"If it don't kill ya, then you ate it at Costa's"

I went to the office this morning with the noble intentions of doing work for leaving early yesterday, but even though it's not God's day of rest, he gave me a break anyway. Bill, a coworker from Sitka who was here for our staff retreat, walked in shortly after I did looking for our supervisor with whom he'd missed having lunch. He couldn't reach her on either home or cell numbers, so I invited him to lunch at Costa's. A unique Juneau diner for a coupla reasons. For one thing, there's no menu. There's a suggested Specials du Jour which could include reindeer sausage or mango almond pancakes, but you can make up whatever you want because more than likely, they've got the ingredients. You write whatever pleases your palette on post-it notes, shout "order up!" (if they're busy), and your food gets made. You get your own coffee and utensils and condiments (from 10 types of hot sauce to organic jam), and when you finish your meal, don't be looking for a bill. You throw what you owe in a bucket, fish out change if necessary, and simply leave. Nobody micromanages you; you're assumed to be a decent, honest adult, and if you turn out not to be, well, Juneau's small enough for them to brand your face in a memory's most-wanted list. You gotta love the small town honor system.

On weekends, they celebrate "Planet of the Crepes", so Bill ordered an Olympus crepe of chicken, spinach, feta cheese, & sun dried tomatoes, and I opted out of gastronomic travel and stuck with corned beef hash, two eggs over hard, and buttered toast. The owner's name is Colette, and besides serving good food, she also dishes out a tell-it-like-it-is attitude littered with deadpan humor. Today, my mild-mannered and conservative coworker asked her about her business, and she replied, "It must be doing well. It's kept me out of jail." You could see his facial muscles working out an appropriate expression while his brain discerned whether or not she was serious.
After lunch, I took him to my housesit on Douglas Island, and we walked the 2 dogs on Sandy Beach, which has a spectacularly better view than Juneauside. The "sand" is made up of pulverized rocks and ore left over from the Treadwell gold mines, which caved in after a flood in 1917, and you can still see the ruins on the interpretive historic trail. This was our backdrop where we played catch with the puppy while the senior explored and peed on every twig, and Bill taught me how to skip stones on the Gastineau Channel. I wished for the bazillionth time since moving here that I'd brought my digital camera to capture the beauty of Alaskan moments. A lab black as a favorite sin, hellbent on catching a tennis ball, clumps of watery sand flying or sticking to her fur for the ride. The glittering trails of soft rebounds made on the water from perfect rocks after a perfect release. A coupla Saturday folk red-nosed and -fingered, thinking about their dimensions in the world. A moment of movement, of leaping and throwing, of muscles and vocal chords humming with use. While the still dregs of a once-illustrious era, vigorous and loud in its own time, continued to rust silently behind us.