Monday, July 30, 2007

After a Long Day

We should have been closing the deal the day after tomorrow but I'm still waiting to hear back as to whether or not the business plan is enough of a go to actually take to the bank. Hopefully that word'll come tomorrow. I've got calls out to the bank, to restaurant equipment joints, reps from food companies.... always calls out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We had a new faucet installed a couple of days ago... one of those things that needed to happen before we transitioned ownership. A local guy who does odd jobs for the current owner is the one who ordered and installed the faucet. The day after it was put in, I came in to a note on the counter that we needed to keep the sink somewhat dry for a day or two while the caulk dried... and then to trim off the excess after that point.

So, today I drove to the local farm and garden to make copies of the key for our new employee and to buy myself a straight edge blade.

I've never caulked a sink, nor have I ever had to trim excess caulk after the job was done but after forty five minutes of scraping this shit from around the edge of a three bay sink I was able to confidently determine that this guy went absolutely ape-shit with that stuff. It wasn't a terrible job. Minus having to break to pour lemonade or iced coffee, it was rather meditative... almost a bit of a metaphor in itself... like taking a certain kind of stock in the value of scraping away all that goopy, unnecessary shit from around the edge of things. Oh, so many places to take that metaphor! Forty five minutes was about half the time that it took to finish the job.....

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Ella had her friend Acadia at the shop today. They spent way too much money on penny candy and I was glad to shuffle them off to the riverside for the rest of the day. They came back in one- hour intervals to check in with me, dripping wet and hungry. They're both home now with Bill, building a fort over the expanse of Ella's room with all of the sheets from my linen closet and there they'll stay for the evening, finishing up their penny candy and watching movies. Life's tough when you're ten years old....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After driving the girls to the house and making them dinner, I got back in the car to come into Johnson again. As I was veering onto the north end of Hogback Road I got a call from Acadia's mom, who was veering onto the south end of Hogback Road. We met in the middle, sat on our cars in the setting sun and caught up for a bit. She's an amazing lady who practices reiki and has a small essential oil business on the side. After reciting my list of things to do and my unmet deadlines and my determination to come in here and clean and tie up some loose ends, she dives into her car and comes back out with what looks like a big CD book... except it's filled with about fifty different essential oil blends. Before our visit was over I was dowsed in a dozen oils, all for specific purpose, and I smelled like a queen. The lemon oil, dropped onto the center of my palm and rubbed in a counter-clockwise position three times, might just have been the most effective of them all. I don't know what medicinal purpose it has, exactly, or why the direction or number of times I rubbed it in will help me, but it smells sooo good.

So here I am, at the shop, writing a blog post instead of working, having just finished the first of my two ales... a new favorite called Wychwood... listening to the second cd mix i've ever made (see below for list of tunes it includes~thank you Shannon for your itunes playlist)

The window is open, no breeze, just the sound of random passing cars and trucks coming in through it's screen. Sun's gone down an hour ago and dusk is heavy like the humidity. My bags are sitting on the table beside me, waiting like my old farm dogs with needy eyes, wanting to be scratched and given some attention. Here goes......

Currently Playing
I ordered my very own, brand new laptop last week. A dell.... and it should
be delivered via FedEx sometime early this week... at which point
(after I come up for air after learning Quickbooks)
I can get set up with Itunes and download all the scratchy, near death cds I have.
In the meantime,
I've had the great experience of making mixes from other people's music collections.
This is the second in what I hope will be a long history of making mixes, compliments
of Dave and Shannon's Itunes collection.

Bittersweet ~ Big Head Todd.... totally cheesy, I know, but such a good song!
How many roads ~ a duet by Dylan and Joan Baez.... in their early years, before the tension.
Dirty Old Town ~ The Pogues.... gotta love Shane McGowen
Arkansas Traveler~ Garcia and Grisman
Some of my Favorite Things ~ by an artist I don't know... some killer female vocalist
"cashing in on the glory of my biggest mistakes...

to kiss until my lips are red....

these are some of my favorite things...."
Some random tune from the Bostones... thanks to David! I felt like I was at the Staircase
in Pittson all over again... seeing the Bostones for the third time
G-Love ~ Special Sauce... for my Ella
Some random tune by the Go-Go's.... for Dana, who never reads this blog, anyway.
In the Morning~ Nina Simone... I think it's clear by now what Meg's favorite song is?
Lay Lady Lay~ Dylan
Irene Goodnight ~Leadbelly... doing an awesome Guthrie tune
some duet by two dudes and the chorus goes something like:
"what's so funny about peace, love and understanding"
I don't remember putting it on there but it's not too bad
Unbroken Chain ~ quite possibly the best GD tune ever
Give up your light ~ Morcheeba
Video Killed the Radio Star
What I am ~ Edie Brickell





Saturday, July 28, 2007

Before noon report

I was thinking when I woke up this morning that I might actually get a day behind the counter in temperatures less than ninety degrees. An hour and a half after unlocking the door, I know better.

I can count on my one hand the number of customers that have been in since 8am and they've all but one had iced drinks..... it's now getting on 9am and I've had time to flip through the newspaper, have two quality conversations with customers and now sit and write for just a moment.

I'm still waiting on word about the financial piece of the business plan that I shipped off to the business guru three or four days ago. In the meantime, I've found myself savoring every open moment by taking my fins to my favorite stretch of river, squeezing in a couple of Harry Potter chapters and sleeping in that extra twenty minutes two mornings in a row!

With this humid weather, and summer already starting to feel like it's slipping away, I've taken to keeping the bikini, fins, goggles, and an extra towel permanently stationed in the back of the Suburu.

This week I ordered myself a brand new Dell laptop, which will be loaded with QuickBooks immediately upon it's arrival. Maneuvering my way around that software will be a bit like learning Latin, or maybe Swahili, but that's all possible stuff, right? Inevitable at this point, anyway.....

Bachelors are here. Time to be a barista

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Wednesday

Bought myself a comfortable pair of ugly shoes to wear behind the counter here. My feet are a little hot but it beats the heck out of a used pair of low-top Chucks. It's almost 90 degrees here today and the two oscillating fans aren't really cooling things off.

