five thousand shades of blue

---

So, I haven't died. Really. Moving a café is twenty million times worse than moving one's living quarters. There is so much to do and so many details to consider (not to mention code to comply to: plumbing, electrical, health...). The building manager was in such a good mood today -- I don't think he actually believed we would get into that space. Right now we are operating on sheer willpower alone. :)

Today we got the largest part of the job done: moving the counter. I'm talking, 25 feet of oak and pipes and it bends at a 30 degree angle. It took 4-5 people with three piano dollies. It was reminiscent of Dirk Gently's interdimensional couch, or a Keystone Kops production. Or somewhere in between. I can't tell. I wish I had time lapse photography from above of the whole thing. It'd be a riot.

Much depression. The ethernet port on my iBook got damaged by an improperly crimped ethernet cord, and now the Mac shop tells me I have to send it back to Apple and have the entire logic board replaced at a cost of about $300-something. The expense is a write-off for the most part (although I don't really have a spare $300 lying around these days), but the problem is, can I bear to be without my laptop that long?? It's amazing how much I've come to depend on that thing. Especially when my desktop is behaving unreliably and crashing for no good reason...

So I got to skip out of Baronial Council tonight. I did go grocery shopping, but now I'm home BEFORE I have to jump straight into bed. Such luxury. I'm heading for the shower, maybe read a little Elizabeth Peters, and then I'm going to sleep.

I am sunk.

...as I download my first song via Napster...

Feels like the calm before the storm. Looks like we'll be closed starting tomorrow to start moving. So much to do... so much to do.

I may not update for a while.

Looks like moving day is getting closer and closer. EEEP. Very exciting, in all possible definitions of the word.

The bus this morning was squeaking and making sounds like a goose.

Watched a rather disturbing episode of "L.A. Law" yesterday. Most interesting of all was a guest turn by Kevin Spacey. Boy, he's good. And this was from ten years ago.

Marian is bringing dinner for all of us tonight. She rocks.

Think I may have a sinus infection. Bleah.

Forgot to mention yesterday a highlight to my Sunday -- being approached by a little old Asian woman at the Celebration, who proceeded to rave about my hair ("So shiny! And long! How long you been growing it?"). It totally made my day.

I can likely expect another loooong day. Plumbing has been brought into the café space. All that's left is the electrical, and after that, the mad move. =:O

Boy, it will be nice to have weekends again. I spent Friday night indulging in The Fifth Element. Of course, I did bring home the black paint to paint some chairs at home, but being notoriously bad at tightening lids on things, the black paint emptied out into the main section of my purse. Yes, I know, one stupid thing after another... this was totally preventable and totally my own fault. I'm a moron. I spent about 20 minutes rinsing things clean of black paint -- credit cards, wallet, pocket notebook (which was tossed out as a lost cause), Cinnamon Altoids (ditto -- cinnamon candies, water and black paint don't mix). On the positive side, I reverted to using an old purse of mine, with much less stuff in it, and I'm really liking not carrying around a briefcase full of stuff everywhere I go. It's kind of liberating.

Saturday saw me spending long hours on my hands and knees getting intimate with café chairs. They look spiffy now, though: maroon seats, black painted wood, with antique gold (paint) decoration. Also spent many a long hour laying peel-and-stick vinyl flooring, surely the greatest invention since sliced bread. All told we were here on Saturday for about... 11 hours. Tiring. By the end we were so hungry we were joking that the cats better hide when we get home. A couple of very-bad-for-us double cheeseburgers later, we felt much better. This is why I could never be a vegetarian -- those who are, rock on. There are just times in my life when the need for red meat of some variety overrides all rational thought.

Ah, Sunday. Let me tell you that the smell of floor wax (useful for filling the miniscule cracks between the aforementioned vinyl floor) and varethane is enough to make one climb the walls. Then, adventures with a floor buffer -- which will forever be referred to as the mechanical bull, since before we figured out that there was a handle release to angle the handles down, the thing was flying all over the place uncontrollably. Countdown to actually moving is coming closer, and the illusions I hold about having the free time that I do are about to be blown away like wisps of smoke.

