The Aerie
My wife and I went out to dinner at Ciatti's tonight, which did
nothing to lighten our mood. After a holiday weekend spent with both
our families (we all know about families and holidays I'm guessing),
and some conflicts regarding kids and neighbors, we we in a dark
mood. Ciatti's didn't help much, well, not me at least.
They sat us in the worst booth in the house: my left elbow was by the
waitstation, behind my booth the hostess greeted new customers, and to
our right the new arrivals entered, and in front of us the waiters
passed with orders, and a table of people sat side-by-side staring at
us for half the meal. Of course, being in a foul mood it didn't really
register until now that we were eating on the equivalent of a traffic
island.
But there was more to it than that. For a few years now I've noticed
that places have a certain energy, as if currents of badness or
goodness flow through them. A hardbitten skeptic, I want to attribute
this to a combination of architecture, decor, lighting, etc. -- the
ambience of a place. Or it could all be some kind of mystic New Age
energy, to be dispelled with incense and crystals, who knows?
Anyway, Ciatti's has always had a deep, negative ambience or energy
for me, and tonight it had it in spades. Aside from our terrible
table, the clientele seemed to have mostly just risen from the dead.
Some were elderly and in wheelchairs, some were odd looking and on
oxygen, and some were all of the above. No, I don't mean to dis the
differently-abled, but place this all in a dark, gloomy restaurant
with bad food, bad service, and glops of negative energy oozing all
over the place, and I couldn't even finish my meal. Sapphire and I
talked in dispirited fits and starts, and finally, mercifully, left.
Then we went to our writing group at the Blue Moon. Again, the energy
factor, but 180 degrees different. Of course, the Blue Moon has
always been that way for both of us. I can go to the Blue Moon and
get eight hours of work accomplished in three. Just being there
cheers me up.
Tonight was no exception. Writing group went quite well, and by the
end of the evening we were both chipper, bubbling with ideas and
jokes.
So I don't know -- is it architecture, lighting and decor? The Blue
Moon is often too loud and too crowded to really be ideal, yet it I
can always work there. Only the armchairs in back were open, and
sitting in them is like sitting in a bucket, but for some reason I
didn't mind too much. And the half hour which we spent in a writing
exercise passed in a blur of creativity that I was reluctant to end.
Maybe there is a river of "positive energy" flowing through that
place.
Whatever it was, it worked!
Posted by Albatross at April 24, 2000 12:00 AM