fix
Five a.m. my phone plays Arabesque. Five-oh!-five it plays Latin. Five ten the clock radio country station pops on and that’s the end of the denial, time to pull on boots and tiptoe down the dark stairs, check for wallet-phone-keys, drive north on
Celia’s is a stand-alone building, three hundred square feet with a retro COFFEE sign, and at five thirty it radiates light and heat and noise on an inky cold quiet street. Inside the NPR is drowned out by the grinding of coffee punctuated with clenking cups and beeping French press timers. For one hour I install the artifacts of a perfect
By the time the first customer sets the front door bells jingling for his four-shot Americano I am flushed and full of anticipation, but it comes out more like disaster. Packing the grounds and pulling the shots on our bulky machine makes me feel like part of a muscular, mechanical composition, but my choreography is all off. I switch caf and decaf. I scald milk. My tiny glasses of espresso sometimes settle out just right like Guinness - dark on the bottom bubbling into thick crema on the top - but sometimes they sit there in uneven pairs, the liquid still and flat.
I am too busy quizzing myself on the basics – water or espresso first? cinnamon or nutmeg? what is that white syrup for? – to chat with the customers the way I’d like to, and sometimes they come and go before I’ve ever looked in their eyes. I am unfamiliarly self-conscious. I am there both to make good coffee and to look like I know how to make good coffee, and I do neither. I drop spoons and splatter the counter with foam.
I don’t actually feel bad. Unemployment was a good warm up for the defeat inherent in a new job’s learning curve, and it’s only my second day. But I sure hope I don’t get fired. It’s warm in Celia’s and the air has the sweetness of hot milk and don’t let this get around, but the morning is almost as good as the night.
posted by tortaluga @ 5:39 PM
11 Comments:
"morning is almost as good as the night"????? who are you and what have you done with my nocturnal friend jenn????
yeah, i'm lying.
i don't know nocturnal people in portland and i'm trying be positive. actually it's driving me fucking mad.
p.s. please move back to portland
So when I was still awake this morning at 5am I could have called you as you started your day???
Are you sure the universe hasn't exploded? because honest to god otherwise space aliens have kidnapped you.
yeah, like i said. this is chaos, me liking morning. black is white. right is wrong. cats and dogs living in harmony.
if it were up to me i'd be out with some guy at 3 am, swing dancing or pretending to be goth. but i haven't met him yet.
well, i might have. but i forgot to tell him who i was, so he dumped me.
oh how i would love so much to sit and chat with you as you make me a yummy latte in the bliss of portland's coffee culture. but alas, instead i have a chef making me french press coffee and french toast while the snow falls gently in the FREEZING COLD of PA.
Fix indeed... I actually went two days without checking your blog and was glad to get a two post fix. Yeah, I agree with you about the mornings. They would be fucking *fantastic* if every figer of my body wasn't screaming at me to get back in bed and I didn't feel so stabby.
tal: yeah, it must be rough dating a chef. i really feel for you. bitch.
dave: stabby = my favorite adjective
dating a chef? As in lie in bed and have a chef make you breakfast and feed it to your lounging person?
fuck. all my guy has is an accent and distance to his credit.
a hem...
at least you all have male prospects.
I still live in eugene.
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