Month: June 2013

A new beginning

Monday we’ll be open 7 to 7 six days straight. Part of me is sad I won’t be spending as much time with Katie. But we now can do what needs to be done over the course of the day and we just need to bite the bullet and DO.

 

The ovens will be about $1.5k to fix.  Given that they’d be 5 to 6k each to replace I figure we are getting off lightly. The top oven is working safely again but a draft diverter is the next major expense. Who knew that the fans for Bertha’s compressor would wreak such havoc on the gas ovens. Damned good thing we keep both doors open for ventilation most of the time. Oddly enough the temperature regulation for #1 Dragon was bang on all the way through these trials,  which says a lot for the quality of these Canadian made pizza ovens.

 

I have an enormous list of things to do this weekend.  If I get through a third of it I’ll be happy.

 

 

Katie’s like GRRR

Yeah, about texting her about crap at the shop that she can’t do anything about?  Notsomuch.  Didn’t get here until really late.  Katie’s still feeling poorly.

 

I am still loving it, and it’s still a challenge.

I don’t have enough to look forward to… I think that’s my problem. But I am looking forward to having Nevada’s amazing buns to sell!  Yup, her name is Nevada. Which I love, as it means snow capped mountain.  Kinda appropriate for around these parts.

Man, I’m so glad we didn’t get that contract!

Katie’s sick with her tooth (pain swelling etc) and so did not come to work today.  Tom, may the blessings of a thousand universes brighten his life, came in and fixed the fan situation with Bertha, with the net result that airflow through the cafe as a whole is improved.

 

Then the Garland quit.  I think it’s the regulator.  All of a sudden 4 inch flames are coming out the front of it and it’s instantly red hot.  I’ve called Key Food Equipment and since I don’t have an account set up they just put $500 on my credit card and will refund me (ha!) any parts or labour not covered.  Given that their hourly is $109 I don’t imagine that down payment will last too long.  Ah, well, if it means that we can get both ovens running properly, that’s all good. It has to be serviceable for the renter anyway.

 

HOWEVER.  Tom ordered 4 dozen biscotti and I now have no place safe to cook it, or won’t until tomorrow, and I have a hard deadline of tomorrow night because they are leaving on a vacation in the morning.  They deserve it but it’s crunch time.

 

Found out that the 220 for the proofer will be a snap, it’s already plumbed in close to where it’s going.

 

The renter and Fraser Health are about to have a meeting in my shop.  It’s kind of a weird feeling.

lord love a duck

This happened mere blocks from my house.  Further to which, there will be explosions in south Burnaby tonight, but that is because they are filming a movie.

Off tonight to see the Dandy Warhols play through my fave album of theirs.

Katie  had her second last wisdom tooth out.  It came out clean as a whistle; the hard one comes later.  Right now she’s collapsed out on her bed; I went to fetch her from the dentist and she was maudlin in her gratitude.  Note to self – never have a wisdom tooth pulled out when you’re hungover.  Katie has been very abstemious of late but really decided to tie one on last night; I know why.

This next week she’ll have to be a very good girl indeed.  We’re going to be icing cookies until the end of time, by the look of things.

The famed Scandinavian practice of wife carrying comes to Burnaby.

Do want. this is a tshirt, sfw.

Do want.  And I thought I wanted a mass spectrometer, silly me.

Everytime I think the tories are going to do something good, it turns out to be fucking window dressing.

Jeff caught up to me on Life, and we are now watching it together.  There is a thing called Netflix adultery… it’s best not to cross that line. We’re looking arond for something else to watch.

And now, some capybara lovin fer me mOm.

 

 

huge catering job

We’ve been asked to quote on a thousand iced cookies for July 1.  For the opening of Edmonds Community Center.  (Cue screaming and dancing around the shop like fracking idiots.)

I opened communications with the purchaser but Katie’s totally grabbed the reins on this one, and I am tagging along with that big goofy grin that loving parents get when their kids are doing something berloody awesome.  Paul came in to grab a bowl of soup (and Katie’s Red Velvet cupcakes, which are like clouds with cream cheese icing, so fluffy and delicious ermagerd).

And I had TWO big orders of biscotti this week,  I have to do more baking tomorrow so this is me signing off and getting another batch on before we close up today.  Katie’s gone home early to try and sell Izzy.  It is sad but necessary.

So, busy, happy, and thinking holy crap, it’s ON.

Climate change is happening

Run away, deny, decry the experts, say it’s in God’s hands, watEVer.

It’s a cheesecake day at the Café. One biggun one smallun.

I’m sleeping really crappy. I am sipping a nice foamy chai latte by way of apologizing to myself.

