Life at the Coffee House

Things are going pretty well at work. I really enjoy the atmosphere. The storefront is a tiny cafe with four tables, some fresh baked goods and several thermoses of coffee from which to choose. The Barista likes to experiment with flavours and drinks and I have volunteered to be her official taste tester. The cafe is open Monday to Saturday from 6 am - 6 pm. People come and go throughout the day and I'm starting to know the regulars.

There's one fellow who comes in to enjoy a coffee while he sits in the chair in the corner and reads the paper. There's another fellow who comes in two times each day and orders a coffee concoction that costs about $5.00 a pop. (That's $10 a day in coffee! As far as cost is concerned, that rivals a nicotine habit.) There's another guy who comes in once or twice a day and pretends to be crabby, but he's really very nice and he likes to be teased almost as much as he enjoys dishing it out.

Behind the storefront are the offices, a large roaster and a workroom for the coffee wholesale business. From Monday through Thursday, the air is rich with the smell of roasting coffee. There's nothing like it. Everything I wear to work on those days smells like roasted coffee and so does my hair. I really like it. It's one of my favourite smells -- it's the smell of coffee when you first open a can. Apparently there are small roasters that you can buy for home use; it's becoming more popular these days. We sell green coffee beans to people who want to roast their own coffee.

One benefit of working at the coffee house is free coffee. I took some ground decaf for hubby to try. He liked it. I think, in fact, that he now prefers it to any other brand. I used to be a loyal Tim Horton's patron before joining Equator Coffee. I used to get one extra large regular Timmy's every morning on my way to work. Now, I brew a pot before I leave home; two or three cups gets me ready for the drive to work. Once at work, I have one or two cups of coffee. I start with a bold, and end with a smooth or medium roast. Sometimes I add a flavour shot, sometimes I don't. Most days I try to avoid caffeine after 11 a.m.

Last week, for Valentine's day, I thought it would be nice to get up early, drive to Tim Horton's and treat hubby to a hot coffee. I got myself one as well. About a quarter of the way through my extra large regular, I realized that I had lost my taste for Tim Horton's. I found it watery compared to what I consume at work. It was then I realized I had converted. I am officially off the Timmy's. (For those non-Canadians out there, Tim Horton's is the Canadian version of Starbucks -- though we have those too.)

The girl who operates the order desk for the wholesale operations has taken another job. I officially took over the order desk today. If it's too much to handle with my office duties, the owners will look for another person to take the orders. That said, I thought today went pretty well and I expect I'll be able to do both as long as all the customers keep to the order schedule.

My part-time job is slowly growing into an almost full-time job. Funny, but as long as my "regular" hours stay part-time and I am left with the option of working or not working the extra hours, I find I am most happy. It's kind of silly...especially since I stay until the work is done. It's kind of like working full time but committing to part time work. In the end, it's not the hours that put me off, it's the commitment. Like I said in my interview, flexibility is the feature I value most in a job. I guess that's just my way of keeping things flexible.

I'll try to get some pics for a future post. If you like coffee, you may find them interesting.

Winterlude - Ottawa's Winter Festival

This is the last weekend of Winterlude in Ottawa. It's a winter festival that's held every year during the first three week-ends in February. I took the kids to the Rideau Canal for a skate during the first weekend, couldn't coerce them to return last weekend, but managed to convince them to take one last trip to the city before the end of Winterlude. In fact, everybody went -- the whole fam damily, as the locals here would say.

We parked behind city hall and walked through the courtyard to Confederation Park. Confederation Park played host to the ice sculptures again this year. Two weekends ago we watched artists give birth to these creations and here they were, in their finished glory, beautifully backlit by changing colours as people passed by them and marvelled at their elegance.

If you haven't been to a winter festival, you probably haven't seen anything like this.


This is a mermaid swimming with a dolphin in the surf. Awesome!

Below here is the sculpture that won first prize. It's a clown fish in an anenome with coral trailing off behind. The picture just doesn't do it justice. It really is incredible. It's about 6 feet tall and another 6 feet across.

This sculpture was in another part of the park and I believe it was part of a different contest. I believe it won in its category as well. Initially I thought it was a winged figure, but I think it's a hunter running alongside a wolf, with a sword in one hand and a fur cape flying behind him; the cape has a hood. The details are extraordinary.

The ice sculptures were amazing -- a water goddess, the march of the penguins, an RCMP officer on his horse, a woolly mammoth, polar bears dancing and eagles hunting. There were dozens to see. We browsed and "ooooh-ed" and "aaaah-ed" with everyone else. It was neat to see during the day, but it was truly spectacular at night.

We got a little hungry so we crossed the canal, and walked up to the Byward Market to find someplace to eat. We walked up Colonel By Drive towards Rideau Street and passed between the Rideau Centre and this building. I think it's the Government Conference Centre. I thought it was pretty so I took a picture.

I love the city at night. I was so cold I was shaking, which meant lots and lots of bad shots, but I managed to salvage a few in between shivers.

We ended up having a great meal at a little Italian restaurant in the market. Afterwards we returned to the canal and bough some hot coffee, while son skated on the canal. We followed him about a kilometre down the ice before turning back.

