Since the flood my Internet connection has been flaky on the good days. Today was not a good day. I’m not sure the problem is flood-releated; there was a bad period a month ago as well. Still, the flood couldn’t have helped. (One confirmed casualty was the splitter to allow the phone and the modem to share the line. Perhaps that is related to the current troubles.) Happily the Little Café Near Home recently added WiFi (pronounced in this neck of the woods as wee-fee). I gathered up my gear and headed out through a light rain.
Before I even got there I knew that I was heading for a disappointment. As I approached up the sidewalk the first thing I noticed was that the security grill was closed over the big window. The next thing I noticed was the sound of a jackhammer coming from inside. Renovations are under way. That’s cool, but not really convenient for me tonight. The bowling alley’s out – they are hosting a private party tonight. Their network has been sporadic lately as well; I think one guy is playing with the security settings but isn’t telling anyone else what he’s up to. On top of all that, I had pizza to go from the bowling alley last night, and as much as I like those guys, there is a limit.
I’m at U Kormidla right now, where I just had a very nice chicken dish that was not at all what I expected. Upstairs there’s a party of some sort going on; things are festive and they just relocated the plasma TV. Looks like there’s going to be a show. The downstairs is packed, and I’m feeling a little of that American guilt over sitting at the table sipping another tea while people are turned away because there’s no space.
On a marginally related note, on Saturday I’ve been invited to join a family for a meal. It’s the mother of one of the regulars at Little Café Near Home (for a while I though he was setting me up with her, but fortunately that doesn’t appear to be the case). The only catch is that I have no way to contact them. I hadn’t worried about it, I knew that even if I didn’t run into Martin that there were plenty of other Little Café regulars who would have his number. That was on my to-do list for today. That leaves the question, where does a Little Café regular go, when there’s no Little Café? That will be my quest for the rest of the night.
