores around my house.  Some online chatting.  A great nap.  Then to Charlie’s for afternoon tea.  Once again, Raymond’s last Sunday at Charlie’s.  I finally picked up my Blonde Voyage pics and showed them to everyone.  I’ll be uploading them soon.  Petey was excited because he had sprayed his hair blonde and I was the only one who had taken his picture.  He kept taking the picture and showing it to everyone.  I finally just gave it to him.  We all stayed much later than usual.  I finally met up with this guy John that I’ve been chatting/texting with constantly.  I introduced Raymond to this guy Pim who is also Dutch.  They hit it off (I guess that’s my going away present).  A bunch of us went out to dinner at Fez.  Then it was home to start sleeping for a busy day at work.