Pullin' a Late One

It's ten after twelve.

A.M.

And I really should go home...but I drank a double latte around 7pm and I know that if I lay myself down right now my head will go abuzz till at least 3am. I'm sparing myself the misfiring wires and tossing and turning. People have a hard time believing that I only drink coffee two or three times a week here. I think I need to be a bit more selective about when I choose to drink it, though.

We close at 6pm and I'm usually able to start breaking things down around 5pm so that, come six, all I have to do is clean the brewers, bleach the boards, sweep, mop and count the drawer. Tonight, though, Helen came in around 4:30 to show me how to get online and pay the monthly Meals and Rooms tax and also how to pay the payroll tax. It wasn't until 6:30 that we finished with that. I still had a customer in the living room taking an exam on-line for a class and I realized that I hadn't eaten anything all day.

I bought smoked salmon today on my Costco run so that I could offer it as a bagel sandwich and I went ahead this afternoon and erased a big portion of my chalk board so that I could re-write the sandwich into the menu.

Whaddya think ~ smoked salmon, cream cheese, red onion and organic greens on a toasted bagel? Kind of typical but a good stand by.

So I erased the board right before I got slammed with a thousand lunch orders, which led me right into my meeting with Helen, which led me right past closing and there it was... 11pm... and I'm covered in chalk and jacked on caffeine and standing on the counters trying to be just the tiniest bit artistic in my penmanship... hands kind of shaking. And can I just say how very much I hate the sound of chalk on a chalk board? About as much as the sound of styrofoam. About as much as the sound of a napkin being rubbed together. (About as much as the sound of a hand on the fabric of the ceiling of a car??) Isms.

But the board is written, the dishes are done, the sandwich was tested and approved and I'm about five minutes away from a serious caffeine crash. G'night.

The Nightly Z

Ten minutes till closing time on my first day as owner of The Lovin Cup Cafe.

I came in early this morning to make sure that everything was prepped well, to give my head time to acclimate to being owner, and to kind of savor the calm before the storm. Ten minutes before 8am, I ran across the street to the grocery store to grab a newspaper, a bottle of seltzer and a couple of bags of ice. The sky was gray and overcast and by the time I'd made my purchase and came through the automatic door, it was dumping rain. I had a choice of taking my brown corduroy shirt off and wrapping it around my head but I thought twice about opening the shop on my first day as owner and looking like I was hosting a wet t-shirt contest. So I stuffed the newspaper into the shirt and buttoned it up and sprinted back to unlock the door. All my favorite bachelors were on the porch, some of them vying to be the first dollar spent on the very first day in business.... only because there's been talk of building an alter to it.... a bling frame....the works. For now, it's nailed to the wall above the espresso machine. Thanks Bob Wright! I knew it'd be you!

During the one lull of the morning, which was just amazing and supportive and encouraging, I decided to clean my cash register. I scrubbed months of funk and grime off the sides of it. I turned it off for a bit so that I could clean each key. I made a sort of sweet love to my money machine in hopes that she'll respond accordingly. All day, every time I had a transaction, I noticed how good it felt to be working with a fresh, clean register. It being my first day as owner, I enjoyed every dollar I filed into it. In a few minutes, I'll pull it all out, count it and see how this how coffee shop thing is gonna swing.

Note to Myself :

Do Not Drink That Much Red Wine
Until That Late In The Morning
Before Having To Come To The Shop
The Next Day!
In Fact,
How About NEVER
Drink That Much Red Wine
Until That Late In The Morning
Ever Again?