Tornado Warnings in Denver.

"Oh yes?" I say.

I'm flying out, airlines-not-befuddled-by-Icelandic-Ashplumes willing, tomorrow morning.

"Yeah," the barista girl says "I'm supposed to tell you guys about it, stay away from windows and all that."

Me, sitting next to a window.

I'm not concerned somehow.

Typing on my laptop.

A lady, who has been audibly been sitting outdoors, talking, has come indoors and, seeing three gentlemen, including yours truly, at the back of this cafe, mumbles loudly and very fast "Hey-how-ya-doin'-I-got-a-computer-too."

I think this is deliriously (yet suppressed) funny and cannot help but make brief eye contact with her.

"They-gonna-be-tornados.. tornado-warnings... snow... Denver-Colorado... first time..." to no one in particular. More forgettable mumbling.

To me:

"What's-your-name?"

"Kenton, and yours?"

"Tension?"

"No, Kenton"

"Like-tension-in-the-neck?" gesturing to her neck.

"What's your name?"

"Karen.-K-A-R-E-N."

After this point, despite feeling I have an ear for language, most of her conjunctions gently flew passed me without capture..

"Where-you-live?"

"In a backpack"

"Wha-oh,-this-one?" touching my small backpac on the table.

"No, no, a much larger one" (I'm grinning)

"Well-you're-traveler! Well...like travelers...come-on-over-anytime... give-you... address" Other lovely verbal sounds that might have been words, but were really just a lilting rhythmic set of small hills.

"..I-live-nearby... want-my-address?... my-apartment-I-mean-my-hotel,-done-up-with-canvas-and-everything... you-married?"

"I'm just passing through."

"I'm-not-married-either" (pointing to her little finger. Yes, not her ring finger. But both were bare)

"No, thanks, that's OK." a few seconds earlier the two other gentleman at this end of the coffee shop gave up at keeping their faces toward their laptops.

"Well," she said in that evenly fast mumble "anytime-you-travelin'..." and as she was walking away, half-gestured towards herself

"...we-make--connection."

Eight seconds needed for her to leave the cafe.

My painfully amused smile follows her.

Man 1, (maybe sympathetically, but mostly amused) : "I think she wanted you to go home with her."

I laugh: "That was cute."

Man2, not asking: "Man, how could you pass up that offer."

We are all grinning withe the warmth of one of those comraderies born of small experiences together. It helps that it's raining outside, too.

People are beautiful.

Man1 is back to his yellow notepad and laptop, Man2 is back to his laptop as the second woman of three comes to sit across form him for a job interview at the far end of this cafe.

On this new endevour:

The exposure to plants stokes my desire to set up shop, root down, and grow myself a massive garden full of massive plants and massive rock. Alas.

I am beginning to want to be back for the NARGS summit, (July 2010, Denver and Salida, Colorado.) but that desire is across the teeter-totter from the ability to long-term travel.

The Icelandic Ash-plume has subsided, but some flights are still nilly. That factor permitting, I fly out tomorrow to a city and country for which I've not prepared myself at all. No map, no Rough-guide-lonely-planet nothing, not even a glance at the language. I know some of the plants in the mountains, but I'm otherwise landing blind. It is half-deliberate to prove something to myself. I don't know what.

But oh the thrill of Freaking Terror.

{As high-heeled girl #4 sits down for her interview with Man 2, I think: Sorry mother, I hope you didn't just read this post!}