The amorous parade of chocolates

The strangest thing happened lately at the cafe. Gita brought a box of German chocolates as a Xmas treat. So far nothing anomalous. This time of year many such items end up at Gretchen’s: chocolates, oranges, trufles, dog treats and toys, glittering garlands that humans can wear so as to look like a Xmas tree. So needless to say that the chocolates didn’t last long, as the few priviledged gulped them down in the twinkling of an eye. Next thing I know of is Gita showing up looking for the chocolates, that apparently ended up here by mistake, her mum having sent her several boxes, and that one was a very special one meant for her. So Gita shows up, hoping to taste one of those, and pfiit! gone! It is amazing how fast those things disappear, so much that I wondered if they didn’t have a life of their own. Because those things literally fly into people’s mouths, but they choose their palate of election. Chocolates mate, they mate with the palate that desires them most. How do they choose their mate? They just listen and watch, and those that drool best are usually the most suitable mates. You got to understand the psychology of chocolates: they are programmed to melt into somebody’s palate, sooner or later, and if they don’t, they wilt, just like flowers, and eventually die. Have you ever seen an uneaten chocolate? It looses its color. However, when they are palatable enough, they do find their mate. I can tell you where some of those ended, and how. It is quite an amorous parade, like the one of birds. Now you’re in the cafe, and the first chocolate- and the first of a few ones- to start off did it when it heard Roberto’s call. You need to know that Roberto has a talent for ventriloquism and telepathy, which enabled him to execute his silent parade to the chocolates unnoticed by humans. The chocolate did see him drooling first, and silently started challenging him: “Ok, you say you want me, but what can you offer in exchange?” It’s then that the perfidious Roberto took a head start on all humans present on that day, with his silent dialogue with the chocolate, and moreover, he spoke to them in German, now that’s disloyal concurrence.
“- Oh, you cannot find a better palate than mine to melt on, I got a warm, cosy place for you there, with the most refined taste buds you can find miles around. Come and try it! I’ll make you dance and whirl under my tongue till you get warm enough to melt, and then both you and me will sink into the great Nirvana. Come on, don’t be afraid, come on!”
The bravest of the chocolates then started asking her fellows what they thought of this guy Roberto. Could she trust him? “Hey guys, check out this guy, he’s drooling, he can’t wait to have me, and he said he’ll make me dance!”
- I don’t know, those guys always boast, and then once inside if they’re no good you’re trapped, I’d think about it if I were you.
- Hey, check out his palate, he’s yawning, oh, I’ve never seen a palate that looked so nice and cosy indeed, I’m already melting! I don’t wanna wait, I’m in for the gig, yipee!”
And in goes the first chocolate. Because what Roberto the perfidious didn’t tell, of course, is that he was polygamous, so that chocolate was followed by several others, few of them being able to see the perfidy and greed behind the irresistible palate appeal.
Some humans didn’t present any interest for the chocolates though, like that Frenchie who declined trying them, thinking maybe later, and she wasn’t really drooling for them anyway, those Parisians, they’re snobbish and swear only by Swiss chocolate or Leonidas Belgium chocolates. So the remaining chocolates soon identified another potential mate, in Gretchen’s palate. That was, they knew it, a top choice too. They could feel the kinship between them and the Viking Gretchen, and they were actually fighting for the first place in her palate. So Gretchen did harbor a few of them.
Now the other mystery is why Gita was so anxious about retrieving at least part of those “very special” chocolates. All conjectures are allowed here. It occured to me maybe those chocolates were actually smuggling some diamonds. Ouch. Gretchen and Roberto, you’d better watch out, I have a vision of Gita seizing Gretchen’s sword, and opening your stomachs to retrieve the precious bounty.

Cosycafe

A wet day in the Pacific Northwest, another one, which should be highlighted with a severe wind storm supposed to hit the area tonight. That's today's event in La Conner. Bundle up for the storm. Buy candles. The cafe is a good place to be on a day like this one, warm and cosy, colorful neon lights on, all the fantastic creatures on the wall. People chatting comfortably sat in an armchair, others tap-tap-tapping their computer keyboards. Yesterday's table from the fundraising dinner is still there, and the crockpot. I like that word, crockpot. Crockpot, potluck. Sounds warm and nice, like community. The dogs have been busy for quite a while with huge bones to chew on. I like this being busy with my computer with plenty of people around, echoes of conversations, the noise of the coffe machine, while the rain outside drips, drip,drip.

