SMELLS LIKE WET OAKS AND PEAT

When you pop out of the house early in the morning for a quiet pipe, when there is no one around to get triggered or offended by the smell of tobacco, it is still foggy around Nob Hill. Which is almost worth getting out of bed for at that hour. Sadly, there are no nearby places open at that time for decent coffee. One would have to hike across the hill to the Caffè Trieste in North Beach. Which does the best Latte and Cappuccino in the city.

Chinatown is closer. But they've never been known for decent coffee. The old men who form the backbone of coffee shop and bakery society there are fond of the their miserable slop out of a cafeteria style monster, which has been the standard there for decades.

That's what they've long been used to.
So there's no reason to change.

Yeah, there's Starbucks. Which is fine if you want a froofrooppaccino with chocolate sprinkles and hazelnut syrup. With low fat oat milk. Blonde attitude. And misspelled names.
With everyone around you on their laptop or cellphone. Which I don't.

Actually, at any hour, but that hour particularly, the only company I would really want is someone who wants to read a book in my company, silently and thoughtfully, without commenting negatively about the smell of tobacco.

Who does NOT think of hobbits when seeing a pipe smoker.
Or low tide at Perth Amboy. Or a municipal dump.

Somebody who liked fog. And smoke.


BTW: I am not an antique.



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