Hortons

These days, at Starbucks café, I have been addicted to Oat Nog Latte, but this morning, I decided to have Iced Gingerbread Oat Chai. I sat in the back, near the restrooms. It is a grey-sky day. I walk practically everyday to get to the café. It was extremely windy, today, though. I stopped at Yummy Slice pizzeria for a Diet Coke and Subway sandwitcheria for a Turkey Ranch "Snackwich" just before the café. Heading home, I then visited Kin's Farm fruteria. Grandma Taiwan was there at the front: "Míng sà la!" she exclaimed. The lotus roots were out of stock. The wind was ferocious, as I walked back home. The neighbourhood Tim Hortons will be opening soon. Today is the 14th of December of 2024.

After two in the morning, I was awake, trying to read an Interlingua book, Le torno del mundo in octanta dies, by Jules Vernes. But the lamp in the living room was too dim. I ate a few pieces of Italian round waffle-like cookies, pizzelle. I went back to sleep on the couch. Later, it was a drizzling morning, cold and clammy, this Boxing Day of 2024. I walked twice to the neighbourhood's Tim Hortons. Firstly, I ate two hash browns, whilst drinking an iced coffee with oat milk. Secondly, I ate a crispy chicken wrap with a glass of blackberry yuzu sparkling quencher. At both occasions, there were Eurasian children, and there were Filipinos that looked handsomely Japanesque. I was exercising with a hand grip strengthener at my table, as I counted to twenty in Esperanto, in each set: "unu, du, tri, kvar,..." In the afternoon, this Boxing Day of 2024, the sun came out of the clouds, the drizzle stopping for the while. An odd cabinet mirror stood by the sidewalk, so I could see my bare legs and mauve garden shoes in the reflection. I walked to Tim Hortons, there to drink an iced coffee with oat milk. The café was crowded. At night, I went back there to eat a roast beef and cheddar sandwich with an oat milk iced coffee. A brown family popped in to break the empty silence. A pensive white man said that I liked the word "blossom": Maybe, he was waiting for spring?

This winter has been warmer than usual, so far, without snow, here on Lulu Island. In the morning, this 27th of December of 2024, I walked twice to Tim Hortons: Firstly, I ate two hash browns with an oat milk iced coffee. Secondly, I ate a sausage egg English muffin meal, including a hash brown and oat milk iced coffee. I went to Starbucks for an oat nog latte. I missed Greg, my Filipino friend, who left just before me. Then, I went to Yummy Slice pizzeria for a red-can Coca-Cola Zero Sugar. The Filipina vendor Rose was there, so we said "Happy New Year" to each other. I passed by Kin's Farm fruteria. On my way home, in the park's alleyway, I met and talked with my ufologist friend, Michael J., a Dane-French. He amused himself with the red touque on my head, with orange letters in Tagalog: "MGA AWSTRALYA ANG MGA ESTRELYA" (The stars are Australias). I told him it was about "space colonization." There are the cold and hot deserts of other worlds. Then, I went to the house of my "auntie" neighbour, Tita Zeny, to pick up her homemade "dinuguán" or Filipino pork blood stew to bring home. Lunch at home would include Filipino chicken "adobo."

In the evening, I returned to Tim Hortons to eat what was becoming my usual: two hash browns and an oat milk iced coffee. I should, maybe, go back to croissants, sometime. There were Sinospheric customers. There was a robust East Indian customer in a corner. One South Asian vendor commented, "Viktor is still like an embryo!" At home, I listened to a radio app on my tablet: Zouk Hits, Southeast Asia Psychedelics, Baroque, etc. It was the 27th of December of 2024.

The morning was drizzling, this 28th of December of 2024. (Incidentally, there are 28 letters in the Esperanto alphabet.) I walked to Tim Hortons, there to eat a croissant and a hash brown, and to drink an oat milk iced coffee. Amongst the vendors were handsome men, Joban and Pushpak. The ladies were pretty. They were all South Asians. There was a fat Eurasian boy toddler with his white mama and Sinospheric papa amongst the customers. At our house, Rex, the cousin of my cousin Eve, arrived from the states. A devout Roman Catholic Filipino, he was wearing a necklace with a hanging crucifix when he greeted me. I exclaimed "Mr. Lingo!": Like I, he has been a long-time language fanatic, and now he is learning Portuguese and Polish. He knows that my "favourite" is Esperanto. He amused himself with my dark red T-shirt with the vertical phrase in white letters in Spanish: "¡Las estrellas son Australias!" ("The stars are Australias!" about outer space and potential future colonies on the cold and hot desert worlds beyond our Earth). I was wearing also a red baseball cap with yellow lettering of "XANADU, TITAN": a reference to a mystical region on Saturn's moon. Rex would be sojourning with my Filipino family, here on Lulu Island, for the weekend visit. He earlier communicated that he would want "bubble tea" from here. I complimented Rex that he still "looks the same" from decades ago.

