Yesterday we were at the shop all day and baked in the pizza ovens. They make really good muffins and that’s good because we can fill an oven with morning muffins and it will reduce prep and cook time immensely. Then if there’s going to be a biscotti bake we just leave em on. Katie’s got other stuff to do and I am at the shop again, REVELLING, REVELLING I tell you, in the abundance of hot water. Sanitizing powers ON.
Katie and I ripped through all of the crap we will never use in the storage loft and an amazing amount of junk went to Value Village. That also made it easier for the tradespeople to do their thing (it took a day and a half longer to get the job done, but all I do is phone him and ask him for a revised estimate of his arrival, and he never, ever ducks my calls, so I am very sparse in my “Where the hell you at man” calls.)
The wee man arrived with the new hot water heater and a rather ascetic helper and he took the old one, whose continued functioning was a rather amazing thing on the basis of the pitting and rust and the mess the fittings were in, away (part of me is thinking that the wee man saying NO NO NO lose this one and get a bigger one, you’re not saving money and you’re making trouble – was good damned advice). They had to use axle grease and shoe horns to get the sumbitch in, but it’s in and making lovely hot water, oo, yes indeed. Soon he will come back and fix the rest of the walk in cooler compressor (it works but needs cleaning and sound isolation) and then once we have the special order light fittings for the lights, that’s it, we have no more problems to fix for the health inspector and we’re just waiting on fire and building.
Paul and Katie got up on the roof and there’s no obvious leaking but Katie says the tar is too soft.
I took pictures of the potholes to send the landlord. Wish I had a buck for every time I’ve turned my ankle back there in the ‘parking lot’ which is actually more like a ‘hole farm’.
I have put the previously existing comfy chairs out front, free to a good home, and Katie washed and I put the covers back on our new used chairs, They are Ikea second hands from a restaurant supply place that we heard about at church on Sunday, if you can credit it, and they turn out to be super nice and having the solution to a major throughput problem we were having. But soon we will be able to run 350 pieces of toast an hour through a toaster. With the Bunnomatic being able to make five carafes of coffee in just over half an hour I don’t think we’ll have a problem keeping up with plain coffee, and we have the espresso machine for the fancy schmancy stuff.
Lentil soup is on. I got banking and church stuff to do today, which I am NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO, but haven’t I complained enough already? Everything is coming together nicely for a 15 APRIL start.
Iain M. Banks is reported to be dying of gall bladder cancer. Fuck cancer. He’s one of the best writers in any genre and he had another twenty years of awesome Culture novels in him and now he’ll be lucky to finish his most recent effort.
pOp has had a rough couple of weeks compressed into one brief hospital stay. He’s back home, and none of the rest of it is anybody’s business.