Thursday, February 21, 2008

Accepting Applications

at the Lovin Cup....

Must be thick skinned,
quick witted
and able to multi-task.

Inquire within.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Keeping Time

Some dude came in the other day with a handful of clocks that he sculpted. Very three dimensional. I took a few to hang in the shop room, along a long strip of upper wall where one clock already hung.

Tonight, my laptop on the counter, drawer counted, waiting for the car to warm up out there in the parking lot of glare ice, I start to hear this rhythm... kind of heartbeat but not quite... more beats to it.

The stereo is turned off, my laptop iTunes is logged off.... I look up and there are five clocks on the wall in front of me... all of the second hands keeping a somewhat different tempo....something I would never notice unless it was this absolute stillness. A stillness that rarely happens in this place. In this business. It's like a Bjork moment. Technology meets peace and quiet... and whatever happens in that space inbetween.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Carrot Cake and Confrontation

I keep waiting for that one difficult customer to come into the shop... the one who puts up an unnecessary stink, acts the asshole and then wants to talk to the owner. And I can have the satisfaction of saying....
"I am the owner..."

I'm a good natured person. Probably way more good natured than I should be at times. I tolerate things most would refuse to tolerate. I insist on objectivity in every encounter and empathy where some choose violence. Owning a business, though... my fuse gets shorter. I find myself more curt, more direct, less tolerant. Maybe because I'm exposed to sooo much more bullshit than I ever have been before. Like the lady who came in last week with her toddler, took him into the bathroom, let him puke all over the place and then left. Or the customer who came in and gave me a bucket of shit over an agreement we never made. Or the landlady who doesn't always communicate effectively. All of a sudden, it's dawning on me that tolerance, empathy and objectivity are not always the only ways to approach situations. Traces of these things, yes, but sidled up with a shot that comes straight from the hip.... it seems a good recipe. Smile while I shoot. Even better.

Yesterday we had a guy in here that gave one of my girls a hard time over a piece of cake. Which slice, the way she cut it, the way she wrapped it. He was demeaning and condescending and she told me how tempted she was to go out into the big room, deliver the cake and ask the wife if she let him talk to her that way. She didn't. Probably because it wasn't her place and we had just had that conversation that included the word "unacceptable". It's too bad, really, because I would have totally supported her biting back.

I asked her who he was, was he local? She said he was a bigger guy, "New York type", thick framed black glasses, the kind that acts more important than he is.

So today, some guy comes in with his wife or girlfriend, orders for both of them. They seem a happy couple but there he is... big guy, thick framed black glasses. He was missing an element of pretentiousness but I waited. While he sat in the big room eating a croissant and drinking an Italian soda, Sarah came in and confirmed that that was the guy.

He came in, looked at the cake, asked how much it was, considered it.
I waited.
He opted out of the cake. Maybe he sensed all three of us...Sarah, myself and Holly.... all waiting to pounce.
I still waited.

But, nope.
No such luck today.
I'll have to wait for the next difficult customer.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Ella Got a Hair Cut



We've been watching alot of Japanamation by Hayao Miyazaki. All of his brave and bold heroines have short and shaggy haircuts. Ella decided she wanted the same for herself.

Putputputclankclankclank

On my way to the shop today my Suburu started to shimmy. The steering wheel started to do the jig.

An hour later, coming from another direction, heading to the shop, it started to slip out of gear. The needle started dancing from 30mph to 60mph to 80mph and back and forth and back and forth. But the car was going the same speed, except for the occasional lurches when the transmission felt like it was throwing in the towel. Just going to bed. But we made it. Rolled right into Johnson. Gassed up before I dialed AAA. When I pulled up to the pump and put it in park, the little-red-car-that-could just kept right on rolling. Pulled the emergency brake and got on the cell phone with AAA.

We'd just come from the bank where we began to digest the fact that we're dumping a whole lot of money into a whole lot of land, so the idea of dumping a whole lot of money into a potentially fried car wasn't real comforting.

I had her towed to my local mechanic, Bruce, and his nephew James (who bears a striking resemblence to Orlando Bloom, much to Ella's absolute delight). A couple hours later I learned that it's a quick $100 fix and that I need to start driving slower over potholes.... which I really truly thought I was being so very good at this year. Really.

Now, I just have to figure out how to get to the shop tomorrow morning at 5:30am, get Ella to school at 8am and get Bill to Johnson at some point in the early am... with one pickup truck.

It's too cold to bike.
Especially in a forecasted Noreaster.

Friday, February 8, 2008

I really do own my own business.....

I really am a boss.
Today, sitting down with an employee of mine, I used the word 'unacceptable'.
Shit.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

When we were kids, there would usually be hell to pay if my brother found his 45's in my room. Later, there would be hell to pay if I snaked his cassettes and then, CD's. On the rare occasions that I hear that song Seasons in the Sun or C'mon Eileen or Safety Dance, I think of that plastic record player I had just gotten for my bedroom and waiting until Jim left the house so I could raid his collection. I would memorize exactly from where in the stack I had pulled the records so that I could put them back in that same spot. Most of the music I've discovered in this world has come through his channel. His taste in music has evolved through the years, which means that mine inevitably improved as well. And eventually, he became a little more comfortable with me handling his stuff.

In mid-December, I drove home from Pennsylvania with a trunk full of his framed photographs... photographs he'd hung in a show called Picture Stories. The photos are a collection of the pictures he's taken over the years... ranging from the documentary work he'd done in the 90's on the coal mining industry to pictures he's taken in his travels all over the world. Mexico, Hungary, Africa. Hollywood. The ghettos of Phillie.

I remember being out in Western Pennsylvania with him in 2001 a few days before the Picture Stories show. I remember helping him with the last minute details and transportation of the pics to where they would be hung. I remember the absolute detail put into their hanging.

So, two weeks ago, when I carried the framed pics down from the basement and into the shop and when I began to wire the frames for hanging... it struck me how much he must trust me. I've seen him in the darkroom, printing and reprinting, trying to perfect a photo that, to me, looked already perfect. And here they were in my hands. In my care.

I felt honored. And grateful. And lucky.


I've taken some pics of them hanging on my wall. I promised. As soon as he's added these pics and more to his current wedding photography website, www.jimharrisstudios.com, I'll put up the link again. Stay tuned.


Thanks Jim.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008


Thank You Mr. Bojangles.