In Which Commerce and Coffee Collide

 

Capital One, my credit card company of choice, is always looking out for me, fussing one might say. Recently the old dear sent me an email reminding me that they have a cafe here. Yeah, a cafe. It's a very odd idea to me too, sort of like if AT&T decided to open a laundromat.

The unlikely combination was enough to intrigue me and since I am always up for a latte and muffin combo, I decided to investigate. Also unlikely is its address since the cafe is located in Union Square, the absolute stratosphere of the retail experience. Stores there include Tiffany's, Prada, Cartier, Saks - the creme de la creme, the cremiest, in fact. Unfortunately, the decline of in-person shopping and the death knell that covid represented kicked Union Square very firmly right in the nuts. So I'm sure the Capital One Cafe was very welcome by some landlord somewhere, it just seems like it would make more sense to have it over by the big banks and financial institutions on Montgomery Street.

But I digress. Since I was going to be down in the middle of the Rich Bitch Turf, I decided to get a fancy manicure. It was worth the extra money, attentive without being fussy.  And my cuticles have never looked better. 

Plus the stairway to manicure heaven was absolutely charming. 

But mrpeenee, you demand impertinently, what about the cafe? Yeah yeah yeah, I'm getting there. I took my glossy nails and blasted off for the cafe experience. 

It's an odd building, sort of like the ground floor lobby of a skyscraper if the builders forgot to include the upper stories. I Just assumed they had made a conscious decision to make the architecture match the bizarreness of the cafe's concept. And what about the goods, the creamy espresso drinks and the tender flaky pastries? Here's my unbiased report: 

Oh hell no. 

I was only willing to consider this joint because it seemed like an amusing idea.  Standing in a long slow line was not part of my plan. Plus it was 2:00 on a Wednesday afternoon. What the fuck were all these people doing? Don't they have jobs? So how was the espresso and the muffin? We will never know because I realized that even if I were willing to put up with the line, there was no place to sit available.

All the tables were filled with boring looking people intent on their laptops. Maybe they were all writing screenplays, that would explain how they were able to hang out in a cafe during work hours. I fled.

Fortunately, I remembered that Neiman Marcus, the definitive Rich Bitch department store, was only two blocks away and they have one of my favorite afternoon teas in their fancy schmancy cafe.

It was delicious. It always is. So fuck Capital One and their ludicrous marketing scam. 

Boys I'd like to share a muffin with:

The boys of summer are back.

Everybody loves a good summer festival.

Speaking of the creme de la Creamy

Did I hear you looking for a DILF?

Ready for ravishing.

What adorable nutz.

In Which Our Pride is Gay

 

Here is a an important secret about gay pride: gays, queers, homos, Nancy boys, whatever you want to call the members of the LGBTQIA+ community (and I knocked that whole acronym out without looking it up. I am a genius) grow up with the shame of being a sexual deviant drummed into our ears from a very early age. The earliest insult you could have thrown at you on the playground is to be called a sissy. So we have to learn to overcome.that stigma, or at least try to.  It's hard. And so the concept of."Gay Pride" was developed not so much to show pride in being gay (although, truth be told, I am rather smug about it,) but because pride is the opposite of shame and it's important for the community to understand that.

Anyway, here's this year's pride story:

I was out having a latte and a bit of pastry when my idyll was interrupted by the mewling sound of Wham's Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.  Decades ago, when the world was young and new and so was mrpeenee, my friends and I all despised Wham.  We were fierce partisans of the new wave rock movement.  Bands like the b-52s, Depeche Mode, The Human League, Eurythmics, the Buzzcocks, and New Order were what we'd dance the night away to.  It was certainly not the sunny, bubble gummy pop of Wham. 

As part of our growing queer sensibilities, we saved our particular scorn for the lead singer George Michael.  Long before the all-knowing internet gave us access to every hidden gem of a celeb's life, we had absolutely no question that Michael was a big ol' poof.

It was hardly a difficult mystery to crack. We even had very firm opinions about his sexual proclivities. We all took one look is at his butch leather/tight jeans/sneering/sunglasses and pronounced our verdict:  "Bottom." Of course time proved us completely correct. How gratifying.  I have to admit, even as we dismissed him and his music, we were all secretly, or not so secretly, swooning over him like some middle school tween girl reading Tiger Beat magazine.

Because he certainly was pretty. 

And that's what made the whole lurid story of his being busted in a tea room for "public lewdness"  all the more thrilling.  The idea that George Michaels' beautiful pouty lips might be the receiving end of a glory hole was so much more than any of us could have ever hoped for. Also, I just love the phrase "public lewdness." I long dreamed of visiting the restroom where he was arrested just to see the George Michael Memorial Toilet Stall. In poking around his Wikipedia article and the details about his being pinched by the pigs, I discovered that the park where the glory hole is located is in the middle of Beverly Hills and I have actually been there without even knowing I was treading on hallowed ground.  I realize with this audience, I have to rush to assure you all I was not in the restroom for dick, for once.