I did get to go to the Asian Celebration for about an hour and a half on Sunday though. Watched a demonstration on Mongolian hot pot but was discouraged by the fact that I had to correct the chefs about the heat source (the Mongols did not use charcoal, nor was the 'wood shortage' due to overstripping the land of trees -- they used dried horse dung as fuel because the steppes have no trees to speak of...). I digress. I got some pad thai, bought a calligraphed Chinese saying to hang on the wall of the café (it reads, "May your profits increase a thousand fold"), and walked around admiring the bonsai trees, pottery and artwork. It was short, sweet, and utterly necessary for me to go.

Kewl. Erin digs my musical tastes. And I know exactly what you mean, E.

Two songs, played in a row, are sending me a message today.

Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight
Got to kick at the darkness til it bleeds daylight.
     --Bruce Cockburn, "Lovers in a Dangerous Time"

Squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
I'm a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty two flavours and then some.
     -- Alana Davis "Thirty-Two Flavours"

Spent my evening washing and touching up café chairs with black paint.

Yes, my life is glamourous. I can feel your envy from here.

Coffee Bar Etiquette

1.) When you place your order, don't do so while yakking on the phone or rounding the corner or talking into your purse. Be considerate to your barista; it can be difficult enough for her/him to understand what you want with direct eye contact. The reason for this is that all the machinery occupying the space behind the counter, the stuff that produces your elixir of life, makes noise, even if you don't hear it (or if it's white noise that merely muffles everything you say). Add to that the possibility of a dishwasher running, espresso grinder working, steamer wand steaming... you get the drift.

1a.) On that same note, if you decide you need to add or subtract something from your order, please don't assume that by merely saying it, she/he will do it. Look at your barista, catch her/his attention, say your change, and wait for confirmation. Also, if she/he asks you a question, a clear "Yes", "No" or other clear verbal answer really is preferred. She/he can't possibly know you shook your head if she's busy keeping track of the temperature of your steamed milk.

2.) Don't order your drink with cutesy names (or shop-specific names), 'cause every place is different. If you love a grande milky way latte at X-And-So Coffee Bar so much you can't live without it, take a moment to find out what your drink really consists of. What size a 'grande' really is (16 ounce? 20 ounce?). Whether there's one or more shots of espresso in it (single? double?). What syrup flavours make the 'milky way' flavour (I can tell you right now, I have yet to find a bona fide "Milky Way" flavour syrup). The only exceptions I can think of off hand, as far as 'coffee bar code words' go, are "skinny" for skim milk and "breve" for half-and-half substitution.

Hm. These are all I can think of right now. I'm sensing a page for the café site in the works...

I had forgotten how tall you were.
      --Max to Logan, Dark Angel

That was the perfect thing to watch on Valentine's Day (last night). :)

I should mention with some degree of amusement that my birthday is almost precisely 9 months from Valentine's Day. Hmmmmm...

Ok, now am I not only tired, but I didn't get my shower this afternoon. As soon as I got home, I got a message that the truck was all ready to go. So I checked my mail quickly, then waited for the courtesy van to come and get me. Now I'm back at the café 'cause it hardly seemed worth it to drive all the way home, then turn around just to head this way again.

The only thing that is keeping me going at this point is thoughts of watching last night's Dark Angel on tape.

Feh. I need a vacation, big time.

People can really be inconsiderate, thoughtless idiots. Not exactly the best post to make on Valentine's Day, but how else can you explain two dorks (who look like they've been cloned from the same Seattle-oid businessman) who walk up to the counter and proclaim (and I quote loosely here, because I was so flabbergasted that anyone would walk up to a coffee bar and say such a thing that I can't quite remember the exact words): If you were Starbucks, we'd probably buy some coffee from you. We're kind of partial to Starbucks.

