I enjoy privacy a lot, inside and outside my house and my social circles: The Coffee Shop Prompt 83.

In part, my myopia and a minor case of prosopagnosia (long story short: difficulty to remember faces) have helped me forge a personality that embraces privacy, intimacy, rather than extroversion. It has become my habit not to fix my eyes on people more than is strictly necessary. This I do by habit indeed. And it's what helps me not to look unfriendly when the barista sees me in the supermarket and greets me and I'm like oh? But once I see you and get to know you well, everything is different--if we get to like each other, of course.

It's not like here one sits in privacy, since the walls are glass and you can clearly see everything from the inside out and vice versa.

But there is a cozy feeling.

I have no idea if the employees here would recognize and/or greet me if they saw me on the street--I certainly wouldn't, because of my minor prosopagnosia--but while we are here, I can tell they're very attentive and congenial. I don't get into more intimacy or conversation with them because I always come in company; I suppose if I frequented this cafe on my own, I would've been a bit more sociable.

I like it here

Two days ago, for work purposes, I made an appointment with a former student who is now my colleague and friend, to brush up on various information regarding the method of teaching writing that I've been using/adapting for my classes for the last--oh, Goodness--nearly twenty years. It's amazing how some things this long can be summed up in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee.

When we made this appointment a couple of days ago, I didn't even think about it: “Now we need that coffee. Sunday, 10 a.m., La Panettería?” I texted. And even if the reason is work, a coffee with a friend is a coffee with a friend.

Despite the super bright orange of some of the tables, La Panettería offers a nice view (certainly warm, hehe, and citrusy 😁). I love to come here if I want to chat with someone; they've learned to keep the music at an appropriate volume, so much so that sometimes I even forget that there is music in the background; then you can actually speak without raising your voice so loudly. The right volume of life, little and perfect at the right time.

My good friend Andrés, @bertrayo, brought me a plant that his mother sent me as a gift; among the names it's known by there's this one that makes me smile: * mother-in-law's tongue* (Dracaena trifasciata). So it seems that the size and "fertility" of the mother-in-law's tongue is close to being a universal issue, hehe. I was delighted to receive my plant and plan to multiply it in my garden as part of my beautification project, which is going very, very slowly.

Plants, coffee and friends can never be bad if you ask me, although there's always room for improvement, right?

As we were just starting the conversation, my niece arrived at the café and joined us. We ordered more coffee and pastries. It was a fruitful and comforting couple of hours with these two faces I know so well: Andrés's and Celina's.

Initially, I had ordered a cappuccino, but made the mistake of putting too much sugar in it. I gave it to my niece when she joined us, but she had to mix it with some of Andres' cappuccino to lessen the sweetness. I had actually made two mistakes: besides putting sugar in it, I shouldn't have ordered anything with milk. My second coffee was an espresso without sugar. Happiness with a round black & lovely face.

All text and images are my own. I have taken the pictures with my Redmi 9T cell phone. And if any GIFs here, I've used GIPHY for all them.

Thank you so much for your visit :)

Banner by @andresromero 🖤