When I called my sister (and Take this Cup Motivational and Spacial Design Consultant) to vent about the stress of money and the fear of spending any of the money raised over the past months for the coffee truck dream, she offered many words of wisdom and comfort and encouragement, not the least of which was "We want you to make us coffee." I wrote it on a post-it note and stuck it on the post-it note wall. True, there is a galactic spiral of post-it notes on the wall now- things that must be done, fun and not-so-much, necessary and ridiculous, but this one stands out. I suppose it can't be my mission statement, but it's definitely my mission post-it.
Thanks to the very thorough and extraordinarily generous session with my latest Consultants (Automotive and All-Things-Camper Consultants) I have learned where to spray the WD40. Now, I've said in many a cover letter that I'm a fast learner and a hard worker, and I don't think I was lying, but when I consider this from the position of being my own boss, it's tough not to be a little impatient. I've looked carefully at the pictures and crawled around under the wheels a little bit, and listened very carefully to all of my consultants, but even the widest view of the bigger picture of how it all works is a bit fuzzy to me... I can't seem to get very far past the simple understanding that when you step on the brake pedal the vehicle should stop.
Yesterday I went to try the wares of a new shop in town- an antique store with an espresso bar. It happens to be in a space that I fell a little bit in love with (had even talked pretty extensively with the landlord and brought a friend and Carpentry and Design Consultant to view the space.) It's tough not to be a touch bitter about seeing someone else set up in the space I had wanted, but the owner and manager are both genuinely nice people. (I mean this- they gave me a free cup of coffee and chatted with me without seeming to even notice my local-yokel-iness. These are gentlemen with all the class of New York with all the salt-of-the-earthness of rural New England. These are people we are priveleged to have in town.)
The shop is also lovely. It's not set up the way I would have done it, but it is charming and inviting. The espresso bar is clearly a secondary operation, to the extent that it makes sense that they have a spaceship, push-button machine that blasts out a latte without the pesky grinding of espresso beans or steaming of milk. (To be fair, it's not the worst- there are sadly some machines around that somehow get away with mixing powder and hot water together when you push the button that says "cappuccino.") I don't feel like letting them all the way off of the hook, since it would be infinitely better to have some kind of authentic espresso preparation (wouldn't it be awesome to have an espresso made from an antique machine??,) but that's not their real business. Much like mine is not auto mechanics. I press the brake pedal, they press the button that says "latte."
You definitely do not want me to fix your car. You want me to make you coffee.