I came in this morning to a long list of things that needed done and an expected order of 12 sandwiches come lunch time.... so it was straight to work, checking off the list.... beans to fill, chicken salad to make, deli meats and cheeses to portion out and date. Iced tea to make, greens to blend and store, pastries to pull and thaw and get into the case before the lunch crowd descends.

The dishes were piling up and Ella was bored to tears until Alex and Tristan were dropped off and they went to the park. From there, they went up to our friend Chase's new restaurant where a perfect little swimming hole lies tucked behind the tree line.

It's after 2pm, my day behind the counter is over and it's time to find some water to sit in. I just emailed my draft of the cash flow chart to my small business guru and am now anxiously awaiting his response. If all goes well, I'll be calling the bank in the next day or two to present it. In the meantime, I just have to write up a resume for the appendix and an "Executive Summary" ~ a glossary/index type cover letter.

And buy more fans. And get some sleep. And take my new comfortable ugly shoes off.


Saturday, July 21, 2007

The novelty of ice

I'm sitting here making a capital purchase list to present to the bank. It'll appear somewhere in the appendix of the business plan... basically telling them what smart purchases I'll make with the money they give me.

I'm about ten minutes from being done and the five discs that have been rotating all day in the in the stereo have repeated themselves almost twice just in the time it's taken me to do this work. And the one thing that has gotten me up from this work, and my Long Trail IPA, is the fierce astonishment that there is not one damn icemaker on the market for less than $1,200.- And that's a low ball figure.

I'm sorry. It's a machine that turns water to ice. Is the technology really that advanced?

I'm sick to death of running out of ice here and having to take the money we make from our "rent-a-mouse" to run across the street to the Grand Union in my greasy apron and come back with two bags of ice. But I just don't know that I'm sick enough of it to spend twelve hundred dollars on a god-damn ice machine.

Can someone please explain how one can go out and purchase a ten year old Surburu for the same price as an ice machine? I'm baffled here.

Speaking of those five CD's
I'm afraid there's a serious lack of creativity and motivation here.
It's almost the same, if not totally the same, as yesterday.
Total lack of ingenuity here, I apologize.
Bob Dylan ~ Blood on the Tracks
Jim's Just Listen to It Mix ~ the one that starts with that great Shane McGowan christmas song duet.
G Love and Special Sauce ~ The Hustle
Billy Bragg and Wilco ~ Mermaid Avenue
Leslie Feist and Neko Case mix from Jocelyn

and all of that... playing for twelve hours now.
Tomorrow is a new day.

The Deathly Hollows

I took the day off from the coffee shop yesterday to celebrate Ella's tenth birthday. I couldn't believe how unbelievably sentimental I felt all day, remembering exactly where I was a decade ago. Laboring through the night with the full moon, calling the midwife at dawn, lying under that gorgeous cherry tree, the unexpected ride in the ambulance past the coffee shop where all my knotty headed, patchworked friends were sitting drinking iced coffee and wondering when the hell we were gonna call them with the big news. Holding that incredible small bundle in the nook of my arm as that same moon came in from the window, lighting her up as it still does these years later.

As it turned out, when 8:58pm rolled around last night, ten years following the birth of that little girl, I found myself in a big room with big noise pumping from about a thousand different video games. For years Els has wanted us to take her to a place called Pizza Putt for her birthday.... an indoor mini golf course, enormous indoor jungle gym, batting cages, driving range, laser tag and really bad food. It's kind of like an amped up Chucky Cheese. I've never been able to rationalize taking her there for her birthday, in the middle of July, when the sun is shining and the days are long and the river is the perfect temperature. But yesterday's big plan included hanging out on Church Street in Burlington in anticipation of the new Harry Potter book being released... so Ella, to her great joy, was able to take two of her girlfriends to get rowdy, rifle through tokens, score tickets and trade them in for lots of cheap, plastic shit from China.

We bagged doing the release party on Church Street and opted to keep our business local but we kept our Pizza Putt commitment. Afterward, we drove home from Burlington, quick milked a cow while the girls changed into a strange concoction of fairy renaissance wizard garb, and loaded up the Suburu to drive into Johnson.

Tom was in the front seat with me, taking charge of the new Ipod to keep me from swerving all over the road and poor Bill was crammed in the backseat with the girls. I say "poor Bill" only because I had just spent the last hour serving my time in that backseat on the way home from Burlington. I was still feeling a little naseaus.

I got pulled over about two hundred yards from Main Street in Johnson. I was driving ten miles over the speed limit, which just got dropped from 35mph to 25mph so he let me go with a warning. I think he pulled me over because he saw all those heads in the backseat and was maybe hoping to nab some partying college kids coming from Johnson's one and only bar. I cannot even begin to explain the look on this young cop's face when he glanced into the backseat to find those three fairies in their velvet head wraps, sparkling wings, glittery faces and flowing dresses. And Bill.

And now we have the new book but I can pretty much figure on getting to it sometime in November... when my life frees up. Maybe.

Happy Birthday, Bean. Ten years riding this Earth around the sun.......making your mama proud.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Mocha madness

Behind the counter at the shop I have a three-bay sink. The far left sink, per health department requirement, is constantly full of hot water and one capful of bleach. After dishes are soaped and rinsed they sit in the bleach water for a few minutes until they reach the drain board to dry. We keep test strips in the drawer so that the health inspector can check the ph of the water should he grace us one day with a surprise visit.

Today was a busy day. We had a strong lunch crowd, ran out of chicken curry salad and never pulled a second hummus to thaw for the Veggie Delite. I had a chronic condition from 11am – 4pm of just completely spacing people’s bagels in the toaster, burning them, or just forgetting the order existed at all. I spilled one woman’s latte on the counter, gave full test coffee to those who asked for decaf, had to repeat every order else it move from one ear to the other without even having the luxury of entering the brain in the first place.

