Comfort Movie Mood

A Red Velvet Cupcake I decorated myself from The Cup. Earned for volunteering 

with them on Valentine’s Day. Consumed while viewing The Artist.

A customer I haven’t seen in a while came in this morning and ordered her usual: two venti, whole milk lattes with whipped cream. She always gets one of them extra hot so it’s still good after she finishes the first one. They’re her breakfast, she explained to me once.

If you’re keeping score, that’s 8 bucks for a breakfast of mostly milk. You could buy a carton of eggs and a gallon of whole milk at the grocery store with that much and still have enough left over for a cup of straight-up coffee. And not have to tip anyone.

Not that I should judge anyone’s peculiar, craving-based diet habits.

 

Praise the Lord, and Pass the Lemonade

I lost my keys on vacation a few weeks ago, in the Middle of Nowhere, Illinois, at Cornerstone Music Festival. Although I could get into my car (I’d left it unlocked), I wouldn’t be able to drive home at the end of the weekend. After searching the grounds and leaving a message at the festival office, I quickly texted several friends to ask them to pray that my keys would turn up. Then I called my old roommate to see if he had my spare.

He did, and he and his wife drove three-and-a-half hours to deliver the spare (I provided a fist full of gas money). Unfortunately, the spare only started the ignition, and didn’t unlock the doors, so I was going to have to spend a bunch of money when I got home getting a new car key made, not to mention replacing the rest of the lot.

Finally, on the last day of the festival, someone found my keys. I texted everyone with the good news. One of my friends texted back: “PTL!”

 

The Epicenter of Crazy, Part 3

© KireevArt – Fotolia.com (used with permission)

My dirty little secret as a barista is that I don’t drink coffee. It’s a long story, but basically, I developed a very bad reaction to caffeine as a kid, and so I quit drinking soda. I eventually outgrew whatever it was that made me react so badly, but by then I’d never picked up the coffee habit.

In the years since, I’ve acquired enough of a taste that I can sample coffees and tell people what they’re like, but I rarely drink a cup for its own sake. When I need a kick in the morning, I go for a chai. Specifically, an iced soy chai. The size varies depending on my needs.

This particular Saturday morning, I needed it bad.

The Drip had started.

 

The Epicenter of Crazy, Part 2

© KireevArt – Fotolia.com (used with permission)

“For my coffee, I will need the real cream, not the half-milk fake stuff, and I will need my paper ticket report to see the magnetic balance on my electronic golden card.”

I hadn’t seen Paper Ticket Man for a long time, but his litany was pretty much word-for-word as I remembered it. He’d been one of our former manager Heather’s favorite “characters.” When he lumbered into the cafe recently, after we’d already had a particularly rough morning, Jill-1 whispered to me, “I think the planets are out of alignment today.”

“I don’t think he ever was in alignment,” I said.

The redeeming thing about Paper Ticket Man is that he speaks his piece and goes back about his business. Other characters don’t always know when to give up. One of my unofficial duties on the morning shift is to rescue Jill-1 from conversations that have become suddenly too one-sided for comfort.

(Side note: We used to have three Jills, and now we’re down to two. But Jill-1 was always the first. Since she’s into pirates, “Cap’n Jill” is also acceptable.)

I handed a cup of coffee to a soft-spoken man who paid in change, and he remarked that, “You serve a fine product. A fine, fine product.” I agreed, and he left the bar. But instead of heading toward the cafe to find a seat, he went the other direction, toward the bathroom.

Toward the Fuzzy Zone.

 

The Epicenter of Crazy, Part 1

© KireevArt – Fotolia.com (used with permission)

Two years ago, on my second day of work at the cafe, I met Edna Rae. She stomped in wearing old pajamas, and thrust her hand out over the bar.

“Sir?” she drawled. “Sir? How much coffee can I get with this?”

I looked at the dime in her hand. “I’m sorry, ma’am, we don’t have any coffee for a dime.”

“But it’s a really OLD dime,” she said. “It’s all tarnished an’ stuff.”

Edna Rae was what Jill-1 calls “a character,” and I soon learned that our store has a collection of them.

To be fair, most of the chronically homeless people you might pass wandering the street are in that condition because of mental illness—rather than say, injury, sickness, loss of job, or other bad luck—and that’s not funny. Still, you have to find a way to roll with it when you encounter it every day, and to treat them with respect while being firm about not being able to give away free stuff all the time.

Edna Rae usually managed to find a couple dollars and come back for her coffee, but just as often she tried to pay with a casino token that she would then ask to have back so she could use it next time.

As my grandpa used to say, “I had to laugh.”

Then there are the people that just plain freak me out.

 

Make David Run

UPDATE: I did it! 40 flights of stairs in 9m:55s! I’m waiting to post more when I get pictures. Thanks to everyone for your support!

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Nothing helps you appreciate having healthy lungs like climbing 42 flights of stairs.

When our manager Jeremy flew the idea of us honoring the mother of another store manager who’s fighting lung cancer, we all jumped on the idea. So on March 19th, 2011, our baristas will climb St. Louis’ tallest building, One Metropolitan Square, in the American Lung Association’s Fight For Air Climb, aka: “Master the Met.”

But we need your help to get there.

 

Not the Norm

© picsfive – Fotolia.com

Nick and Jill-3 were making an oatmeal smoothie when I came into work this morning. I made a face, and they tried to sell me on it, but I can’t see the appeal. I sometimes bring in peanut butter or yogurt to thicken up the recipe, but I still want to drink my smoothie, not chew it.

