Good things are on hiatus until I can get a handle on all the changes in my life. Anybody who is still interested…stay tuned. I’ll be back. Someday.
Going crazy.
Anybody want to come along?
Miss you all…
If you pray, pray for me. If you don’t, send good thoughts my way. Please?
Has the past week been jam-packed full of things pulling me in a million different directions?
Saturday was my first full day as proprietor of the Old Town Café in downtown Scappoose. It was also my husband’s 50th birthday. And so, after putting in a full day at my new (to me) café, I had to rush home and speed-clean the house for guests. Which meant running around the house and vacuuming up enough animal hair to knit a ninth pet; dealing with other more unmentionable "consequences" of shedding animals; making two extra bedrooms habitable by humans (one set of which neglected to apprise me of their intention to visit until approximately one day before said visit was to commence…aarrgh!) And then I had to shower, shave, and pick out an outfit appropriate for a fine dining establishment. All in the space of about an hour and a half. The guest of honor, meanwhile, spent the morning and half the afternoon selling food at the Farmers’ Market in Tillamook. He rumbled back into town about the same time I got home from work; for his exciting half-century milestone birthday present, he got an hour-long nap, while I ran around and did the white tornado thing.
Sunday morning, I went to work, and all my houseguests (my two sisters and their husbands) assembled at the café for a celebratory breakfast…a sort of "congratulations on the new venture" affair. I was able to join the festivities intermittently, between customers…
Monday was my oldest sister’s 25th wedding anniversary. And so this over-extended, hyped-out, sleep-deprived fledgling entrepreneur found herself shutting the doors at the café and loading herself into her car for an hour drive to a restaurant up the road on the way to Seaside, where sister and husband were celebrating said anniversary. And husband was setting up to sell food at the Fourth of July celebration in Seaside.
Between trying to apply myself to the new business venture, and pay adequate homage to Great Moments in Family History, I am just about toast.
Driving back from dinner Monday night, I got to watch storm clouds backing up over the Cascades in the east. They put on a spectacular show, which turned out to be my fireworks for the holiday… I tried to get back into town in time to get some pictures of the clouds above the boats at the marina; but by the time I got there, the colors had mostly faded, and the batteries in my camera were nearly depleted anyway. Below is the best shot I got. Call it "The Eastern Sunset Over Multnomah Channel…."
For the last four days, I’ve worked harder than I have in a very long time. And yet, it hasn’t seemed like hard work at all. What a trip, what a high (for all I know about getting high…)! I can’t remember, in my whole life, being this unreservedly thrilled about anything.
Nothing I’ve known or done compares to this. To having my own place. To being "the Proprietor." The owner. El hefe. The buck-stopper.
For years now, long and painful years, I’ve felt as if the best part of my life was behind me. Like I’d had my decade of prosperity, but that was then, and this is now. That it was all going to be downhill...from that place about a dozen years ago, when the slide began. When so many of the things I knew and loved started to be stripped from me, one after another after another.
I feel like Job. Like the guy who had everything, and then lost it. Suffered the tortures of the damned, was millimeters from cursing God and dying, but held on. Held on, because maybe he didn’t know what else to do.
Because once you’ve had goodness, once you’ve had fulfillment, once you’ve had "success," there’s a kind of accidental faith that keeps you going through the dark spots. You can’t stop nursing that tiny spark of hope in the deepest reaches of your mind. You had "it" once; so you know it exists. And if you had it once, you can have it again. That’s what has kept you putting one foot in front of the other, through the dry and the dull and the desperate; even when it seemed like there was nowhere to go.
It’s frightening, to love an experience this much. But I am nothing if not an inveterate cynic; I have no illusions that this could not all evaporate in an instant. I’ve lived through the rise and the fall. There’s no reason to believe I cannot fall again.
But feeling like this for even these few days will have made it worth the risk.
I’m Queen of the World!
So, this is it. The Big Day.
I have purposely not been focusing on what this day means, in terms of my life. In terms of my future. In terms of the awesome responsibility I will be taking on my shoulders. (Not to mention the awesome amounts of money changing hands.) The big picture is just too much for me to assimilate, and too overwhelming for me to contemplate. So mostly, I’ve been looking at this as a pile of random jigsaw puzzle pieces, each one representing one of the million responsibilities, plans, forecasts, talents, challenges, crap-shoots and sure things that, when properly assembled—over a ridiculously long period of time that is sure to try my very limited patience—will become a picture of a successful entrepreneurial venture.
Success. It’s hard to even define the word, as it applies to this situation. I’m pretty sure my hopes are not too high. At this point, I’m thinking if we don’t go broke in eighteen months we can claim success. Actually making money hasn’t even entered the picture yet.
And I’m pretty sure it’s the process that I enjoy the most, not the expected result, whatever that may be. Wednesday night, I stayed up until 2 am designing new table tents advertising our (pitiful) beer and wine list and our tiny array of dinner specials. I proudly put them out on the tables yesterday afternoon, modestly accepting the oohs and ahs of the staff. (Unfortunately, my little project seemed to act like customer repellent. Not one customer darkened the doors of the café for two hours yesterday evening. I sincerely hope that all the other little "subtle" changes I’m planning to make as soon as the ink dries on the contracts don’t have similarly negative effects. I don’t want to go in the crapper within the first three months…)
This afternoon at 4:30 pm we will sit down and do the deed…the deed which the ever-cautious bean-counter genes I inherited from my father have been agitating against since the idea of buying a business first entered my head. Luckily for me, I have been able to blow off those genes at times when I knew that listening to them would keep me from having any kind of a real go at life. So, Dad…put in a good word for us with the Universe and just…hang on. The ride’s about to begin.