I learned today that I should not drink caffeine while working. And if I do, I should stick with the mellow octane like Yerba Mate or Chai latte.

The past two days I’ve had the great company of a hometown friend sitting at my counter keeping me company, meeting the locals and keeping Ella entertained. I promised him, before he came, that I’d make him one of my meanest cafĂ© mochas. Tom explained yesterday that at his favorite coffee shop in Easton, Maryland they make what they call a Euro Mocha…. which mixes powered cocoa instead of chocolate syrup with the espresso shot. It makes for a mocha that’s not quite as sweet….I see the appeal.

So today we decided to have ourselves a little experimental mocha party. And Meg wasn’t very smart about her caffeine intake at the party…. Meg went a little overboard...hence all the fuck-ups (sorry Mom… I’ve been trying not to swear but the day really was full of fuck-ups).

So long about 5pm, as I’m wrapping up the baked goods, losing my mind, measuring out tomorrow morning’s beans, and finishing up the dirty dishes, I decide to drain the lukewarm bleach water and refill it with hot water. A few customers come in and I make their maple lattes and shots of espresso and answer the thousandth question for Ella (“No, you cannot have the fifty dollar teddy bear down at the book store. No, you cannot have another hot chocolate. I don’t care if your birthday is tomorrow. Right now is today. No, you cannot walk to the park all by yourself.”) …. And in the heat of all of that I totally space the bleachy, hot, health code sink that has filled up and proceeded to overflow onto the counter and flood the turntable cupboard and floor.

No more caffeine at work.
No more caffeine at work.
No more caffeine at work.

Today's Playlist
Gillian Welch ~ Hell Among the Yearlings
Music from the Tea Lands ~ Putumayo
Just Listen to It
(one of Jim's famous annual complilations... a fine addition to the shop's playlist!)
Bob Marley's last show ever ~ Pittsburg 3 River Stadium
G-Love ~ Hustle
Greg Brown ~ Dream Cafe
and for BJ ... Ray Lamontagne:)
the phenomenal Ruthie Foster
Feist
Ali Farka

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Copy Gold Leader

"Wanna pretend we're in a spaceship
and all the other cars are droids?
You're my teenage sister and my name is Belle."

How's that for a merging of commercial culture? The Jetsons meets Star Wars meets Beauty and the Beast.

I drove down to the Cape to pick up Ella early this week. With no book on disc for the car ride and no portable DVD player to occupy her, she was about to implode by the time we hit the tunnel in Boston. So we slipped from one galactic belt ( 93N ) to a slower, less hostile galactic belt (89N) and carved our way home avoiding as much enemy fire as possible.

We were home for ten minutes and she was back in calico, feet filthy, picking currants and swinging on her recycled tire dragon swing. Today she was back on board here at the shop, hair pulled back, apron strung around her tiny little waist, clearing tables, drinking hot chocolate and drawing a birthday card for her Granny Jean.

My helper is back.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Gurus, garden peas and cherry seeds




These days are kinda like walking through a house. Some rooms have lights on and I can see through the windows, find my way out. Some rooms are pitch black, shades drawn and it's a matter of throwing my arms out and pawing my way over fuzzy wallpaper until I feel my way to the doorknob.

After meeting today with Bob from Capital Grounds in Montpelier, where we get our coffee, I realized how very much I don't know about coffee. But it was a great meeting and I was able to start the process of wrapping my head around it.

I had to cut the meeting short so that I could start the hour and a half trek north into the islands to meet with my small business guru. It was my first time driving up that way and I was totally amazed by how very different it is from the rest of the state. The landscape, the vegetation, the architecture. As soon as I got off the exit, a huge storm moved in and the lake waters were almost surf-able. The long strands of the weeping willows, which we have so few of here in this area, were all blowing horizontal in the winds (gale force winds, mom!). I could barely hear Gillian Welch over the pounding on the roof of the truck.

Twenty miles later, the sun was shining and the windsheild spotless. Vermont.

I spent three hours with the guru. I went in there with a stack of forms and a lack of clarity about how the next two weeks needed to be played out. I was definately groping the fuzzy wallpaper in the dark room for a doorknob.

By the time I left, someone must have tweeked with the fuse box because power was restored, lights were back on and the shades were all pulled up.

He babysat me through that stack of forms, gave me a sweet, little tutorial on quarterly taxes, and went over the business plan. AGAIN. Thanks Pat!

Before I left our meeting, I learned that he has an organic garden and sells his produce, so on my way back out of the islands I stopped at a local store and picked up a bag of his certified organic peas, a bag of cherries and then spent the hour and a half ride home eating peas, listening to more Gillian Welch and spitting cherry seeds out my window.

More Gratitude

I walked into work yesterday and the bookkeeper was sitting at the bar with her laptop open and a big, fat stack of invoices spread on the counter. She comes in twice a month to do payroll, pay bills and file things into Quickbooks. She has an amazing energy to her, shoots straight from the hip and every time I leave a conversation with her, I'm left reeling and terrified about this project I have looming before me. About five minutes into dialogue with her my eyes start to lose their focus and I find myself at least three sentences behind where she is... trying to catch up. There's just that much to do. And she knows so much!

After she left and my lists were made and stacked into the 'to do' pile, I had to work really hard on not being overwhelmed with that list. It took me the better part of the afternoon to center and focus on just being where I was, while I was there. Behind the counter.

Mid afternoon rolled around and things quieted down in here. The sun was finally shining outside and for the first time in three days a nice breeze was coming in through the old screened windows.

A great, conversational guy from Bakersfield named Harry came in on his way home from Maine. He sat at the counter eating a panini and drinking some iced black tea and told me about his big fight to keep Walmart out of St. Albans. Yeah, Harry.

Around four o'clock I pulled out my bag and unloaded my folders, lists, phone numbers and financial plan. On three loose sheets of white paper were my notes from the past two days and so I picked up the telephone to call Sarah, who owns the beautiful book store three doors down.

I asked if she had any day planners and could she could please put one aside so that I could run down to buy it before she closes. I joked that if I didn't get one today everything was going to fall apart.

