Discontented Rumblings

An amorphous sense of discontent has plagued me lately. An inkling that time is going by much too quickly, and I’m not using it well. A suspicion that no one in my world is happy with me, including me. Small personal goals seem as far outside my reach as lofty universal ones. I can no more keep my bathroom clean than I can achieve world peace. There is not one aspect of my life that I can say is where I think it could be or know it should be.

It’s been more than a year since I emerged from the over-stressed sleep-deprived fog I inhabited for the first two years of running the restaurant. And yet, I feel I’ve accomplished nothing in the past fifteen months. True, I’ve spent most of that recovered energy just keeping the business viable through tough economic times. But I really don’t like the feeling that I’m throwing all my weight into this thing just to keep it from going backward. When do we get to go forward? Ever?

And then there’s Old Age. I don’t feel it creeping up on me. I feel like I’m running full speed away from it, but it’s matching me step for step. And its legs are longer than mine…

When I first began to entertain the notion of buying a business, every "how to" book I read exhorted one to write up a set of goals. Where do you want to be in six months? In a year? In five years? I never took that advice. Something told me that I was stepping off into such alien territory that I couldn’t possibly have a clue where I was going or how long it was going to take me to get there. I guess I looked at my business venture as a "Walkabout." It was all about the journey, not the destination.

As it turns out, that attitude has probably been my salvation, as well as my cross. I’m pretty sure that I haven’t even gone in the same direction I thought I was going when I started out, and it’s a safe bet that I have not achieved anything I would have recognized as "goals" at the outset. "Assemble a crew of workers who will actually show up when they’re scheduled" and "chase down food purveyors who believe Scappoose is forty miles outside of Outer Mongolia" would not have struck me as tasks difficult enough to qualify as goals…and yet, accomplishing just these simple things has been like a quest for the Grail. So if I had said, "I want to have increased sales by 20% and banked 50k in profits after three years," I would be living with failure that was beyond dismal, at this point. If I had not chucked it all months ago, based on my inability to accomplish…anything.

Recently, in the midst of an argument with my grocery rep, he said to me, "You want to be a $1,000,000.00 restaurant, don’t you?" I didn’t have to think very long…I said, "No, Kirk, I just want to make a living. If I wanted to make a million dollars, I sure as hell wouldn’t be running a restaurant in a little bitty town like this."

"I just want to make a living." But I’m not doing that yet. Haven’t taken one dollar out of the damned thing. But the doors are still open, and it’s paying its own bills. Still, I wonder whether I haven’t set my sights too low. Maybe if I had said I wanted to make a million, I would at least be drawing a salary by now. But would that have been enough to motivate me to keep going? Hard to say; but I suspect that if I thought I was going to (or needed to) make any money off this thing in the first five years, I would have been bummed or broke enough to get out by now.

But when people ask me how it’s going, I’m getting a little tired of saying, "Well, we’re not losing money!" as if that was the best I can hope for. At some point, it has to do more than pay for itself.

Doesn’t it?

Left Behind

Back in June, I made some moves that I believed were risky, brave, and eminently forward-looking. I hired myself a chef/kitchen manager, and a pastry chef. With the idea of taking the café to the “next level.” Knowing full well that some of the precious long-term employees I had clung to would not be going to that next level with us. You stop, you think, you swallow your trepidation and you take that big forward step. You know there will be consequences.

Now that I think about it, the fallout was already falling when I made those momentous hiring decisions. It was, in fact, one of the things that pushed me to make the moves I did. One by one, the backbones of my crew were themselves making decisions. To move on. To kiss us goodbye and leave us behind. In truth, I decided to take us to the next level because it was that or…I don’t know what. Run the restaurant by myself, I guess.

In May, the Good and Faithful “D” informed me that she would be going back to school in the fall. And of course, it couldn’t be a normal school, where you could take classes AND work, and get your degree or certificate in, maybe two or three years. No…it had to be one of those “career” schools with the intensive programs that eats up the students’ every waking hour, transforms them and releases them fully accredited and thoroughly exhausted into their chosen field of endeavor after a mere 6 to 8 months.

Time and time again, my “girls” remind me that I am their boss. I am not their friend, or their mentor, or even someone whose feelings matter, or whose opinion they value. I have so utterly failed to make that connection with the girls who work for me. And it feels like shit. What do you say to someone upon whom you have depended heavily—probably much more heavily than was wise—when they up and decide to move on? “Bye, see ya…have a nice life?”

And, yet, I could do that, if it looked like the parting was going to be a smooth and amicable one. But that would not be “D.” Her personality is such that, when she decides to move on, she completely emotionally disassociates from whatever she is moving on from. She's no Audrey Hepburn, but her personality is every bit "Holly Go-lightly." She wants to project the impression that there are no bonds, no chains, no attachments…everyone (meaning SHE) is free to walk away from any relationship at any time, no hard feelings, no regrets. The more serious the entanglement, the more aloof she becomes at the dissolution of it. Untouchable. Unreachable. Gone.