At 6:30am, though, when the morning crowd hasn’t shown up yet, you entertain yourself. Our rush used to last roughly from 7-9am, but over the past few months, it’s gradually shifted later and later, like a wonky pendulum, till now it’s pretty much 9-11am.

I can’t figure it out. The Central West End neighborhood around our cafe is affluent and full of the active, productive types—entrepreneurs, business-owners, med students, doctors, and nurses—who get up before the rest of us to conquer the world.

I hope the shift in our neighborhood’s schedule doesn’t bode ill for the economy.

By 7:30, though, we were in a nice little rush. I was pleasantly surprised at all the regular faces showing up at the normal time. I wondered if maybe the new year meant people were making resolutions to get up earlier.

By the time Nick was ready to clock out for the morning at 10 (your day ends early when it starts at 4:30am), we’d been doing brisk business. Lately, when the third morning person leaves, the two remaining baristas get stuck handling the late rush alone, but today felt different. Today felt normal for once.

I needed normal. I needed the reassuring routine, the regular pace of one familiar regular after another, one coffee drink after another, to settle my thoughts. I’ve been in an Improv slump lately, and at last night’s jam, I hadn’t gotten up on stage and played at all.

 

Movies That Matter

 

I’m dreaming up stories of spaceships and monsters, but these guys are doing work that matters.

Gregg Helvey directed the Academy-Award nominated short film Kavi, the story of a hopeful young boy living in modern day slavery in India. This was Gregg’s senior thesis for film school, and though he was an L.A. newcomer, he got several big names to wear blue slavery-awareness ribbons at the Oscar ceremonies. You can hear his story and learn about ways to help the cause on the Battleship Pretension podcast, episode #166.

Listen to it here, or find it in iTunes.

You can buy the short film Kavi for only $1.99 in iTunes, too. Two bucks gets you a really good film and helps support a worthy artist.

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Here in St. Louis, Dan Parris, Rob Lehr, and David Peterka are hammering through the editing phase of their documentary Give a Damn, which chronicles their journey through Africa living on $1.25 a day. They need money to finish, and they’ve entered the Pepsi Refresh Project in hopes of winning the $50,000 grand prize.

Go here, now, and vote for them. Then watch the trailer, and come back and vote again every day. When I first started, they were in 74th place. They’re in the high 50s now. Help get them higher.

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Luke 6:30

“Give to everyone who begs from you…” (ESV)

 

Weekend News: End of An Hair-a

Me and My Pigtail Buddy Nicole at work

I postponed my usual Friday News post to wait until after I got my hair cut yesterday.

On Friday, I wore my hair in pigtails, because…well, I could. It was my last full day with long hair, and I thought it would be fun. Strangely, very few people aside from my co-workers commented on it, but perhaps the fact that I noticed this means I just wanted attention (I am blogging, after all).

On Saturday, in the middle of a packed day that included digging a ditch in my friend’s backyard, attending a promising job interview/workshop, celebrating my niece’s 2nd birthday, closing the cafe for the night, and playing Wii Bowling with my co-workers afterwards, I got my hair cut.

I gotta thank Mel, my hairstylist for the day, and Shawna and David, at Studio Altius, the masterminds behind the event—especially David, who took my picture afterward. I don’t have exact numbers, but when I left, they’d collected about 13 feet of hair for Locks of Love. From my head they pulled four ponytails of 11″ each. My baby sister Chrissy even got into the act (I don’t have her picture here, but she looks great).

My new Short-Haired Headshot over here to the right is a picture of a picture, until I buy the digital negative, but I bought a nice print-out for my folks to hang in their hallway and replace the shot of me in my Tony Stark Halloween costume.

Meanwhile…I bought my pass to the Great American Pitch Fest! I’m Bronze Level, which was all I could afford, but I threw in a couple of classes, too—one with Pilar Alessandra and one with Karl Iglesias. I still have to buy my plane tickets—that happens tomorrow after I get my tips from work—and find a place to crash for that weekend (anyone reading this in L.A. who lives near the Marriott Burbank Hotel?).

But other than that, I’m all spiffed up and ready to go.

Oh yeah, gotta finish that rewrite (I’m over halfway, and feeling good about it)!

Catch you tomorrow with thoughts on the movie Legion.

Yes, Legion.

 

Friday News: A Year Reviewed

This week I had my one year review at work.

It went fine, no worries. I’m hoping to promote to shift supervisor in the near future, just in case everything else I’m doing completely falls apart, and it looks like I’m well on my way. (To the shift supervisor position, not to things falling apart. I’m hoping.)

I thought back to when I first got hired here, when a long, fruitless job hunt ended with a text message from a friend: “Get over to my Sbux right now!”

“Why?” I texted back. “Did somebody get fired?”

“Yes!”

Two hours later, I was being interviewed, and the week after, I started. I hadn’t been a barista for a while, not at an “Sbux” anyway, but I picked it up again. And now, here I am, one more long-haired aspiring screenwriter schlepping coffee by day and working on his scripts by night.

Earlier this year, my arts group at church, Fusion, presented a project where we drew names of books of the Bible out of a jar and tackled the challenge of creating front-cover like images for them. I represented the book of Numbers, in which the children of Israel journeyed for 40 years in the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land. In my drawing, God’s hand holds out care and provision for them, but also sifts the children of Israel to remove the faithless from the faithful.

Over the past year, a lot has happened that makes me furious at God. He’s denied my dreams, broken my stuff, tripped me up. He’s held my face to things I don’t want to confront. I’ve felt buried and confounded. Sometimes I can’t decide if it’s Him working on me or an impersonal universe playing cruel tricks.