I am scared of the changes to the cafe after July 1.  We’ll be open 6 days, 12 hours, which means I’ll be working a 15 hour day three days a week and I don’t know if my poor old body will stand it.  I also get to work Saturday, which is a super busy day according to the sweet gal who works at the Russian deli.  We shall see.  I’ll have Sunday through Wednesday off unless Katie asks for vacation.  We’ll be closed the two weeks between Christmas and New Years.

 

 

 

what a sh#tshow yesterday was…

after the morning, which was emotionally exhausting and frankly a new recent low point, I went into the shop to bake and wash dishes, and within minutes I was lying on the floor wondering what the fuck just happened.

I skidded on a piece of plastic on the floor, collided with the pizza oven, and then the sweet sweet floor rose up to meet me.  I never hit my head or lost consciousness, so I was able to immediately diagnose that I’d dislocated my right shoulder.  I got up from the floor walking like a zombie and shot through with pain, called Jeff, and he couldn’t come get me because he was having mobility issues of his own.  I called 911 and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  I was coping with levels of pain and disorientation that are right up there with giving birth unattended.  I couldn’t control my breathing and I was sweating so hard I couldn’t see.

The boys from #2 firehouse came and attempted to administer oxygen, and tried to put my arm in a sling but I was screaming and crying a little too enthusiastically for that. The firemen were very kind.  I did a lot of moaning and crying waiting for the ambulance.   After a very very long wait for the ambulance (yesterday was a record day for the Emerg because of a lot of MVA’s roof falls tree falls and other crush injuries (the announcements for cleanup help in emerg got squawkier and squawkier while I was in MTU)) I finally dipped my beak in some blessed, blessed nitrous, which doesn’t kill pain as much as it prevents you from screaming about it.

After the eternity of a twenty minute ambo ride I was shoved against the wall in triage and Dr. Lim came within 5 minutes and said, “I don’t think it’s dislocated.” And I said, then why does it hurt like a mofo and I’m walking like a zombie??? He checked again and faster than it takes to describe it, the ball went back in the socket.

Then many hours of waiting for xrays and results, and then I was released with a referral to a bone doc, 6 T3s, movement instructions and a sling, since it turns out the shoulder is broken as well as formerly dislocated.  Right shoulder OF COURSE.

I slept about as well as could be expected and am now attempting to come to terms with what is going to be a longish and interesting recovery. The shop will have to be sold, I can’t do nothing for 6 weeks or however long this takes.  I’ll know more on the 26th when I see the bone doc. I did advise that I have extensive numbness down that arm and that my two outside fingers are very tingly and weak; whether this presages really bad news for that nerve or is just my response to swelling who knows; Jeff advised me to be optimistic but not to lighten up about knowing what’s going on which I think is fine advice.

I am very glad I don’t live alone.  I am super grateful to my church family, who have been souls of kindness.

I had a weekend with a lot of Life in it

This kind of Life.  Love that show.

Also laundry, and mandolin practice, and poetry and a yummy lamb shoulder at Yianni’s with Katie.  I even ran the dishwasher!

Now I am enjoying the glorious pale blue sky and the steady breeze of the fans… I know it will only be hot for a few short months, but right now when we turn the oven on it gets durned hot in here at the shop.

Only people who have come in today are regulars.  But they love those muffins, that Ham Slap, that soup.  And so they return.

 

I updated my LinkedIn profile, but I think I did it wrong.  We shall see.  I update facebook and twitter every day the cafe is open.

 

Somebody came in who doesn’t speak a lot of English and pointed at the pistachio biscotti in the display.  She took one bite after she left the shop, pivotted on her heel and came back for three more.  It’s things like that which keep me engaged.

 

Such yummy muffins this morning, but everybody wants to know about cheesecake, for some reason.

 

 

On reading Virtualis

On reading Virtualis.

The world is an urn and a flowerpot

whirled through a thousand fractures

presented as fresh each day

a new grief / a best guess

remonstrating with that first flame.

The catchment area of consciousness

manifesting without irony

ever pointing at pressure, heat & dispersal

no mouth, no eyes, and yet there is a record.

 

Sad to walk

under a pitted and still perfect moon

to speculate of other lives suspended

in that backdrop, radiant with stars.

For they are there, attending whirligig systems

and that distance can be spanned

with all these fragile linkages

the coded tithes of empathy

as my thoughts consent to be used this way.

 

I will imagine you, poet

perceiving me across this gulf

and lose all place and time

before a sky transformed into an altar.