Anyway, that's our history lesson for Gay Pride. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. As part of this year's celebration, why don't you go stick your dick through a glory hole and imagine that the vacuum seal on the other side is the long gone but always beautiful George Michael.

Guys I wish I could meet through a hole carved in a stall wall:

Visitors to San Francisco for the World Cup games we're hosting have complained about a lack of enthusiasm locally for the games. They should understand we are simply pacing ourselves for gay pride which is this upcoming Sunday. It's our own World Cup of Queerness.

I have run into that ridiculous piece of jewelry known as a Prince Albert by knocking my teeth into it. I was not expecting it, and I did not appreciate it.

I never attend the pride festivities. As I say every year, I'm already gay enough.

I just love boys with skin as white as a freshly peeled potato.

Of course, I also love olive-skinned boys.

Bent.

I always feature this guy whenever I run across him. I think his beefiness is admirable.

Also, here's my salute to the summer solstice.

In Which We Stroll

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In Which Our Grade is Retroed

The idiotic superstition that the planet Mercury, being in something called retrograde which results in all kinds of misfortune on earth, is just an optical illusion where it appears to move backwards in the sky. I usually have no patience for bullshit of this particular flavor, but on days like this, I am willing to consider it.  After all, I don't understand how a planet can look like it's running around backwards just because, you know, science any more than I understand how people can actually believe that it makes their life fuck up, so what the hell.

But mrpeenee, what brings the collision of superstition and science up today? Obviously, it's the fact that Mercury is fucking with me. Again.

Things started out apparently calmly enough.  I had errands, an appointment with my new doctor, and I wanted coffee, so I had to leave the apartment. And that's when all hell broke loose.  Isn't it always? My cat Toby insists on bolting out of the door whenever I'm trying to leave. He thinks of it as running away from home, I think of it as him being a dickhead. He trots down the hall and then lays down and demands that I come pick him up and carry him back. It's adorable except it's also annoying as the dickens. I obediently went down and was toting him back when a construction worker exited one of the apartments near me. Toby took the opportunity to FREAK THE FUCK OUT. Obviously it was time to flee for his life and his solution was to dig his claws into my hand as he tried to jump down. I screamed like an enthusiastic little girl and dropped Toby. So I was shrieking and Toby was flailing, and the construction guy was doing both. If I had bled any more, I would have needed a transfusion.

My totally cool Day of the Dead Band-Aid. It makes being wounded almost worth it.

I limped off to get coffee with my bandaged hand as a kind of trophy to how I suffer, silently, like a martyr. Then I had to go get some document scanned to send to my tax guy. UPS has a store down the street from me which offers scanning, easy breezy peazy, right? Except the fat guy in line in front of me could not figure out how to fill in a mailing label and wound up taking so long I had to abandon ship in order to make my doctor appointment on time. When I left, he was complaining about why they used the word "recipient" on the label.

So my new doctor belongs to One Medical, part of Amazon's drive to control every aspect of modern life. I was just there for a check up and to line up a new main provider. Instead, the receptionist claimed they had sent me an email that she was out on medical leave and I would need another doctor. Because I have a new resolution not to flip out unnecessarily, even though that is my one true talent, I did not explain that "I sent you an email" is such a feeble excuse, I refuse to acknowledge it any longer. I have been retired for 15 years and even I stopped using it years before I escaped work. I just made a new appointment for a couple of weeks from now. We'll see how many doctors I go through in that time.

But then Mercury seemed to get his head out of its ass. I went to a different place to scan my documents and the cutest boy in the world, friendly and sweet, helped me. He obviously felt sorry for my feeble old ass and very politely pretended to ignore my lascivious ogling. His hair was like thick silk. I just wanted him to lay his head on my lap and let me pet it for a while. Also, I got an excellent iced mocha across the street from there in a place I have been ignoring for years because they take too long to make coffee. How was I to know it was worth it?

Finally I took a robo taxi, one of San Francisco's driverless cabs, home. Here's a pro tip for when these become common in your future life: because there is no driver, if you're having a bad day and you get in one, you can just scream as much as you like. Take my word for it..

Boys who could make me scream:

Peekaboo.

Runnin' around.

Next to godliness, baby.

Cowboy beef.

My cat Toby is lying next to me with his butt encroaching on the keyboard and his tail flailing at me.

My typing is never great, but Toby is making it even worse than usual.

Toby wins. I'm signing off.