About 6 in the drizzling morning, I headed walking towards Tim Hortons, here on Lulu Island. I had a chai tea with oat milk and a four-cheese savoury twist pastry. Later, my Cantonese friend Gary showed up; his family has been in this country for generations. Besides English, he speaks Cantonese and Mandarin. Some people want to live in a different country: Gary wants to live in Vietnam, specifically Ho Chi Minh City, for part of the year, as he has a girlfriend there. He said that he was not having too much language difficulty there, despite that I know that most signs there are in Vietnamese. He suggested that I buy property in the Philippines, where it would be much cheaper. I said that I do not really prefer a Xtian country. I talked about the city of Ayutthaya in Buddhist Thailand, full of expatriates admiring ancient temples there. Later, before 8 in that morning, I walked to Starbucks, and I waited for my Filipino friend Greg, but he did not show up this time. I was drinking an iced strawberry oat matcha latte. Today is the 5th of January of 2025.

Today is the 14th of January of 2025. It was night at Time Hortons café. I ate Sea Salt Potato Wedges with Wildberry Hibiscus Lemonade Quencher. Joban the South Asian was my vendor. In the morning, I had a couple or more cups of Green Tea with Oat Milk, which, someone expressed, "tastes like ice cream." It was night at Starbucks café. I ate two Belgian Liège Waffles. The Brown Sugar Oat Cortado interestingly tasted like jackfruit. I was going to tell the Japanese-Anglo hybrid Chris the barista or Jess the Anglo barista. Money is just an inhibitor, sometimes. Money is poverty, sometimes. Life should always be sensual, a sensory wonderland. Life is ephemeral, full of fleeting experiences. Do I believe in the Akashic Records, the memory compendium about everything? The following day of the 15th, I saw Hans the Netherlander in his motorized wheelchair at Tim Hortons. We sat near the sun-drenched bay window, as we chatted and ate Sea Salt Potato Wedges. I was drinking Orange Pekoe tea with Oat Milk for a change.

I woke up early today. I started my café-hopping here on Lulu Island just after 5 in the night-like morning. I walked to Tim Hortons to have a Green Tea with Oat Milk and a Sausage Egg Cheese English Muffin. Pushpak the South Asian vendor was not there today. I was the only customer in the vast chamber. Then, I walked to Starbucks. My baristas were Nicole the Filipina and Jessica the Vietnamese. I was drinking a Brown Sugar Oat Cortado that comes in a cute, little ceramic mug. It tasted like jackfruit to me. Jessica from afar whispered loudly and solemnly, "Richmond is not like Asia." A regular, a big white man with white hair, sat with his tablet computer at a table near the washrooms. I thought that he was playing games on it. It was the 23rd of January of 2025.

Later in the morning, before 10, I returned to Tim Hortons. I walked as I usually did. At a corner of a long table with a graphic of an ice hockey rink, I was eating an Herb and Garlic Pastry whilst drinking a Specialty Chai Tea with Oat Milk. Pushpak the South Asian vendor was there, then. I saw my friend Leo the Filipino with a big bag of groceries for "two weeks' worth." He said that he still ate Filipino-style, despite being here in "the Great White North." There was a dark-haired technical man with a strange Euro-like accent using a sophisticated ultramodern rotating black camera on a tripod for taking "measurements for insurance." He mentioned the word "lighter." At home, I listened to music from a radio app on my tablet: Happy '70s, '80s & '90s Pop Rock, House: Deep to Future, Baroque, Zouk Hits, and Southeast Asia Psychedelics. I was earlier today making contributions to articles in the Tagalog Wikipedia. It was the 23rd of January of 2025.

I returned to Tim Hortons café at night. I was drinking an Iced Coffee with Oat Milk at a corner near the bay window overlooking the darkness of the intersection outside. My neighbours, Ming (Richard) and his white wife Linda, were having a "banquet" on the long table with the ice hockey rink graphic. The couple liked to frequent Victoria, BC. I said that I remembered a big beautiful boarding house there, antique and owned by a gentle Sinospheric family. In the café, at a different corner near the bay window, were a foursome sharing a table together: two head-covered Arabic ladies and two Sinospheric ladies. They all were having a lively chat. It was the 23rd of January of 2025.