 

roasting beef, baking macadamia biscotti

I’m at the shop (Katie out again WARNING RELATIONSHIP IN PROGRESS) and so far, in the 2 hours I’ve been here I’ve:

  • Run through the morning set up
  • Started baking macadamia nut biscotti (first attempt.  Nut flavour is so mild I added no spices, just vanilla, also thinking of Nora I leave cinnamon out cause she’s allergic to cinnamon).
  • Made myself a chai latte
  • sold muffins and coffee to a couple of people
  • Put beef on to roast
  • Put away a good chunk of the ingredients we got last night at Costco
  • got the bread out of Bertha, which I always forget to do so I’m glad I remembered
  • Taken all the fridge temps (report: we are nominal son)
  • Put my hair back and donned an apron
  • Figured out how to form my lips into a trumpet trill so I can blast through the William Tell Orchestra
  • Blown level 70 in Candy Crush Saga AGAIN.  It is a demonaically hard level.
  • sat up front and watched it droozle out there
  • Thought about awnings for the street fair July 21st.  I want to buy one, mostly because I know that the awning Jeff and I bought four years ago is not going to make it through another year and so when I’m done with it here I’ll just take it home.
  • Thought about the data entry job Tom gave me.  I was supposed to work on it some more last night but the Costco run intervened and then Katie tried to get me to go for a walk, but my sciatica into my right heel is making me limp like hell.
  • Thought about the big pile of cardboard at the back of the shop I need to flatten and recycle.
  • Thought about the very interesting news I got from the landlord’s agent yesterday about what’s going on next door as far as ownership goes.
  • Thought with irritation verging on acting out about the THREE UNLICENSED VEHICLES sitting in the parking lot of OUR CAFE.  The landlord’s agent says I can approach the miscreants responsible and ask them to move the cube van, the stake truck and the not-licensed-since-October-2012 shitbox compact sitting out there.  The Hino is parked crossways, FFS, taking two spots.  What the hell is wrong with these people?  It’s not the antechamber to a scrapyard.  Dayyum.
  • Thought with love and deep sympathy about my dear one Tammy who is burying her father today and will have to deal with that hard on the heels of breaking up with a man she has been trying to partner up with for 3 years.  It was his idea and he won’t stop calling her.  I know he’s not a complete asshole but sheeshkabobbers, folks, take a hint. And her complete and total born bad asshole of an adoptive brother is going to be at the funeral, and I tried to bet with her that he would show up at mom’s drunk, raring to steal money and valuables, but she wouldn’t take the bet.  He’s already been banished but you know how sociopaths press once they perceive an advantage.  Tammy and her mother took the high road and at least let the brother know his dad was gone.

various

Katie came in late to the shop this morning, having spent the night away from home (with notice, all cool) and here I was bouncing around in the shop listening to Gangstagrass (their slide player is a fiercely chopladen woman, w00T!) and attempting my first dough batch of macadamia nut biscotti (adds about five bucks to the cost…. schmurr….) and I got to pull a mocha for a regular. Hopefully I did okay.  This particular regular LOVES OUR MUFFINS. loves loves.

Anyway, here’s something musical, techy, old fashioned and new fashioned for pOp.

Got our facebook page back out of limbo.  Very relieved.  We tweet under KittyKatesCafe and Facebook is Kitty Kate’s Cafe.

Waiting for corrections on signage and then we’ll have the building sides labelled with guidance for drivers as to where to park, which is always useful.  We’ll be putting it up ourselves, with permission from the very cooperative landlord.

Today inventory, menu update, and print out some more business cards.

Bro and I are rewatching Bones from the beginning.  Also Saving Grace.  I LOVE THE RELATIONSHIPS between the female characters in Saving Grace.  Retta and Grace are two of the best best friends evar.

We’re gonna have a street fair on July 21!  They are closing the street.  That will be after we extend our hours.  Katie and I are going to be splitting it down the middle, she gets MTW and I get TFS and we both get Sunday off.

Heard back from the gal who wants to rent. She is going ahead, I’m so happy!!! We may end up making bagels.  Fingers crossed. That dough mixer may come in handy yet.  Which reminds me I need to find a fixer dude.

oh my learning curve

Right now the shop smells like a combination latrine and abattoir (oh, THAT’S attRACtive) because I, like the fool I am, scheduled the grease trap cleaning during hours of operation.  Katie took off to render care for her bff and I am here in a stench that usually precedes the advent of a horde of orcs, or perhaps several large trolls. Or I could say that it smells like what happens when Jeff leaps to his feet and says “Mr Toilet you’ve been very bad.”…. but that would just be wrong, because on the worst day he ever had he never smelled anything like this.

Ha ha, I asked Jeff to forward the instructions so mOm and pOp can watch us on the security cams.  Isn’t that hilarious?  At least we don’t have smellovision yet, because pOp would be bolting for the nearest door, eyes out on stalks, if he came anywhere near this unusual odour.  peeeeeyou.

NEVER BOOK A GREASE TRAP CLEANING DURING OFFICE HOURS.  HOLY F***STICKS.  I’m as far as I can get from it, but I must needs be here until the bitter end because I must needs pay the man.  All this to prevent the City of Burnaby from fining my ass for putting more than a certain ppm of fat down the drain.