And while you're at it, toss a quarter not a penny...

So, the next time you stop by Starbucks on Fair Oaks, indulge that caffeine jones with the ginormous new Trenta sized coffee. At 31 ounces, it's actually larger than a human stomach!You can use the fountain outside to make a wish that you make it home without your head -- or bladder -- exploding.

Pit Stop

I know it doesn't have the coolness factor of Kaldi or Busters. I know the boho-chic interior is cookiecutter and chosen by a bunch of guys in suits. I know some coffee snob bloggers have said the arabica beans are not as well roasted as Peets. But still ... the Starbucks on Fair Oaks across from OSH is a great place to grab some good java, chill out to whatever mellow music is playing and utilize the WiFi. Plus, the light is so pretty there in the afternoons, I just can't help but reach for my camera. (It's nice outside, too.)

Waiting...

I kind of wanted to hang around and see who this person was waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for -- but that would have been insufferably nosy. Still ... I wondered.

As I drove home, I remember a few lines of this John Burroughs poem:

Waiting

Serene, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;
I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.

Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.

What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it hath sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.

The waters know their own and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.

The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.

Love Story

I am not ashamed to admit it: I love Valentine's Day. And no, I don't mean the non-commercial, organic, too-hip-for-love-songs kind of Valentine's Day where you smirk at all the silly little people and their bourgeois customs while hosting an anti-Valentine's Day Bergman Film Festival party. I love the whole, ridiculous concept-- the wilting, overpriced roses and the battery-operated greeting cards that play Elvis songs and the tacky red lace Fredrick's of Hollywood lingerie and the big Mylar balloons in the shape of puckered lips. I think Peppy le Pew had the right idea about romance. He was undaunted, overly sentimental, and absolutely sincere. We can be cool about music and art and independent films -- but let's allow ourselves to get a little goofy about love.

I know everyone likes to complain about how Valentine's Day is just another creation by retailers to force people to buy stuff they don't need. It's an event probably orchestrated by restaurant owners, florists and jewelers. Fine. I suppose all of that is true. But what I like about Valentine's Day is that it is the one day out of the year when it's okay to believe in the hyperbolic, overzealous, madcap potential of being in love. It's one day where you can declare yourself unabashedly to someone, with full societal approval and every corny trick in the book at your disposal. There's a reason Cupid shoots arrows instead of making rational speeches. Sometimes we need a bit of a shove to make a connection. Valentine's Day is that big push -- a day where the brooding guy finds the courage to hold his boom box aloft and play a love song to the girl he can't live without.

I don't know if the two people in this photo were a romantic couple or just two friends sharing a coffee break at Starbucks. But today, on Valentine's Day, I choose to believe they fell madly in love over those cappuccinos... that they spent that afternoon finding out they both liked cherry pop tarts, John Fowles novels and Miles Davis; that they each thought The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was overrated; that they both confessed to singing in the shower and sometimes singing cheesy 70s disco songs. I choose to believe that today, when they realized they had each emailed the other the very same Neruda poem, they both felt that happy/scared/exhilarated/anxious/wondrous/thankful feeling of being alive that comes when you realize you might be falling for someone.

Happy heart day, everyone.