Two and a half minutes later, Sarah comes walking into the coffee shop, day planner in hand, and passes it over the counter to me.

"It's yours. Someday I'll need a sandwich." And then she turns to walk out.

I'm still just totally awestruck by the kindness of people. I hope that someday she needs a hell of a lot more than a sandwich.

After I finished closing up shop, my big plan was to turn the music up loud, put on some old clothes and clean the bejesus out of this place. As I was finishing counting out the drawer and writing out the day's deposit, another good friend (God Bless You, Annette) came in... long yellow, rubber gloves in hand... and offered me one hour of her time. That was at 7pm. At 10pm, all the woodwork and furniture in the big sitting room sparkling clean, our heads full of Roots Manuva, she threw in the towel. Thank you, thank you, Annette.... and a special thank you for your sound advice on the potential disaster of painting my coffee room split pea green. I will heed that advice. Much as it might pain me.

What a day of absolute giving. I feel so damn loved.....
And...my windows are clean, to boot.

Yesterday's Playlist
Arabic Groove ~ Putumaya
Brazilian Groove ~ Putumaya
Flaming Lips... Recently, a good friend downloaded three and a half days worth of music onto our computer. There's still easily about two and a half days of music that I've never even heard of, let alone listened to yet.
I put two Flaming Lips albums onto my Ipod and was eager to check it out.
Of all the artists I've played here at the shop, this band drew the most response.
What great energy the music has. Keeper.

I think the Flaming Lips actually carried me through the better part of the day.

The only other album I remember playing was the soundtrack to the
Jack Johnson and Malloy brother's surf flick ~ Broke Down Melody. Great movie. Amazing Soundtrack.

And then it was Sizzla and Roots Manuva for Annette... who requested good reggae to clean to.
And clean she did.









Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Benjamin Moore

So maybe saying that I had three thousand paint samples was a bit of an embellishment. I have fifty seven paint sample cards. Three hundred and seventy eight different shades to look through. You ready, Lisa? How many bottles of wine will this take?

It felt good to leave the world of regulation and licensing this afternoon and come home and spread out this wide spectrum of color. Sidling up a split pea with an eggplant purple. I've got a stack of booklets that show blending samples. There's the Affinity Collection, the Aura Collection, Serenity Collection, Interior Inspirations, and the Historical Color.

Who markets this stuff?

Some of the colors have pretty obvious names. Pistachio, Jack O' Lantern, Wild Aster.

But then we've got Mink Violet, Foot Hills and Monet.
Corduroy? What color is corduroy?
Northhampton Putty?
Pony brown?
Tudor brown? Hmmmmm....

Magic potion.
Serene breeze.

Land of liberty?
Stolen moments?
According to Ben Moore, a stolen moment is a subtle shade of celery green.
And Land of Liberty is more like an avacado green.

What else....

We've got Spring Break, Dreamy, Wishing Well...
and Cupid's Dart?????

oooh, here's one. Cup o' Java.
and Purple Rain.
and Love Affair.

Maybe we could pick the colors according to the name only and in the picking we could tell a great story. Or pick only names that relate to music, like Purple Rain or Cornerstone or Guava Jelly. Or we could do like Dana did and select names of paint that have only to do with the Grateful Dead. There's a Terrapin Green in this stack. Number 2145-20 for those hard core die-hards.

I don't know. This is fun and all and while the coffee shop is going to be a great job to have, I think someday I'd like to get paid for making up names like this. To sit around all day and name color. How does one land a job like that?

Today's Playlist
High Lonesome Sound ~ again. Great to open with... keeps you on your toes.
Jimmy Cliff ~ for you, B.J..... why on earth would you assume there'd be no reggae?!
Oh, Kalinas ~ it's your disc. You left it at our house :)
Old Crow Medicane Show ~ because I'm still mourning not seeing them in Burlington this month.
Nina Simone ~ because I'm an addict. In The Morning. It's Barnum all over again.
Arabic Groove from the Putamaya Collections.
Dixie Chicks.... I played two songs and had to turn it off. I don't think I like the Dixie Chicks all that much.
GLove... a good replacement to the Dixie Chicks.
and of course...
today's dose of Mountain Bed from Billy Bragg and Wilco.

Gratitude

Hmmmmm
Let's see. Today we have phone calls out to acquire a License to Operate from the State Board of Health, Sales and Use Tax Registration and Meals and Use Tax License from the Vermont Department of Taxes. I don't know what any of that means. All I know is that I need those rectangle pieces of papers in a frame on the wall and that once those rectangle pieces of paper are in my name, I will have to pay them alot of money on a monthly basis else they put my feet in concrete and drop me in the Lamoille River.

I've put calls in to the health inspector, the contact guy from Burlington Food Service, the contact guy from Capital Grounds in Montpelier where we buy our coffee and the folks at Vermont Tea Traders where we buy our tea.

I've met with the friend who is going to do our baking and I even have her on board to make some flour-less mocha tortes and macaroons so there'll be some wheat-free goodies for me to snack on occasionally!

..........................For the past three years, working in Stowe, I was constantly trying to think of where I could work in Johnson so that I could be closer to home and be more a part of my own community. When I finished my opening shift this afternoon and after I met with Megan, the new baker, I walked across the street to the health food store to pick up a Kombucha and some strawberries. Lunch.

On my way back, in the mellow rain, hollering over to friends driving by in cars and passing Bill's crew in the old Beard's building, I realized that I'm here now. This is what I've been looking for for three years. I can walk out the door of where I work and still be among my familiars, go to the bank, the health food store, the library, book store, yarn store....

In the hustle of getting all this legal and finalized, it's nice to stop and take stock.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Gittin er Done

I'm about three numbers away from finishing the business plan and may even have it to the bank by Monday.

I'm meeting with my small business guru on Friday... where I'll probably find about forty more things I need to do to make it complete but.... we're close.

