Mellow Yellow & the Tamale Lady

It's a chilly wet morning, I'm late, and it's another blue Monday.  I park near Vega Cafe on Folsom in SOMA and I'm cheered by the yellow scooter truck and then I see the Tamale Lady on her 3 wheel tricycle in her bright yellow rain coat.  She a regular here too!  Off she scoots on her route selling homemade tamales.  Seeing the cheerful yellow and getting my Americano --  I feel good. 

I don't know why, but I'm really like coming to Vega Cafe.  It seems to perk me up.  Is it the great coffee?  The friendly staff?  Or is it the feng shui?  Not sure, but it works for me.

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The call it mellow yellow . . .

Donovan's 1967 song Mellow Yellow starts playing in my mind and I think back to my school days living on the northside of UC Berkeley in Kensington.  There were 5 of us living in a house and Berkeley was at the forefront of the beginnings of the counter-culture.  Every week there seemed to be something new to expand your conciousness.  The most memorable was smoking the lining of banana peels.  Whoooa!  My house-mates were suddenly buying bananas.  They were sitting in the kitchen scrapping the lining of the banana peels to dry.  Didn't work though, but it almost didn't matter.

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