Conversation with a canvas

Don't look at me like this. I know you're waiting for me to make something out of you. I just don't know what to do with you for the moment, so I'll let you sit here for a while, maybe several days, till I get to know . You already look good, really. But I want you to be more than good. I want you to be moving. I want you to be able to draw emotion from the hardest rock. Otherwise I might as well paint tulips or even worse, buy cheesy art from a chain store. Don't look at me so disaprovingly, of course I'll come back, I told you. I need to get away from you, that's how I usually come back with my muse on my shoulder, and currently she has flown away for a while, you see she needs a break too. So why don't you go to sleep for a while, and when you wake up, I'll be here, and my muse too. Well hopefully.

From inanimate to animate

I guess sitting for so long in front on my computer at the cafe drinking green tea is starting to have strange effects. Gretchen's walls have been covered with Art objects from China and Tibet for a couple of weeks, and a thought came to me, what if all those creatures depicted on those wood carved plates came to life... Goddesses, sacred animals, beetles, dragons and phoenixes, ritual dancers, peacoks, " wood ducks delighting in the lotus", a hundred year bridge, fishmongers, moonprayers, an ancient canal town,- La Conner ? - couples of butterflies courting each other, then we'd end up with the cafe turned into a magic realm, altogether a canal town, a swamp, and a jungle peopled with extraordinary creatures from now and then, from this world and beyond. I see a painting here, something not unlike Le Douanier Rousseau's work.
No, I'm not under the influence of any substance. That's what I see, after having green tea under the close scrutiny of the red neon dragon...

Babel's cafe...

is a meeting place for people from different planets . Those people come there from their respective planets to escape from their troubled worlds. Some of them get stranded there for quite a while, like refugees. The problem is they don't speak the same language. However they managed to find a common communication channel, through the Arts. I can see that from my vintage point at the corner of the cafe, I'm the dragon shaped red neon sign permanently awake, watching over these multiple entities coming there to connect. My creator put me there one day to be the guardian of this place. This place has no secret for me. Had my creator endowed me with speech abilities, I'd have many stories to tell, but I guess that was not his intention, so I'm doomed to be the silent witness of all these mini events, dramas, and great spirits encounters here. I don't know yet why it is so, and sometimes I get tired of staying still there, so I flicker a bit. But of course nobody understands why I do so. They don't understand my mute signs any better than they understand each other's languages. My new mistress is a genuine astral entity, and as such she has allowed all this to happen. She has allowed all the lost souls to connect here. Lately I think I understood there is some trouble going on here, I'm not sure she's gonna be able to keep me. That would be too bad, just when she had installed those heaters that make the place cosy for me at night, when the entities leave the place and the cafe becomes that quiet, dimly lit lighthouse. Sometimes, even late, one of the entities, a male, stays there alone, right in front of me, sitting in front of another light device, a rectangle shaped luminous thing, with a platform covered with strange keys that he types on, tap-tap,tap... I don't know what he's doing with that thing, probably sending messages to his home planet, or possibly regenerating himself, I noticed that thing seems to be fed with the same type of energy as I am. You can plug it or unplug it. They never unplug me, though, so I guess I'm receiving a special treatment or priviledge. However I wish I could show my mistress how thankful I am that she never unplugs me, I wish maybe I could transform myself into an animated dragon, and thus become an attraction that would draw more business here. I think I'm gonna write a letter to that Santa entity, like those guys do, and ask him Santa please, allow my mistress to keep me.

Gretchen's ransom, follow up

This is a follow-up to Gretchen's ransom story by Roberto, so please make sure you've read the first part on Roberto's blog first:
http://ablogeclectic.blogspot.com/
I woke up this morning in someone else's skin. This is the work of Gretchen's kidnappers. They tried to clone me too, but somewhat they goofed and I still have part of my former self left, which allows me to write this update on the critical situation. I know who they are. They haven't only replaced Gretchen with a clone, they also replaced Roberto with a fossilized entity stuck to a chair with a pair of lapdogs from beyond. I saw their agent, she came in a big white van, the very one that was used to abduct Gretchen, and brought the 2 little creatures in the shape of two inoffensive looking pups with an electronic spying device hidden in their collar. That's how they keep track of how much ransom money we have gathered here to retrieve Gretchen, and that's why they keep raising their demands. Now we'd better watch out, God knows how many of us have already been replaced by clones in town, I suspect they're planning to take over the whole town. Just consider how that agent of theirs ended up showing up here at the cafe to spy on us: The indications she was given to find the cafe : a place at the left of Fidel Castro. Now do you know of any building here in La Conner named Fidel Castro? Have you ever heard such a name? I tell you, what they've done is they have remapped and renamed all the places and streets in town with code names so we don't know what they're talking about. Their plan is obviously to seize all the town of La Conner eventually. That's why they're infiltrating it with clones. I am now working on trying to find the clue that would allow us to recognize them for sure, there must be one, so we can save the town, and have Gretchen and Roberto back.
Believe me, they're out there. We need to act before it's too late.