take comfort in rituals

Yesterday afternoon when I was done at the gym, I stopped at the Starbucks across the street from Target Center, which is where I work out... you know that Starbucks -- the one next to the Hard Rock Cafe. It was one of those great September days, a day that felt perfect for sitting at one of the tables outside Starbucks with a cup of coffee. And it was. That's always a good spot for people-watching too.

While I was sitting there with my coffee, I noticed that there was a new phrase stencilled on the Starbucks door. It says "Take Comfort in Rituals", with the silouette of a steaming coffee cup. I'm thinking as I sip the coffee (which I took comfort in, by the way), "Hey, there might be a blog entry in that phrase somewhere" (my blog having become a 10-minute ritual of my day, although I'm not sure how much comfort I find in it). So I start thinking the predictable responses I could blog about, like rituals that I take comfort in or maybe how people take comfort in their religious rituals, or whatever.

But when I got back to my computer and Googled the phrase "Take comfort in rituals", I found all sorts of recent blogs mentioning the phrase (it must be a new Starbucks thing nationwide) with bloggers posting about rituals they take comfort in or how people take comfort in their religious rituals, or whatever. And I apparently have nothing original to add. But if, a couple hours after I post this, you Google that term and scroll down far enough, you'll find a link to this post also. Who it is at Google that scans these blogs I don't know, but it's a bit intimidating. And impressive.

what do the normal folk do?

Jerry decided to take a whole day off -- today, a Saturday -- and he somehow talked me into taking the day off too... His reasoning -- "I need to work this Sunday, so you should just work Sunday too instead of today, and we'll spend the day together." This time of year, I'm working all the time, and right now so is he, but I rearranged a client appointment and cancelled a haircut appointment (and I desperately need a haircut) and took the day off.

So now what? My idea of taking a day off would have been to stay at home and "chill", but, no, Jerry said we should do what normal people do on a Saturday. Which is what, I wonder?

We started by going out to breakfast, at Victor's 1959 Cafe ("revolutionary Cuban cooking") in south Minneapolis, then headed to the Mall of America (the opposite of "chilling"), the highlight of which was running into comedienne Joan Rivers, who I actually like very much. She was there for some promotional event for QVC cable shopping network, I think, and also to autograph a couple of her newer books that I had never heard of and had no interest in. If she would have been signing copies of her old bio, Enter Talking, I would have waited in line (It's one of my favorite celebrity autobiographies). She is 75 years old now but has had so much plastic surgery that she looks like a very blond mannequin. Scary! but she's still funny.

The Mall was mobbed today, thousands and thousands of people. We bought some shirts on sale at Macy's and then wanted some coffee, but all of the coffee shops either had long lines (I don't do lines) or had no available seating. So we left the chaos of the Mall behind and headed into Bloomington, where we found a very cool Starbucks in a very seedy strip mall, and had a leisurely cup of coffee while we read the newspaper -- much more my idea of a day off!

Tonight, Tom is here. We're going to watch In Bruges on DVD and then play cards til we head to bed.

Then we'll get up and go to work, which for us this time of year, is normal.