Late Night

Dave was riding me tonight about not writing more....so I am. We had a great Monday night music (which has moved from the backyard into the living room due to the onset of heavy frost and complaining neighbors) and now.... with just a fraction of free time.... I sit in the dark and even try to conjure up a way to capture what this is all about.

One thing I talked to him about was the element of candidness in this blog. A lot goes on behind this counter that I'm totally at liberty to write about...........but............there's really a good bit that I don't feel comfortable putting out there on the palette of public display....for more reasons than I should even get into here.

So..........I've taken to the occasional habit of writing a piece and filing it away in the drafts section of blogger.com..........so that it somehow gets out of my system but isn't out their for preview... possibly offending someone or revealing more than should be revealed. This whole business-on-main-street-gig is just a bit like living in a fishbowl and, as it turns out, I adore my customers enough(who are now very much my friends) that i don't want to regurgitate some of their shit onto the "pages" of blog-ville. At the same time, writing being what it is, if it's to be any good at all, needs to be honest honest honest, and so, despite my little secret society pages of the inside world here, I'll still do the best I can to put fingers to keys and keep an open dialogue of.............all this.

On my little black laptop I've written a bit of a low down of the past month.... the kitchen development, the drunk driver, etc..... and if all goes according to plan, I'll be able to post that little blip tomorrow.

In the meantime, however, let me just toot my own horn on the menu tonight for Monday Night Music.....

~a basic bowtie pesto past with sauteed summer squash.
~a chipotle chicken salad over arugula and spinach (thanks Dave for the prompting and prep)
~roasted fingerling potatoes
~coconut red curry peanut rice noodles with lime, garlic, ginger and cilantro
~tomato balsamic soup
~baked couscous with dried cranberries, walnuts, carmalized onion, butternut squash, and goat
cheese with an olive oil, orange zest, cinnamon, cumin and coriander drizzle

The shop is quiet. Broken down, instruments and sound equipment disassembled, lights off and doors locked. One town away my family sleeps and I should be heading in that direction to do the same. Tomorrow morning, the lunch box that will need packed and the child that will need ushered off to school, will come earlier than I might want it to if I sit at these keys any longer.

It's amazing how life continues to plow ahead even when you own a business. How the gardens get overgrown and the dust bunnies collect when all you're trying to do is keep the inventory stocked and the invoices filed. It's amazing how you're little girl grows up, somehow flourishing, in the backdrop of all of this. How the customers nourish her with all the little tidbits they have to offer.... a bunch of interesting grownups sharing whatever they have with this very interesting little eleven year old girl.

Time to go home, kiss her on the forehead, tuck the down comforter around her and wish her good dreams.

teaser

ok........
so i'm totally lame for not posting before this. it's been more than a month. totally negligent. i know. but just to give a taste of how it's been here..... we've had some heavy impact situations (ie; drunk driver, after stabbing someone three times and enduring a heavy police pursuit through the town of johnson, procedes to crash into the porch of my coffee shop... while i was out of town... oh the irony of it all)

exhibit A:


but.......... despite the nitty gritty funk of it all...............

we keep our chins up.


more later. i swear.