I talked to the people who sell credit card machines today, talked to my insurance guy, the graphic design friend and the friend who is going to take over the baking. It's been an exciting day here in the hills. Lots of talk about cinnamon buns, flourless mocha tortes, Italian anise waffle cookies.... workers comp policies, 1.69% on each credit transaction, new faucets!

I've been trying really hard to not put my energy yet into the nesting element of this shop. I'm trying to keep my focus on the numbers instead of the sheetrock that needs to go up in the office space or the floor that needs to be insulated in the kitchen. Once I have this plan to the bank I can enjoy those things... I can look through the gigantic stack of paint samples I picked up today and I can think about where the new furniture will go or what kind of hanging plants to buy for the porch. Bleeding hearts? Begonias?

Opening the shop tomorrow morning is coming quick, though. Time for sleep.

Monday, July 9, 2007

MondayMonday

I spent the last however many hours at the shop today not knowing that the register tape was flapping in the breeze under it's little plastic cover. At the end of the night, when I went to run the X and get my totals, I realized with a thud in my gut that I was destined this night to learn how to replace register tape......Alone.

The shop closes every night at 6pm. Doors locked, music turned up, bleach comes out. The place was cleaned and tucked neatly away for tomorrow's morning staff by 6:50. It was 7:15 and I was still figuring out that fucking register tape.

The fact that I stuck with it and figured it out "by my own self" (as Bean used to say) is evidence that I can do this.

When I finished counting the drawer, sealed up the deposit bag and filed the paperwork for the night, I untied my cute, little green calico apron and went to take the leak I'd been holding in my bladder for forty five minutes.

The bathroom here isn't much bigger than a Job Johnny. It's a little box that breaks all handicapped accessible codes (ssshhh). It's painted a weird blend of citrus yellow and papaya orange (like the other walls in the building) and has a round heating duct (papaya orange) running up the length of the room. Sitting there taking my wiz, I peer down to where the duct meets the floor and find one small, green sprout growing up from the floor. Really. One small, green sprout with two small, green leaves growing up from my bathroom floor.

And like mastering changing the register tape, this little green sprout is going to be my big metaphor for endurance.


Today's Playlist

Dawgwood ~ Grisman
Prairie Wind ~ Neil Young
Thievery Corporation ...can't get enough of this album!
Erika Badu .... thanks Shannon for burning this for me!
Nina Simone ~ Best of.....possibly/probably/definitely THE best album EVER.
(i forgot to mention that, T, when we were going over favorites:))
Garden State soundtrack... never saw the movie but thanks Tibs for the disc. Loving it!
Billy Bragg and Wilco.... daily dose of Mountain Bed.
High Lonesome Sound ~ Old and in the Way.
(i've got banjo and fiddlers on my porch at least three times a week. Must pay homage)
and then
Iron and Wine... to finish the day appropriately.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Boobs, Bellies and Bachelors

A local artist came in yesterday to hang her photographs in the two smaller rooms. She's a younger woman, a student, and is actually coming in tomorrow to train with us and pick up a couple of shifts per week.

A lot of her photos include boobs, bellies and backsides and I swear there's been an influx of men at my counter today. They come through the hall and into the first room and suddenly their faces are radiating these adolescent sneers and smirks and some of them are elbowing eachother when they sit down.

And I was wondering why there were so many bachelors in this town? Now I know....

Saturday, July 7, 2007

Living Breathing Coffee

I closed up the shop myself two nights ago and opened today all by my lonesome... which I totally enjoyed. Coming in on a quiet, warm, overcast morning and having the place to myself before the open flag goes out... getting the three brews brewing, putting on some Nina Simone to keep me company, the place has a soft, fresh light to it...

Right now, though, in the bigger scheme of things, this place is a fucking wreck. The owner has totally checked out and I understand where she's coming from. I was the same way at the inn before I left but the yard is overgrown, the stone wall that wraps around the front of the building is thick with weeds, the two plastic tables on the big porch are just permanently filthy from never being wiped down. The other three have been stolen. Inside the shop, there is a thick layer of funk on nearly everything. The toaster oven (which has a bent fork wrapped through where the handle used to be and was purchased at a yard sale for $20) ... it caught on fire this morning and I had to unplug the thing, run it outside and pour water into it. The spray bottles don't spray, the fridge doesn't really close and the faucet is kept from a permanent drip with a Phillips screwdriver.

The landlord (who said, and I quote ~ "that faucet doesn't belong to me") has hired a mowing/landscaping company to come and start taking care of the grounds. Rent has been jacked up $100 a month to cover the cost of that service, as well as her growing property taxes and insurance (and her million dollar divorce). The mowing service came today with chainsaws to cut down some of the leggy trees along the side of the building and I ran out in a panic at one point when he started to buzz through the pretty one right outside my sink window. I insisted he stop till I talk to the landlord (who I still haven't met ~ only talked to on the phone) so he walked next door to one of the other many buildings she owns and brought her back. The tall green tree, which looks so beautiful when it collects rain, is cracking the foundation of the building. I'd have loved to get all EarthFirst attitude and insist that the building is just getting in the way of the tree but... I let it go. The tree is gone. And twenty minutes later I was already appreciating just how much light the windows now let in.

I should be sitting down right now and finishing my business plan. I should be plugging in those last numbers, writing up a resume and appendix to attach to the back of it and creating the "executive summary".... a cover letter, of sorts. I should be doing this so I could get the money in my hands to clean this place up, buy some hanging flower pots, new deck furniture, spray bottles.... hire me a plumber.

Gatekeeper

My last day at the inn was yesterday. I made my rounds saying goodbye and realized, in doing so, that I might actually be genuinely missed by many of them. Not because I've done anything stellar to the department or because I've gone above and beyond in any way... but probably just because I'm a laid back person and like people. I don't shit talk and I have never fed into the beuracratic bullshit. I drove out of Stowe, my car a sauna in the 90 degree weather, listening to Feist and wondering what life will be like without the small but steady salary I've had for almost three years.
Today, I'm at the coffee shop, dying behind the counter in this heat but starting to understand the ropes here. I'm able to look around and see what needs done and the little systems here are starting to sink in.