All the myriad of lists and chores and errands and minutiae and details I’m stuffing into my days has inspired me to present myself with a creative challenge for this week’s 10 good things. Not just short and sweet. I tried that a couple of weeks ago. No…this time we’re going for ultra-short. One word short. One word per good thing. Or how about two? Let’s see what we can do.
Not very poetic, huh? More like cryptic… Oh well. At least I know what I’m talking about.
Things are good.
A week ago, I wondered if I would be reduced to posting snippets of whatever creative flashbulbs went off in my head in the midst of all the hubbub. At this point, I’m wondering whether my brain has enough spark left to generate even a firefly-esque flash. I passed fried a long time ago. I’m very nearly comatose.
The sheer amount of stuff we are trying to pack into every twenty-four hours has produced one interesting side effect. For the past many months, I have felt like time has been slipping through my hands like oiled rope. Lately, there is so much going on, so many things to keep track of, that time seems to be expanding–like one of those new hefty garbage bags—to hold it all in. Yesterday, I went to the hardware store on my break in order to get a key made. When I thought about that little errand today, it seemed like it happened at least a week ago.
Five more days to go until we sign the papers. I’m being stretched in a hundred directions, some of which I haven’t even had time to think about, yet. Today, I told Mr. Current Owner that I thought my head was going to explode, and he said, "Well, don’t do it in here. We don’t want to clean up the mess." Ha ha. No sympathy from that quarter.
Maybe tomorrow morning I will have enough time, and have my batteries half-charged enough, to go into some detail about what’s been going on. But now….now I just have to go to bed. A task much easier said than done, since, on top of everything else, the mercury has soared over 100° here in the Columbia Valley for the second day in a row, and sleeping is something not best accomplished in an upstairs bedroom that a bank of west-facing windows has lately transformed into a sauna. It always cools down at night around here, and we’re counting on two fans blowing full blast right on the bed to make the accommodations somewhat livable within the next couple of hours. Meanwhile I’m…typing. And falling asleep with my fingers on the keypad. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
It’s almost Wednesday, (well, I guess technically it IS Wednesday. But I haven’t been to bed yet, so it’s still Tuesday to me…) and I haven’t done my Ten Good Things list for the week. Okay, okay….I’m doing it already. Sheesh!
There. All done. Are you happy now? :-]
In the past, when my life has shifted into overdrive, my writing has fallen by the wayside. But up until the last three years, I had not allowed myself to see my writing as an art form, and a talent that I have no business wasting. Now, I need to take a look at how I’m going to relate to my art when I don’t have a lot of time to sit and stew about it. Do I continue writing whatever off-the-wall snippets spring into my mind, and hope once in awhile a gem will pop out? Or do I wait until I have the time to sit down and write "properly?" I don’t think the latter is the solution, because I’m very much afraid I’ll stop writing entirely. And I’ve come to see that my life without writing isn’t...my life.
So, here’s a snippet…
Driving home through the small towns strung along Highway 30, we passed a reader board in front of a gas station proclaiming "Happy Father Days." Yesterday was Father’s Day, wasn’t it? A holiday I no longer have reason to acknowledge. The mortal remains of my dad lie on a hill overlooking a peaceful cemetery on the western outskirts of Eugene. My husband’s dad is also gone. And since we are not parents, Mother’s and Father’s Days have no personal meaning for us (Zookeeper’s Day would be appropriate…the "children" could wrap a bow around a mouse…)
But when it comes to Father’s Day, it’s as if it no longer exists. I have other days reserved for wistful thinking about Dad. I just…don’t go there on Father’s Day.
For the past week, I’ve existed with one foot in each of my two worlds. Trying to put time in at the café, so that I can be up to speed by the time we take over, and at the same time, preparing for one of our larger, and one of my favorite, events with the concession trailer. It’s been hectic, and busy, and up until yesterday, I thought, "I haven’t felt this alive in a very, very long time."
Today, though, I think I hit the wall. Things are not going well for me at the café. It’s no surprise that the crew is not welcoming me with open arms; I’m bombarded by negative vibes emanating from all concerned. And while I completely understand why they feel as they do, it is extremely hard for me to function with that dark cloud hanging over me. It was busy during lunch today (unfortunately, the first time it has been busy all week…which doesn’t bode well, does it?) And I didn’t know whether to jump in and help or stay out of the way. I felt like it didn’t matter which I did, it was going to be resented. I spent six hours there this morning, and by the time I left, I felt like I had a thousand-pound weight strapped to my back.
In contrast, yesterday I drove the trailer out to Astoria to set up the booth for the Scandinavian Midsummer Festival. It was so very nice to fall into my old routine. Café de la Rue fits me like a well-worn shoe. Whereas Old Town Café feels like someone else’s custom-fitted boot. It isn’t comfortable at all. Yet.
I feel very much like Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz, flashing back and forth between the Emerald City and the farm. When I’m behind the counter of Café de la Rue, I feel like "We’re home, Toto!" Struggling around in the negatively charged atmosphere of the café, I know I’m not in Kansas anymore. And I do hope that I won’t come to realize I should never have left my own back yard to go looking for my heart’s desire…
