At the fishbowl cafe, early, always, get warm, filled with other get-warmers, typically the homeless just setting out to kill an 18 hour day. Conversing with the young female baristas, at tones loud enough for the entire cafe to hear, about Dodge Trucks and how much gas they use and he'd never be able to pedal the gas for fear it would run out, and - you know, he'd never be able to pedal the gas because he'd never acquire a license to drive, never raise enough on the street to buy a truck, let alone the tank of gas, and so this conversation, entirely irrelevant, but the barista's bearing it with an admirable stoicism.
Next up is K***y, a wreck I see every day, gaunt, bearded, he travels all over town with his bags filled with (???), not unhoused, he's maybe in his 70's, severely disabled, but he's got the tricks, he stands beside me and shuffles the three dimes in his hand, trying to get together enough for a coffee, it's impossible, he knows, and so he rolls his eyes imploringly at me...
He'd done this to me yesterday, I'm an easy mark, clearly he is one of the least fortunate, least capable of Nelson's homeless contingent, and I don't even think he's homeless, he's got a place somewhere, institution, but he's capable enough he's given free reign over his days and spends them on the bus to Balfour or Nelson and all points in between....
Once he's secured funding for his coffee he begins in his halted, peculiar tones to discuss the impeachment of Trump, and I need really to find another café to warm up in these first few hours before the library opens...