I leave tomorrow for a week.... down to Pennsylvania to visit family and friends and when I get back it's nose to the grinding stone. Registering a tax ID number, getting payroll information and insurance policies into place, meeting with all the necessary people to make sure I'm all up to code. I'll have to fix up the half finished kitchen through the month of June, along with the sauna box office space on the second floor so that Ella will have someplace other than the coffee counter to amuse herself.

We've cancelled her childcare situation for the summer and have decided to have her here with me.... which I'll probably regret in a few weeks.... but already she's proving to be quite the little helper. I've showed her where to pour the beans, how to retrieve things from the closet fridge, how to wash the dishes, collect dirty plates and clear tables. She loves wrapping an apron around her waist and looking official. Her karate teachers, two brothers, have a web design office upstairs so they're down here all the time hanging out and drinking milkshakes with her.

I think I'm onto something here. I'm a sweaty mess and covered in grease from the focassia rolls and totally jacked on dark roast but it feels damn good.

Even Stowe has dirty old men

i was sitting at my friend's little cafe in stowe today, working on the coffee shop stuff. i was in the throws of putting together the "capital investment list" for the business plan. basically i was sitting in the midst of three or four commercial kitchen equipment catalogues and newsflyers, pricing out stuff that i'm going to need.... lists being made. pen in hand. brow furrowed.

the place was crowded with the noon lunch rush and one older gentlemen came over to my table after a while and leaned into it, looking over the catalogues.

"i can't help but notice that you're looking at commercial kitchen equipment. i work up at the mount mansfeild resort and have been in the hospitality and tourism industry for seventeen years."

he asks what my project is and then proceeds to tell me about the high-end catering companies he's run and the Atlanta, Georgia coffee shop chain he had, like, twenty years ago... "organic way before organic was hip..." (organic should not be considered hip. it should be considered an absolute fucking necessity, moron)

so, as he's leaning over the table puffing out his ego and his bad breath is wafting into my darling yogurt parfait, i notice that his gaze keeps moving down my face and into my tank top... like, right into my tank top. up and down. down and up.

so when he asks me if there's anything he could do to help with what i'm doing, why - i ask myself - didn't i say that what he could do to help would be to stop leaning over my workspace and checking out my boobs. they aren't even big boobs. they're tiny, little boobs.

i came so close to saying it... actually opened my mouth and then just shut it.

i'm way too polite for my own good.

Kill the Paperboy

spent another afternoon at the coffee shop.... figuring out how filthy dirty the place is, how many new systems need to be put into place, and exactly how i should assault the paperboy who never delivers the paper on time.

i'm wishing i hadn't already committed to the price i did and i'm realizing it's still a pretty good deal.... considering.

driving home today along the hogback, feet tired but window down and clouds moving in and cooling things off, i started to realize just how suffocated i've felt these (almost) three years that i've been at the inn. kind of like i've been underwater the whole time, my only air coming in through a crazy straw. a clogged up crazy straw. like, wet and moldy clogged up.

there's a handful of great people i'm going to miss seeing.... people who make me laugh pretty regularly, people who have genuinly reached out to me in hard times.... okay, maybe like two people. three tops.

but i won't miss the long drives into stowe, i won't miss the weird little economic bubble that stowe is, i won't miss the feeling that stowe is a club and membership is limited.

i will miss the high end library and amy's cafe and my regular trips to the dump from which i've kept myself and my family well dressed for years now.

i won't miss having a passive aggressive bossie (or a bossie at all), or twice monthly manager roundtable meetings that make me want to kick a hole up through the center of the table just for kicks..... i won't miss tourists with diamond studded manicures and white furry boots that match their white furry muffs and coats.

i will miss chocolate martinis after work at pie casso and having daily access to a health club and sauna. i'll miss doing bodywork.

maybe in three years, or five years, when i've put the shop up for sale and have found my new adventure, published that year's bestseller, i'll be listing all the pros and cons of what i will and won't miss in the heart of johnson..... but for now it's just nice to know that i'm soon to be manning the fort, navigating my own waters, making my own playlists, building a mean foam.

And more on coffee

We agreed on a price and have drawn up an Asset Purchase Agreement. Very exciting! I went in last week and had my first day behind the counter, learning the espresso machines, how to brew, make sandwhiches, serve pastries, etc. It was great. My feet hurt, but it was great. I spent the entire day eyeballing the walls and the trim and the details, considering new paint colors and decorations.... the need to nest stirring inside me. I'll be borrowing extra money from the bank to purchase some new seating, nice paints, a stove, used sink, crepe machines and a toaster. Maybe more stuff... depends on cost and how much money I really want out on loan building interest....eeeeek.


I'll be leaving for vacation tomorrow after work. We pick up our rental van, drive to northern New York to pick up our friend and her daughter and then drive through the night to the eastern shore in Maryland where we'll spend two nights with Bill's family before we head south to the outer banks in North Carolina for a week! Ella is about to explode from excitement. Just playing barbies in the back of the van with her friend Amelia would be enough of a vacation as far as she's concerned. Bill has tried on his rash guard surf shirt and borrowed wet suit about a half dozen times since Friday. He's also been checking the water temperature and condition of surf every day on the surf shop's website. Me.... I just want to lay a blanket on the sand, not caring if it's sun or moon or storm, and just lay there and listen to the ocean drive out the activity in my brain. I'd like a week off from the activity in my brain. I don't want to think about business plans, three year financial flow charts, having to sheetrock the attic office in the space or how in the hell I'm going to handle learning all my inventory and purveyors. A break. The ocean. Then I'll come back and dive back into the java land.

When I get back in June, I'll be putting in a half dozen, maybe more, shifts at the shop... squeezed in on my days off from the inn. In July, while I finish working out the financing, I'll assume the owner's shifts so that she could devote her attention to her new business venture. Hopefully by August we'll close the deal and I'll be the bonafide owner. Still haven't found a new name for the place. It's currently called Groovin Beans and that name has got to go. I've had some great suggestions from friends but I'm still waiting for the heavens to part and the sun to streak down in golden rays when I hear THE NAME but that hasn't happened yet. Considering that it took us twenty days to name our own kid, I'm wondering if I should just get on with it and pick one for the shop. Otherwise, this could go on for years!

