Bars

BARS


It’s another blustery winters’ day here in the Metro area, the kind of morning that makes one think that global warming is a thing of past. I spent the morning, as usual, at the local Panera coffee shop. The usual gang was all there. Bob is the retired beer distributor, and we have great conversations about the great beers of the world, my health, his health, the weather and just about everything in between. June is the sweet grandmother type of the gang, who’s been battling her own health, troubles but shows up when she can. And then there’s Stacy, who is my current ‘crush’. She’s a social worker in Southeast, and we exchange small talk as I weave daydreams about her; in fact, in my current work-in-progress, I’m basing the female ‘love interest’ on her. It remains to be seen if anything will develop in real life, but it’s so much fun to flirt.

The atmosphere there is so nice and cozy, a bit like the bar on “Cheers”, only with coffee and bagels. This is a quality that I’m looking for in a bar; I’ve not found a decent one since moving to the Bailey’s area. There is a bar in Reston that I used to frequent, The American Tap Room. It’s a wonderful neighborhood style bar with that very cozy feel to it. Pretty barmaids, mahogany bar and Sam Adams on tap made for many pleasant afternoons and evenings. The bartenders and barmaids take good care of you there; in fact, this is where I had my first shot of Johnnie Walker Blue. For the uninitiated, Johnnie Blue is a 25 year old scotch that sells for $160 a fifth. This was sort of a ‘reward’ for spending so much there, and they want their good customers to come back of course. This, like Stacy, is being used for a backdrop and inspiration for the story that I’m working on; I find it so interesting to take real life people and places, and turn it into fiction. There’s one bar that comes close to this, but is still a bit transient. The bar at the Chili’s restaurant is kinda cool, and has the tile bar and TV for the patrons…but there’s a different crowd there each time I go. The bar at the Uno’s Pizza is the same way: nice enough, but not ‘homey’. These sort of bars remind me of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”, gaining his inspiration from the customers who remind him of himself.

I will continue my search, and perhaps this is part of the fun of it all. I will definitely continue to exercise my social skills at the coffee shop, and to get my inspiration from there as well.