Tag Archives: coffee shop

Coffee Shop Chronicles: Playing Games

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Tuscan Cafe
Northville, MI

It really does come down to games, Dominos or not.

This afternoon is my writing time. I’m sitting at a table against the wall under the lamp shade so I have light to type by. I just finished two Americanos, light on steamed milk. The first Americano had a smidge of gingerbread syrup to spice up the holiday season, and the second was just straight up. You’d think I was a serious coffee drinker, but, really, I’m just a novice who latched onto some impressive-sounding coffee name. I feel like I belong here.

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Tuscan Cafe: environmentally friendly

I’m gathering my laptop and notebook to leave when a guy and a boy walk in and sit at the small circular table by the window. From what I overhear, he seems to be a Big Brother to the 13-year-old 8th grader.

I’ve got plenty of room on my rectangular table for everything I have, so I stop packing up and pull out my journal to record the moment.

BB leans forward and asks, “How’s the relationship with you and your brothers?” That’s what makes me think Big Brother in the first place. That and the time is now 3:30pm, which is just after school.

I overhear BB say he likes that the boy plays Minecraft, that “…it’s a game that requires you to work as a team.” I don’t know the game, but I feel like I should. I’ve heard it enough in pop culture media. Note to self: look that up.

Now BB teaches the boy how to play Dominos. This is significant because last night I watched my Season 2 DVD set of Major Crimes. The last episode I saw is what I call the Lost Horizons episode. Tim Conway plays the episode’s main character, Howard. In one scene, he flirts with the female lead, Capt. Raydor, mentioning Dominos.

Howard: “I could teach you to play Dominos, but I, uh, don’t have my Dominos with me.”

Capt. Raydor: “I already know how to play Dominos.”

Howard: “I bet you do.”

At the same time, in another room, Lt. Provenza questions someone else who talks about Dominos.

Provenza says, “It always comes down to Dominos.”

So here I am, watching BB teach the boy to play. I don’t know how to play Dominos, actually. I know how to match numbers but not the rules of scoring. I also know how to stack them in a row so they all fall down. Who plays Dominos?

I half listen as I write and half watch without trying to stare directly at them. I want to hear BB explain how to play. The big window gives me an excuse to look in that direction. If we accidentally make eye contact, I can glance over at the bike chained to the tree or the church across the street or the cars driving by on Center Street. I could even turn my head to the left and stare at the long, roomy wooden table that divides the coffee shop into thirds.

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Coffee drinks and games: together time

My husband and I play games in coffee shops, usually Yahtzee in various Starbucks. It’s a Travel Yahtzee game we, ironically, bought at Starbucks a few years ago when they promoted toys and activities among their products. We have Travel Scrabble from that time, and we’ve bought other portable games through the years. These are our “date nights” because we get out of the house, spend time together and drink coffee. A long table like that one would be roomy, but distant. We choose cozy tables like this one I’m at or the one the guys are sitting at now.

I miss any Dominos explanation over the mellow music playing overhead, but the discussion of games continues. BB: “I wasn’t good at Tetris when I was young.” Now I have a frame of reference of the guy’s age. He’s a child of the 80s.

Then BB asks: “Is that coffee making you tired?”

Boy: “Yeah.”

Thirteen years old and introduced to coffee. That’s our society today.

BB and boy wrap up their visit and pack up the chunky white tiles into a snap-close metal box. I never hear how to play Dominos, but the game box looks like it was the original BB had as a younger guy.

I’ve seen some people play games in coffee shops. Last week, at Miracle Coffee, two women had a pile of board games, they looked old, worn and well-loved. Gathering their games up when we arrived, they saw us pull out our Travel Yahtzee. We all got talking about board games. They may have mentioned that there is a Triple Yahtzee game out there, a game I vaguely remember, like maybe I had it as a kid. Maybe I still have it. I’ll look through my childhood toy box in the basement.