I meet with the current owner tonight to go over our revised draft of the Asset Purchase Agreement, work out the details of our roles through the month of July and get the rest of the info I need to complete the financial aspect of the business plan. After this meeting I think I'll be able to wrap my head around the rest of my summer. I may even be able to organize those thoughts. Make a list. Not panic.

And then, maybe, the ocean won't have to work so darn hard to wash away my mind clutter. Maybe I'll be able to offer it up myself and watch it wash out to sea.

rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim
S*I*P*K*A

More on coffee

Have I mentioned that I haven't had a cup of coffee since March?

I'm sitting with my friend's laptop, in the cafe she's just purchased (seems to be a trend within our circle right now) and before me are pages and pages of business plan guides, references, profit and loss statements and payroll information.

I just spoke with the current owner, who has been awesomely patient while I get all my ducks in a row, and told her that yes, for sure, I'm buying her stuff. I thought I had made that clear the other day but she said she had to get in touch with the owner of the building who wanted to put the shop in the paper to look for a new owner. So we clarified. I'm taking it on. We get together tomorrow so that I can continue to bombard her with more questions..... licensing, zoning, purveyors, insurance, utilities..... and to let her know my offer on her price.

I have a bad habit of stumbling over my tongue when I talk about money with someone. I have a hard time entering into a conversation about money with confidence and clarity. Maybe it's because I've had such a strange relationship with the stuff. When I turned eighteen, my great aunt decided that she wanted to share her wealth with her family before she was too senile or long gone to experience the satisfaction of seeing us all enjoy it. She married a wealthy man who taught her how to invest her money well. She was widowed at fifty, after which she married her sister's husband's brother (got that?) and the two of them enjoyed a sweet and comfortable life together.

So, at age eighteen I was handed a check for five thousand dollars. My parents, who had generally kept the reigns tight in my growing up, chose this one time to not impose rules and regs and advice. I have no idea why and now, in hindsight, I wish they had. I didn't even know how to balance a checkbook. I withdrew the money in large quantities from the ATM and it was spent on booze and weed and music and pretty little hippie dresses for all my girlfriends. It was gone by the end of the year.... and then, lo and behold, came another installment. Just go ahead and carbon copy that first year. More weed, more booze, more Grateful Dead shows and pretty little dresses. By the third year I "invested" the money in a 1972 VW van and paid my dad's quack mechanic to restore it so that I could get the hell out of dodge and find my place in the world. The fourth installment went toward massage school, fifth installment went toward a deposit on a sweet little cedar rental home shortly after Ella was born and the last installment paid for part of the deposit on our 32 acres of mountain paradise.

I didn't grow up with an excess of money. We weren't a wealthy family. I think I've mentioned in the other blog that when my folks first started out they woke up and banged on the heaters to get em going and to scare the mice away. But my dad worked hard and my mom took superb care of the family's money so by the end of my elementary school years we transitioned from vacations in our converted school bus to a Bermuda cruise, and Cape Cod and Europe in 1988. But still, basic concepts of money were very much in the peripheral of my life. So being handed such large sums at such a young age with such little guidance really left me with no skills on how to budget. I'm still learning. Much to Bill's daily dismay.

The years following such abundance have been sparse. We're a young family getting going in a place where economic prosperity isn't a norm and we're part-time farmers to boot. We're still banging on our own metaphorical heaters, I guess you could say.

It's only been in the past two years, maybe three or four, that I've gotten comfortable balancing a checkbook, checking my account online and keeping a general kind of budget when it comes to groceries, insurance, gas, etc.

So, I've gone over the first half of the business plan, the descriptive, wordy part that explains the business, the competition, location, etc, and now have to type it into some master copy. Next comes the financial piece... the financial flow chart. I've been putting it off and putting it off... I'm just plain scared of numbers, I think. But here I go.

Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz

So I'm all the more wiser now that I met with my small business advisor.... who happened to retire from that post about two hours after our meeting on Thursday afternoon. But the nice fellow that he is gave me his business card and his home telephone number and personal email so that I could contact him with whatever questions I have and deliver to him my business plan and Monthly Flow Chart upon completion so that he could then make up a Three Year Projection Sheet for me to present to the bank upon requesting my business loan.

Breath.

I just sat at my kitchen table for two hours.... the first time I've had since Thursday to sit with all this information.... and I read through all of the paperwork about writing my business plan. To use a metaphor here.... this feels like a starfish trying to navigate it's way through a deciduous forest.... alien territory. I spent the first quarter of that time just sitting there with my head buzzing and eyes crossing, remembering that panic of sitting at my kitchen table trying to cram a semester's worth of neglected World History into my brain for tomorrow's final. The heat rushing into my face, that 'i'm so totally fucked' feeling creeping into my nervous system. It was like a disease that lasted from fourth grade until I stopped giving a shit halfway through my senior year of high school.

Anyway. I had to get past the daunting entirety of this project and began by simply reading through each section of what a business plan required. I had two outlines/workbooks to look at and compare and just took my time with it, like I was learning a foreign language. Which I am. This is. Bill suggested I write an outline, which is how he seems to function by simple nature, and I rolled my eyes like the adolescent I was reverting to and then, also like the adolescent, proceeded to do exactly as he suggested only after he was out of my way and in bed.

Business description, marketing, competition, operation, location, financials...... my head hurts.

But about three quarters of the way into this it dawned on me that I was starting to make sense of all of it and it also occurred to me that there have been plently of other ventures in my life that I've taken on without having had any prior experience. Motherhood, for one.

But when I started working at a group home for teenage boys in state's custody in 2001, I started there totally wet behind the ears. I had no degree in pyschology. I went at it with my heart. I read through case files, learned the lingo, toughened up, and loved them in a very quiet way. I became manager of that group home within six months and learned how to write reports, keep medical records, document case incidents, yadda yadda yadda. I learned how to hire employees, fire the ones that sucked and take care of the paperwork involved.