The end result of this is…though she will not actually start school for another two weeks, and she plans to continue to work part-time during the first ten-week term, “D” is already gone. The amazing young woman whose trust I thought I had won, and whose loyalty I believed I had inspired, at least in some small way, has disappeared. In her place is a disrespectful petulant malcontent with a serious case of “short-timer’s disease.” And it just…hurts. Deep in my heart, it hurts.

It will be a sad chapter in the history of the Old Town Café, and in my personal history, if the time comes—as it appears that it will—when I am relieved that “D” has finally walked out the door, never to return. She has been my right hand, my go-to…the Good and Faithful “D.” It will be hard…SO hard…to watch that relationship end in such a sad and ignominious way. But it honestly looks as if I have no choice. I have been pitched out of a taxi into an alley, in the rain.

Unfortunately, I don't anticipate "D" suffering a change of heart and coming back for me...

Hello, Journal...

Coming To Terms is coming up on its sixth birthday. Six years. Wow.

I love this little blog. I do. It means so much more to me than anyone could ever imagine. Even sans the readers and the community out of which it sprang (or into which it sprang…) I love it too much to let it go. But I’ve come to realize, without the community, I have a lot less to say here than I used to. Truth to tell, a lot of what I wrote for five years was more playing around than real writing. There were the memes and the getting-to-know-you games (remember “100 Things About Me…?) There were the bitch and moan sessions, and the “poor me” wallowing—all of which had a place and a purpose, because part of the blogging experience consisted of…well, venting. Discovering that there were others out there like me, or who appreciated or sympathized with my trauma du jour.

Now, when I want to vent, this is not the first place I come…it doesn’t seem as satisfying anymore, somehow.

Of course, some of what has been recorded here is real, solid, creditable writing. Writing of which I am inordinately proud. Writing that would never have existed without this place. And that is the thing that keeps me here. Knowing that I have done it. Knowing that I can do it still.

But here’s the thing: I feel like I can only post the ‘real’ stuff now…because there’s no one around to read or appreciate the fluff. And with so much of my life force and creative juices being consumed by the restaurant, I have so little left to invest here. I want to write. I need to write. But I’m so used up that, even when I have the time and an idea, I turn on the laptop, type a few sentences, and then just sit and stare at the screen…so tired…and I save the sentences, close the document, and go play solitaire instead. Good writing simply takes more resources than I have available, most of the time.

I’ll admit I’m in one of those “are-we-having-fun-yet?” places when it comes to the café. It doesn’t seem like we have made as much progress as I would like to see. I’ve spent a fortune overstaffing the place, and I still can hardly get a weekend off, or feel confident that if I shell out a bunch of money for tickets to a show or concert that I will actually be able to get the time off to use them. This is not the place I wanted to be after three years. If I can’t pay myself, the least I should be able to do is take a freaking day off when I want it.

As of this week, Cooks #1 & 2 are back in school, Cook #3 has taken herself out of action for a month by cutting off the tips of two of her fingers (eeewwww!!!); and my chef’s grandmother died, so he’ll be gone to California for the funeral for four days. Overspending on labor by 30%, yet, once again, I am the ONLY cook available to work on a Saturday. What do I have to DO to catch a break??!?!?!

And so…I blow a kiss, with a mist of tears in my eyes, to “Big Red” (my concession trailer) as it goes off to its next adventure with its new owner; and I think that maybe being semi-retired, running my little seasonal concession business, might not have been the worst place I was ever in. I think back to how easy (and exhilarating!) it was to put together great essays when I had the time and the wherewithal. I really, really miss that. And it doesn’t go too far toward making me feel any more satisfied with my present lot in life. Chronically exhausted, challenged often to the limits of my abilities to cope, and completely dried up, creatively. (Do I detect a “poor me” coming on?)

Perhaps one should not endeavor to count the cost of “living the dream”—as I so often find myself doing. It behooves one to just shut up, press on, and spend more time dwelling on the positives. Yes. I’ll do that, now. Can’t promise I won’t fall off the wagon a few miles down the road. But I’m done whining, for the time being.

At any rate...

Happy Birthday, “Coming to Terms….”

The Boys of Summer 2009

I've been writing about the cats my mother's spirit has sent me this summer... Just so you know what (whom) I'm talking about--

A Fair Exchange

I was away from home for an entire week. Normally, this would not bother me overmuch. There were aspects of my life from which I really needed a break. But I have a few new responsibilities that made me feel guilty, and even a bit worried, about being gone so long. As I mentioned in my previous post, my mother has sent me cats—several of them. Three in particular. And each is uncharacteristically needy at this point in his life.

Orangie is still living mostly in my back yard. He spends probably 70% of his time there—sleeping, eating, hanging with his “peeps” when we sit out on the deck in the evening. It’s the other 30% of his time that causes the problems. Every few days, he shows up with a new bite or sore, or he’s limping or just obviously doesn’t feel good. He’s been “cat about the neighborhood” for almost two years. That’s a surprisingly long tenure for any animal dumped here and left to fend for himself. Most of them waste away or disappear after a few months. This guy has hung tough; but it’s obvious he’s used up more than a couple of his nine lives in the interim.