Um, excuse me? Not only is Starbucks grossly overrated, but they're overpriced, and their coffee's overroasted ("burned" comes to mind). Granted, my opinion may be slightly affected by the fact that I'm a small business owner, the kind that Starbucks puts out of business on a regular basis, but I own up to that. I freely admit that. And sure, the next guy's certainly ENTITLED to like their coffee like that. It's a free country. What I don't get is the gall, the unmitigated NERVE, to walk up to a non-Bucko coffee joint and tell the barista that to her face! Without even deigning to try a cup!

Grumble.

On the positive side, our permits for the city came through yesterday. Let the games begin!

Tired. Tiredtiredtired.

Filled to the brim with a delicious Togo's roast beef sandwich and would love nothing more than to curl up with my cat on the couch and watch TV. But, alas, dear reader, it is city planning meeting night, and we're gonna be opened til 9pm. Those of you keeping score at home know that ordinarily I begin my day at 5:15am, and am present and accounted for here at the café counter at 7am. It is now 6:38pm, and I did NOT get a nap.

Yep. A long freaking day. And I just realized I forgot to set up a tape for Dark Angel. I hope Erika got it. I have GOT to see Logan stand up to his full height and plant a smacker on Max's lips. *grin*

Not to appear to jump on the bandwagon... but I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon yesterday. I would have likely seen it much earlier but it only just came to town. There were obviously quite a few people there who were just there to see it because it is the trendy thing to say you've seen, and frankly, I wish they'd just stayed home, cause they were noisy and obnoxious. I had not been exposed to non-Western forms of filmmaking before a class on African films I took in college, and it really opened my eyes. Without spoiling anything about the film's storyline, this is definitely not a Western film. I loved the soundtrack (why was I so not surprised to see that Yo Yo Ma had performed the cello solos?!); I adored the costumes (I'll take one of thooose, and one of THOSE, and definitely one of THOSE!). I thought it awfully cool that it featured three generations of female martial artists. The only thing that kind of bothered me was the Xena school of gravity-defying martial art moves, but oh SO minor. Yum.

Spent a good portion of the morning catching up on a virtual reunion. See, me and a crazy bunch of ladies started a mailing list (which became what I can only describe in more modern terms: an online community) close to a decade ago now, long before there was the web as we know it, long before ICQ and e.commerce and so on and so forth took hold and commercialized the internet, when SLIP accounts were a relative novelty and Mosaic was a brand new program we couldn't figure out exactly what to do with.

It took reading everyone's posts to realize that what we did was pretty pioneering, collecting women from all walks of life with one major thing in common (Star Trek fans). The Trekkie fandom has mostly fallen away by now, leaving us as simply an incredible diverse bunch of women with a truly amazing history and endless pool of knowledge. If I don't say so myself: We rock.

I can't imagine how difficult and painful it must be to watch someone that you love more than life itself fall ill and slowly die before your eyes, beyond your control and beyond your ability to affect change. How dreadful and unfair it must seem, when you pledged yourself "'til death do us part" but you couldn't imagine that the parting would be anything more than a full lifetime together.

Peace and love to M. And a small reminder to all of us to never take what you have today for granted.

It's a good thing I took a dose of evening primrose this morning, or else the triple play of Sarah McLachlan they just played on the radio would have had me in tears.

Have a recommendation for all of you out there who are trying to figure out where to begin in getting healthy (like, oh, I AM): Krista's weightlifting page. Yes, you read me right! This lady is a wacko and a nutbar and I LOVE HER for it. I especially recommend scrolling down to find "No Fat Chicks" and "The Crap List". She does for women and weights what Duchess Elina does for lady fighters in the SCA.

I write this because Andra and I are both going to give her methods a whirl. Wish us luck!

