Quencher

What's your favorite thirst quencher?

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?

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.

Today's the 9th of May of 2025. All day has been grey skies. After morning Iced Coffee with oat milk at Tim Hortons café, I went walking towards the Roman Catholic church on St. Albans Road, just so I could pass by the big tree that looks like a jacaranda tree with purple blooms, but isn't a jacaranda. (The species remind me of South America.) More of the brick-like impressions on the pedestrian have been painted white, not red as I would imagine. Lulu Islanders aren't so fanciful with colours, unlike Vancouver or other cities. I went to the major worship hall, again to admire the fancy colourful stained glass. The crucifix is adorned with white fabric. At the smaller Adoration Chapel, I began to notice on the right front the Virgin Mary statue with the Child statue on her side. In the evening, I returned to the café to enjoy a Green Tea with oat milk, a Blackberry Yuzu Lemonade Quencher, and a Roast Beef Craveable Sandwich. At home, I amused myself with Korean grammar, which was a slight distraction to my core studies of Esperanto and Lojban. With StreetView, I started looking again at the streets in South Korea. Maybe, I will try more of the countryside, as I have done with Thailand. For lunch and dinner at home was noodle dishes.

This 21st of May of 2025 is a sunny, yet cloudy, day. I went walking in the morning to Tim Hortons café to enjoy an Iced Coffee with oat milk. The other day, I tried their pink-looking Pineapple Dragon Fruit Frozen Quencher. 'Twas more like icy candy for me! Later in the morning today, I went walking to the Roman Catholic church on St. Albans Road. On the way, I gazed at the big purple-bloom Empress Tree, near Bowcock Road. The blooms are starting to fade. In the big worship hall was a small class of little boys and girls, dressed in uniform, students practicing bowing at the altar and oration at the microphone. They looked like mostly Filipino kids, this time. It reminded of my private school days at La Salle Green Hills in the Philippines. Even then, our liturgical language was also English, as here on Lulu Island. It was despite that our household and street language was Tagalog. In the 1960s, the Church globally changed the liturgical language from Latin to the vernacular language. I remember my Thai Buddhist Temple in Vancouver—Wat Yanviriya. The wonderful liturgical language was Pali. It was the language that made the temple stay magical! We learned meditation, which is what I do in the church on St. Albans Road. I try to go when the big worship hall is mostly empty. At home, I try to learn more Esperanto vocabulary.

Around 15:00, my walking led me to Tim Hortons café, there to enjoy a Strawberry Watermelon Lemonade Quencher and a Lemon Poppyseed Muffin, as I sat sunning myself by the long table with a drawing of an ice hockey rink thereon. Homebound, in the alleyway, I saw dragonflies. In my mind, I say "tutubí" in Tagalog and "tombo" in Japanese. Sometimes, I chat with the anxious carpenters near the alleyway. It's the 24th of May of 2025.

It's the 14th of May of 2025. It was my latest nighttime visit at Tim Hortons café, about 22:00. At a corner sat a familiar pale-skinned couple of Hispanics, chatting. As I couldn't hear their Spanish accent, I couldn't really guess from which country they came. The hall was mostly empty, except for them at one corner and me at another corner. Some Eurasians came in for a few minutes. I was drinking a Blackberry Yuzu Lemonade Quencher and eating a Cinnamon Raisin Bagel. It was dark in the streets, as I walked back homebound.

It's nice and hot today, this blue-sky sunny 30th of June of 2025. At Tim Hortons café, I've enjoyed today a Sausage Farmer's Wrap, an Iced Classic Lemonade, an Iced Coffee with oat milk, an Everything Bagel with butter, and a Strawberry Watermelon Sparkling Quencher. Yesterday, I was really remembering Vancouver's Pacific Centre, not the Harbour Centre Mall. Such enclosed shopping malls remind me of potential future colonies on other planets and moons. Maybe, AI will help humanity.

It's a sunny 3rd of July of 2025. On the 7th will be the Star Festival—Tanabata—in Japan. This morning, here on Lulu Island, I strolled to Tim Hortons café twice—Iced Coffee with oat milk, then Strawberry Watermelon Sparkling Quencher with a Sausage Farmer's Wrap. I went to the "Clam Temple." On the way, I glanced at the charming bamboo grove. An old man had dug holes beside it to put compost—eaten mangoes and cherries. At the café, I spoke to Greg, the white man who eventually wants to own a B&B in Kushiro, Hokkaido, with his Japanese wife. The native Ainu and marshes are attractions there. Today, head-shaven Greg is wearing a beige T-shirt and beige shorts—maybe a hint of Chabacano?

Another sunny day, this 1st of August of 2025, here on Lulu Island. At Tim Hortons café, whilst I was drinking oat-milk iced coffee, I was talking with Hans the Dutchman, sitting in his motorized wheelchair. He was enjoying a Boston cream donut and a peach sparkling quencher. We talked about my great-great-grandfather Dimitri, from Kimi on Evia Island, Greece. My Filipino family has an ancient sepia picture of him sitting as if he were Count Dracula. Hans told me that he has a woman cousin from Netherlands, who escaped the cold climate to live indefinitely in sunnier Greece. She's been overstaying there for 20-plus years! At home, my Greek-Cypriot neighbour George came by to give my family a big bag of cute green figs. He's married to a Japanese, Chika, and they have two hybrid daughters, Chloe and Anna. I toured the Greek mainland and islands in 2002, but never reached Kimi. I've read the travelogue, The Olive Grove: Travels in Greece, by Katherine Kizilos, a Greek-Australian, and it seems that Greece is also nice in the off-season.