Sometimes I miss living in a place that has "sidewalk café culture..."

Indeed and agreed! I miss Cape Town for that exact same reason, but I suppose there is Hermanus, which has the same and is only a few minutes drive away.

Perfectly coiffed young women with these unkempt young men who look like they were just pulled from a nearby shed, still with leaves and straw in their rat's nest hair. And I wonder.

HAHAHAHA!!!! I almost spat my water out reading that lol.

It can be a toxic soup... did peripherally know a young local couple; she that perfect well-presented power-achiever high in Seattle city government; he a local welder/artist and the whole truth laid in her desire to kiss it all goodbye, but she had an overly romanticized version of what "marrying a free-spirited artist" meant... and also had the (unwise?) inkling of seeing him a bit as a "man improvement project" but instead encountered an asshole who was definitely a free spirited artist but who also needed to tear down anyone he perceived was "trying to put on airs." They were a singularly bad match; divorced after two years.

Agreed on the toxic soup. I suppose we live and learn - or we just live and live and live haha! Either way, unlikely that situations like that would ever last.

I stay away from pools of piranhas as much as I can; a tendency to isolate, rather than "swim with sharks." Don't always have a choice — because "life happens" — but on the whole...

I try to do the same, though I have proven less successful at that than you, lol - as you know well.

It's a beautiful painting.

It is. and thank you! xxx