I received something in the mail yesterday that totally blew my mind. I recently paid off the smaller of my two student loans and they sent me a letter confirming such... and my original promissory note. Wow. It's very, very weird to look at something I signed almost 13 years ago, and also weird to realize that I was just this side of being of the age of majorty and able to sign such a thing as an adult. I look at my signature from then, and my signature from now, and realize that there's been a world of change affecting me since then. Possibly all the typing I do now that the age of computers has come into being has something to do with it, but I suspect something much more subtle is at work.

Keep your fingers crossed. There may be a way for us to reduce out monthly bills by over $700. This would be a lifesaver!

Ah yes, the new IP numbers processed sometime between 6pm last night and when I arrived this morning. Bigger, faster, better! Smooches to Qwest.

It really sucks to wake up at 4am and not be able to fall back asleep. Especially when you know your alarm is going to announce the start of your day a mere hour and fifteen minutes later. Toss and turn and think, "Oh great, I've only got X more minutes 'til I have to get up." It's self-sabotage but it's impossible to ignore the pink elephant.

Day two of isolation in etherland. Until the new IPs process, my only means of communication are this journal, ICQ (no, I'm not posting my number) and smoke signals. Can't even receive mail since the DNS for the mailserver is still pointing to the old IP. Argh.

Bummed to read about Blogger/Pyra's woes. :(

Had a productive weekend, which is why I wasn't on line much. Did everything from backing up / reformatting / repartitioning my iBook, to baking banana pecan bread, and a little bit of everything in between. Took the time to watch The Sixth Sense on DVD. What a masterfully crafted film.

We're also on the faster (and, mindbogglingly cheaper) DSL line here at the café now, though with that comes a whole new slew of IP numbers. Now we have to wait for the IP transfer to go through so that the forward and reverse DNS actually match (no mIRC for me they do and, more importantly, no sipnsurf.com website either!!). We'll see what other surprises await us, but so far, so good. Three cheers for Tim, our Network Gur-- no, make that God.

Café update: good chance we'll get both a discount for March's rent on the new space thanks to the permit snafu, and a reduction on the usual per-month rent rate based on the new architectural drawing we've had done (~40 sq. ft. just went >POOF<! Ta da!). Friday's looking even better than before!

Mom and dad should be in Vegas by now.

And Michelle, if you're reading, sorry I haven't gotten back to you! It's nice to know I've corrupted another's mind with the Powerpuff Girls. *evil grin*

It's finally Friday. I was convinced that this week was in fact several hundred days long. I plan on doing some painting or drawing tonight (I've been, er, commissioned to do another cover for the Ironrose Chronicles), and possibly renting a movie (I'm thinking maybe Titanic or The Sixth Sense on DVD).

There is no song on the face of this earth that makes me want to go out and DO SOMETHING like "Hammer and Nail" by the Indigo Girls.

Café space progress: Going annoyingly slow. We're done with the painting we can do -- but it turns out that we need permits to change the space from office to restaurant, have to submit plans drafted by a professional architect for the electrical and plumbing needs, and other such stuff. It wouldn't be so bad, except that we weren't informed of this at the time we signed the lease. Which means we're way behind schedule, because architectural drawings, plan approval, and so on does not happen overnight. And, naturally, this is gonna cost money. FEH. I have a problem with the landlord {ahem} failing to mention this to us because he doesn't think it's necessary (since it's a city-owned building). Fine. You don't think it's necessary, but it still is, and I wanna know about it, goddammit.

I hate the flipping Insert key. I hate accidentally hitting it when I go to hit backspace, then typing, and looking up to realize half my sentence is gone. Whose idea was it to put this key next to backspace and above delete? I don't HAVE these problems on my Mac. :)

... and I thought cleaning one's mouse would make it work BETTER. {shakes and slaps mouse down trying to navigate}

Enough yammering, before I'm forced to change the name of this thing to "Rantings".

Highlight of yesterday: clipping back the foliage along the driveway.

Lowlight: You really don't want to know!

Oh, a possible new web client. That I am excited about. I haven't done a site for an insurance agency before.

is this just not enough…?

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