When the group home closed I stayed with the organization until all "my boys" graduated from the program and went on to stumble through their lives like we all do. I gardened until I knew what would come next. I had never gardened before. It was in that quiet, mindful environment, my hands in the earth, that I decided to get back into bodywork. I hadn't practiced in years but peiced together a worthwhile resume. From there I stumbled into my next job at the inn.... having applied for a job as massage therapist and gotten offered the job of massage supervisor. Here I learned marketing and promotion, budgeting, inventory, and how to dodge beauracracy and loads of bullshit.

And now coffee.
But first, a business plan.
And before that, sleep.

Ruminating Fears

I'm meeting with a small business advisor this afternoon to look over the Profit and Loss statements from the previous two owners of the coffee shop. I'm basically looking for someone who knows numbers to look at me in all honesty and either tell me to run screaming in the other direction or to go for it.

I tend to romanticize things and so I'm trying, hard as I can, to be realistic about the degree of work that'll be involved in this. The thing that scares me the most is dealing with the business end of things.... balancing the books, learning QuickBooks, payroll, inventory. A friend of mine just recently purchased a sweet little health food type cafe in Stowe and I accompanied her on her jaunt to Costco last week. I know she has to make a certain amount each day to just break even and that most days, being in the early stages still, that doesn't happen. So halfway through our shopping trip it dawned on me.....how is she paying for all this food? Just simple concepts like that trip me up. How do I pay for the food? What bundle of cash do I pay my employees with? It's not like I'll be going into this with any real capital and isn't having some initial capital the saving grace of most small business entepreneurs?

Granted, I'm not totally satisfied with my current job. I'm understimulated, under-appreciated, and completely fed up with a beauracratic environment. The bossies want me there a specific number of hours each week and for two and a half years I've been telling them that my position really doesn't require that many hours (in the off season, especially). In an effort to save my time and their money, I've tried proposing different situations but have been told, in response, that they don't care if I come in to count paperclips..... they want me there. So I go. But as a result, I have a lot of down time. I've been fairly spoiled. Leaving the cush-ness of this position, a guaranteed salary income, two weeks vacation pay, sick days, no financial risk..... all for a behind the counter, on my feet, greeting people all day, drone of the steaming whistle, good conversation, constant stimulation, casual environment and absolute and total financial risk. Hmmmm..... It's a tough toss of the coin.

Will I be able to come home from work and leave work behind? Will I be spreading myself way too thin? Will I absolutely love the transition? Will I drink too much coffee and drain my adrenals and put myself back on track with past health issues? Can I stand that temptation? I haven't had a cup of coffee in about a month.... a HUGE undertaking for my addictive personality.

So, here goes.
The owner needs/wants an answer by the end of this week. Pressure is on.
I'm still in the throws of figuring out if I'm going to buy that coffee shop. It's a sweet little space and I'd love to be working only ten minutes from home, in a place where Ella can hang out on a couch with her Connect Four or walk down to the bookstore or over to the park or the library. Everything about it feels right. The current owner would like an answer by the end of next week.

So far I've attended a workshop on Starting Your Own Small Business, which was a kind of pre-requisite for meeting with a small business advisor. I'm meeting with him this upcoming Thursday to go over the Profit and Loss Statements of the current and previous owners and basically get some honest advice from him about whether or not this an absurd idea.
The coffee shop is located in an old yellow and turquoise Victorian building with a wide wrap around porch right in the center of Main Street in Johnson, Vermont. Johnson is home to a state college, an artist residency studio, and a ton of really good people. The shop includes the entire downstairs....the counter and coffee room, a little room with a few tables and two computers, and a large, bay window room with a non-working fireplace and beautiful, colorful, lush furniture. Upstairs there is a psycho-therapist, massage therapist and web design business run by friends of mine. The owner of the building, from what I'm told, is "a bad to the bone bitch" who does nothing for the building. The upside of her slum-lord approach is that one rarely has to deal with her. So I know, going into it, that that is one strike against what I'm doing. Whatever repairs the building needs, whether electric or structural, are my responsibility. And the upside to that is that Bill does carpentry for a living and has a great head for electric stuff, from his days as a sound man.
The big room was once home to the local health food store but they purchased their own building across the street and now operate out of that. The rent for just that room is almost $600 and while it's an awesome space for customers to hang out in, it's often sparsely populated and a huge expense. So I'm trying to figure out how to make that room make money or find someone who wants to run a little business out of it. Any ideas?
I've noticed, too, that since I've had this in the mix, I've been a total slack ass at work. I've taken sick days, come in late, left early and have already "checked out" mentally. So, cross your fingers. I've never worked anywhere longer than 3 years. I've been here two and a half years. The clock is ticking.

The first of many posts

Our local coffee shop, the heart of our little village town, has just been offered to me for a really reasonable rate. I considered purchasing it the last time it came up for sale but they were asking far too much and so I wrote it off without much hesitation. Now, though, it seems like a good deal. It would mean leaving my secure but totally unsatisfying job that is forty five minutes from home in an incredibly elite and obnoxious tourist town to work only ten minutes from home in the company of my familiars.
But do I want to be a business owner?
The truth is.............
I'm really kind of lazy. I like the fact that I come into work here and have so little to do. I have time to blog and read and visit with friends and go to the this town's coffee shop and slack off. I love feeling like I can get away with something. Anything. It's the really juvenile part of me that sneaks out in weird little ways. If I ran this coffee shop, I'd have to learn how to work Quickbooks, how to do inventory and ordering. I do that at this current job but at a much smaller rate. I take care of payroll and hiring (and firing) here but it doesn't belong to me. I can walk away. I have no real financial investment.
I love picturing myself behind the counter at the coffee shop. I love thinking of how I'd redo the counter and repaint some of the walls. There's a whole back room that is 3/4 converted into a kitchen space. I'd open for breakfast and serve crepes.
So, there's alot in the mix right now.