Shelly and I decided, with no plans ahead of yesterday, to visit the place I mail order my coffee in the West Village. Porto Rico on Bleecker Street off Sixth Avenue closes at 5:00 p.m. sharp. I needed to replenish my coffee and in addition to a Hazelnut blend, the shop sometimes offers a Franjelica blend (named for my fave Franjelico liqueur that I discovered working in my family’s aptly named (because of its location) Forest Hills Liquor (though it really specialized in wines) during college and law school and studying for the bar exam.  Adding Franjelico to cappuccino or even regular coffee during some restaurant nights out became an occasional special treat. Discovering as non-alcohol alternatives hazelnut creamers, hazelnut syrup to add to regular coffee and later (and best of all) hazelnut coffee blend became a breakfast treat.

My son Jonathan, while studying for his Ph.D. in Sociology at NYU discovered Porto Rico and shared his find with his dad.

I used to order other coffee blends going back to when I led my local Council Member’s staff and brought a coffee maker and blends for me and my colleagues (the member preferred tea.). 

The night before and the early morning we considered canceling the drive because of the weather forecasts; as the morning process, we agreed to the drive.

We chatted on the drive in so no music played; found a metered spot on Sixth Avenue and walked over to the store where I placed my usual order. I dropped the package in our “Blue Car” (Marisa had the “White Car” to visit her brother.) and I extended the meter (One finds ParkNYC a rather useful app.) so we can find a place to enjoy happy hour. Across Sixth, we found Hancock Street; we liked the ambience and decided one day to return to enjoy dinner there.

When we returned to our car the aroma of coffee filled the air.

For the drive back I turned to one on my many playlists, the aptly named “Rain Songs” for the drive back. It runs 24 songs, just shy of two hours. The weather and the projected hour plus drive home made it a perfect selection. Indeed it included several – five to be exact – of one of my fave tunes, Poco’s Paul Cotton penned Bad Weather. The last song played in part as we reached home, Eric Clapton’s Let It Rain from his first solo LP.