Just like that:  I’m back in California, where a woman’s wonky heart can flutter beneath a cowl-neck sweater in the fragile sun-kissed breezes.  California:  Where even the flight attendants wear clunky Mary Janes and have fine lines on their pale cheeks.  California — and the care falls away as I cross the Golden Gate Bridge, turn right, and hit the Great Highway, headed south for Montara.

The phone rings.  My son says, It’s snowing in Chicago.  I hear the sound of the CTA as he boards to ride downtown in swirling frozen air just to see winter’s mad moments as he reads a script and thinks about rehearsal.  I’ve taken the Pacifica exit to look for a cafe which I found by accident six months ago, a few feet above sea level.  I can’t remember where it is.  I finally park and finish my call with Patrick.  I tell the phone, lunch near me, and make my way to the Chit Chat Cafe, where I chance normal bread to have one of the most succulent Caprese sandwiches this side of Cleveland.

Or anywhere.  This side of everywhere.

I change clothes in the little any-gender lavatory, resting the Barcelona bag on the floor.  I notice it says 2002, not 2003 as I wrote in my blog the other day.  I laugh; then look around as though someone’s hiding in the bathroom to admonish me for being amused.

At the little two-top, I plug one of my three computing devices into the charger that Katrina brought me when I found myself fearful to be alone during the non-ice-storm in Kansas City last month.  I’m not sure the gadget works but I feel strangely comforted knowing that it might charge my phone.  I know where I’m going so I don’t really need its GPS but I’m a midwesterner.   Maps give us something close to sanity in any situation.

I finish my sandwich and start looking for a chair near a plug.  A man typing almost as rapidly as I do helps me get situated.  He says my wife tells me that her computer behaves better just because I’m in the room.  He says it like he’s proud.  I’m not sure which pleases him more:  Having the wife or being teased by her.  My computer responds to his tiny little jiggles of the cord and suddenly, I’m online.  I ignore the e-mails from my office and download the picture that I snapped through the window, with my sandwich idle in front of me and the word “blues” taking on a whole new meaning.

It’s the fourteenth day of the thirty-ninth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.