Classic board games have become “the thing” these days. The box designs look retro, but they’re all too new, looking fake. I believe in using authentic items. In scrapbooking, I use the real photo, scan a copy if it’s precious and irreplaceable. In mixed media art, I incorporate real tickets, tea bag tags, and cancelled stamps. Because of this, I prefer original game boxes that hold the authentic game.

Games are a good thing, old or new, especially if they bring us together.

Do You (Still) Read Books?

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When is the last time you read a book?

My answer to that question is: late February.  But my real answer should be: I don’t read enough.  And that’s a sad thing for a writer.

I talk a lot about the way we wrote as kids, just for the fun of it, no expectations, just playing with words.  I should also be dancing with books, traveling through other worlds to experience the words of others.  I should be reading not necessarily to learn from or to study with an eye towards technique, but really, just to pass the time.

“Should” is an evil, passive excuse of a word.  Anything that “should” be done “needs” to be done.  That is so much easier to say than do because there is so much more in the world to do.

Welcome to the world of social media.  We pass our time with heads buried in our phones or tablets, getting neck cramps from looking down too much, missing the scenery we ride by and not hearing the people around us.  Given that, who wants to carry a book when you’ve got hundreds downloaded onto your Kindle or Nook app?  Further frustration:  who wants to open those apps when you can have the three-star-rush of Angry Birds or discovering five new Pinterest recipes for banana nut bread?

The world of electronic gadgets and the bright shiny oooooooh of it all do suck me in.  I don’t spend my time reading books.  That makes me sad, but I don’t see myself changing my routine.

The most recent book I finished was a memoir recommended to me.  I bought it—a physical copy—because that person said, it sounded like the type of memoir I was writing.  I bought it to study and learn from it, the story being a secondary aspect.  It turns out that the approach worked for me; the story was not a great one and I didn’t connect with the character, but there were lines of brilliant emotion that struck my heart.  I wonder: would I have bought that book just off a bookshelf, physical store or otherwise, if I didn’t have that writing connection to it?

I’m writing this in a Starbucks, and what a twist of coincidence just now.  I overhear a conversation between two women where one says, “Have you read the latest James Patterson novel?”  I’m pausing to listen.  The music’s loud enough and the women are far enough away that I’m only hearing snippets.  “He has a team of writers.”  “He’s always on top of it.”  “It’s always a mystery story.”  “Reading Wall Street Journal,” at which point I think the discussion has moved on to other topics.

I am thrilled to hear this conversation.  Angled towards each other, these women are still a community of two.  What are they doing?  I have to get a closer look.  I’m a terrible judge of age, but they look the age of people who still prefer reading paperbacks.  Do they have a roughed-up paperback between them?  That’d be so cool.  I tell myself I need to sweeten my coffee more, so I shuffle by and peer over their shoulders.  They’re both looking down at large smartphones or small tablets.  I am actually disappointed.  I tell myself that regardless where or how they read it, they read it.  Together.

They’re doing more than I am.

Months ago, I made reading a priority and set goals for the year.  I contributed my part to my writers group’s list of our New Year’s Writing Non-Resolutions.  You can read everyone’s lists here. One of my non-resolutions is what I think is an achievable reading goal for me.

As a writer, I feel a need to be more involved on Goodreads, so I updated my pathetically outdated account.  I enrolled in the 2015 Reading Challenge.  The number of books that I think is achievable for me is…well, check it out here and form your own opinion.

My list of books “currently reading” or “want to read” include two that people want me to review and/or critique.  Now I’m a reviewer.  Now I’m reading with a purpose, an obligation.  It’s more like a job.

When was the last time I wandered a bookstore with the intention of finding a book to read for selfish pleasure?  I don’t know.  I really don’t know.  There’s a lack of bookstores in my part of southeast Michigan.  There are two Barnes and Noble bookstores located a short drive from me.  There is one nice local independent store of new and used books, and then there’s one junky, cluttered used bookstore.  There’s a fabulous large used bookstore on the edge of Detroit, but it’s just far enough away for me to think of it as out of the way.  Nice excuses soothing my guilty conscience.

I guess I should stop making excuses for not reading.