It was a beautiful night.

Countrified City Girl's First Snowfall

It snowed yesterday and last night so I stayed in town. I just got back now after working a longer-than-usual day at the coffee house. I drove into the big driveway (shared by my brother) and was relieved to see that it was totally clear. My brother makes arrangements with a local fellow to have the driveway plowed after each big snowfall. Thank goodness too because I'm feeling tired from my longer-than-usual day, I have a headache building in the front of my forehead and my throat feels like I drank a glass full of toothpicks.

I loaded up my bags and walked across the driveway in the steadily failing light. As I approached the house I realized - uh oh, no walkway. Not a deer track, not an indent, nothing. No walkway! I shuffled a little to the left and right as though this would somehow result in the magical reappearance of the walkway and then I decided, "To heck with it, I'm going in." I trudged through the snow under the weight of my parcels, managed to unlock the door and threw my things inside. I recalled my brother saying that I could borrow his shovel if I needed one, and that it was on his front porch. I walked back across the driveway.

As I approached his house I realized again -- uh oh, no walkway. In my head, I initiated a "do I? or don't I?" discussion as I simultaneously took stock of how cold my feet were feeling in my lovely yet impractical high-heeled boots; unlined, two-and-a-half inch heel boots built for the sanded sidewalks of city streets. In the end I decided, "To heck with it, I need a shovel." "What's more," I thought, "I'll clean a path for my brother in case he should return home later tonight." Teetering in my lovely boots, I scrape a path for my brother as I make my way back to the driveway.

First things first, I had to chop away at the little snowbank that used to be the start of the walk. After four or five big scoops of snow, my breath came a little faster and my throat began its protest. Scrape, scrape...as I pushed at the fresh snow covering the walk, it fell back in behind the shovel. Scoop, scrape, scrape, scoop...I found a system that worked and made my way to the door. I uncovered the front stoop and turned to look behind me. It's been about 26 years since I've walked a balance beam so I thought, "I'll need to take another go at this." My throat felt dry and fiery from the effort of breathing through this workout. I winced a little before continuing on.

Scoop, scrape, scrape, scoop...I slid about on the snowy walkway. With little else to keep me grounded, my heels dug into the soft snow and kept me from slipping, but threw me off balance a bit. Scoop, scrape, scrape, scoop...finally I made it back to the driveway without incident. No falls, no crying, no twisted ankles, no busted shovels. Not entirely by design as much as by good luck, but done nonetheless. I returned the shovel to my brother's porch and headed back to the house.

It's a quiet night up here; no traffic sounds, no city lights. The wind is blowing and it feels a little moist, a little warm. I wondered what tomorrow would be like.

I trudged back up the walkway, opened the door, stomped the snow off my feet and stepped onto the linoleum...

and then..

I fell on my ass.

:$

I'm OK. Don't worry. The only thing I bruised was my ego.

Rural Roots

On the last day of January, I returned to the small town I grew up in. OK town might be an exaggeration, it's more like a bunch of houses built around a lake. The neighbour to the southwest is my brother, the neighbour to my northeast is a snowdrift that crawls across the road every night. Every morning the plow comes by to drive it back towards the lake it came from but moments later, the snowy fingers pull at the road as the drift drags itself forward again.

I came here because it feels so much like home and, lately, this feeling that I don't "fit in" has become so strong that I could not deny it any longer. It's one of those feelings that I like and hate at the same time. I'm glad that I'm different from other people and I like who I am. Just once though, I would like to sit in a room full of people without feeling like an outsider, an interloper. Truly! Sometimes I feel like an alien. Not the kind that can't get a working visa, but the kind that comes from another world. I know, I know, you make your own experience. The fact that I think this way most likely is the cause of why I feel this way. Yeah, yeah. But what if I'm right? What if I AM different?

So here I am. In a house in a place that isn't quite a town, watching the sun sneak up from behind the trees, feeling like I'm home. Like I belong. It's nice. Here's the creepy part ...it's my parent's house. They're away for the winter. Yup. I ran away from home. Or did I run away to home? Either way you look at it, I ran away. There are other factors of course, most of which are too personal to share on a public blogsite -- even if that blogsite gets less traffic that this not-quite-a-town will ever see in a day. Thing is, I feel like I belong here. It feels like home. It feels still and safe and warm. Right now, I need still and safe and warm.

Every morning since arriving, I wake up at 6 a.m. (though that will change next week when I set my alarm to 5:30 a.m.) , I make a fruit smoothie, brew some coffee and then I watch the sun come up over the trees. I go to my new job at the coffee shop and work with numbers while battling my oh-so-mild dyslexia and then drive back here into the sun. Since commuting through these rural routes, I've seen wolves, deer, a martin, turkeys and clowns (they drive pick ups) oh yeah, and a woodpecker.

I saw the woodpecker last Monday and it made me think of this blog. It was like a sign, of sorts. Well, I'll take it as a sign.

"Welcome home wordpecker."

Thanks woodpecker.

Gone Fishin'

For those people regularly checking in to my blogspot (all three of you), check back in a week or so. I am temporarily out of service but am trying to setup a new connection.

See you soon!