Despite getting two big meals a day—and several snacks, when I’m home—he hasn’t fattened up at all. I noticed the other day that his fur is getting softer, and he keeps himself a little cleaner, which means he is feeling better than he did when he had to scratch for every meal. But I still would kind of like to see him looking more like the “marshmallow cats” that live in the house. And it’s obvious he’s had some kind of injury to his back legs or spine. Maybe he was attacked by a dog, or a human, or had a brush with a car… But he’s stiff and sore and sits awkwardly.

I’ve had September 1st penciled in my mind as the date to round him up and take him to the vet to be neutered and get a good check up. I wanted to wait until he trusted me enough. Still, I’m worried about the process. What if he comes home, I let him out, and he’s so upset with me that he never comes back? I suppose that’s probably a stupid thing to worry about. But I sure don’t want to do anything that forces him back out into the neighborhood to fend for himself.

He’s had a hard life the past couple of years. When I think about what he’s been through, I nearly start bawling. So, I want to do right by him; but I have to balance that, too, against what’s right for the rest of my herd. I don’t know if he’ll make a good transition to “indoor cat,” and I can’t have him going in and out of the house, possibly carrying disease to the indoor population. So he has to be “in” or “out.” We’ve been playing around with the idea of turning the shed into a kitty hut. Making it a warm, cozy place for kitties to get out of the rain and cold during the winter. And a place that we can quietly shut them in at night to keep them out of the way of the harm that lurks around the neighborhood in the dark—like raccoons, coyotes, other cats, dogs, cars, whatever. That might be a good compromise for everyone.

“Everyone” would include yet another denizen of the neighborhood who has taken to hanging around the yard and grabbing chow several times a week. This one is a scrappy little black tom…I can’t think that he is a year old, yet. We dubbed him “Ace,” short for Ace of Spades. Mostly we call him “Acer.”
He’s such a sweetie, likes people, loves to be petted. But if testicle size really was determined by the amount of male hormone coursing through his body, this little guy would be dragging around balls the size of a Brahma bull’s. He just can’t not challenge every male cat in the subdivision. As a result, he gets the crap kicked out of him on a regular basis. Every time he shows up to beg a meal, he’s sporting a new battle wound. Acer is a relatively recent addition to the neighborhood cast of cat characters…I don’t know if he belongs to someone or not. I think not. And even if he does, his owners suck as “cat parents.” I would not feel bad at all about toting him to the vet along with Orangie. Orangie is a mellow old cat; likely he would be happy to share his space amiably with Ace…but Ace has to posture and howl every time they cross paths. Perhaps they could get along once they’ve been, shall we say, re-programmed? And then they could spend yucky fall and winter evenings snuggled into our shed-cum-cathouse. That’s what I would like to see, anyway.

Yes, I go through a lot of work and worry—and expense—to take care of these wanderlings. I feel responsible, being a member of the race that has bound them to itself and then treated them so shabbily. I recognize the human race’s collective sin, so it IS my responsibility to do what I can to atone for it. And it’s not as if I get no benefit from the relationship.

Ask anyone who knows me to describe me in one word, and the words, “Gentle,” “kind,” and “comforting” would not be the first you would hear. Far from it.

But there are creatures in my world —small, helpless creatures suffering for their relationship with humans—for whom I am a source of gentleness, kindness, and comfort. They can’t say the words, but I know I help.

And that’s all the reward I need.

Hiding in Plain Sight

Like anyone else who has reached my venerable age, I’ve navigated the dark corridors of grief. My sister…my dad…my mom. Being the agnostic I am (a state partially inspired by my sister’s difficult and untimely death) I do not believe that my departed loved ones have gone to “heaven,” and that I will meet them there at the end of my own life. I remember very distinctly, after my sister’s death, writing that I felt that she had just…gone. I did not—dared not—feel her spirit anywhere. …because her family fell so utterly apart after she left, I could not bear to think of her as being somewhere, looking down on that. I knew it would break her heart. As, I now realize, Dad would have been broken-hearted at the strife between his offspring after he went away.

Yet I am not completely without spiritual awareness. It’s not that I don’t believe that there is a spiritual realm to which we are intrinsically connected. I’ve simply come to the conclusion that our current array of human religions doesn’t even approach an understanding of that realm or our connection to it. (As a race, we have opted to define this thing of which we have no understanding in terms that we can understand. And we have chiseled those erroneous terms into stone; which we then use to pummel “unbelievers” into submission.)

I find that when I set aside the constrictions of the “faith” in which I was raised, I can explore my own connection to the spiritual…which bears little resemblance to conventional belief systems.

I’ve discovered that, after each passing of someone dear to me, I’ve felt that person’s spirit contact me through the natural world.

The summer immediately following my sister’s death, I was visited by hummingbirds. I had always been enchanted by these exquisite little creatures, but my encounters with them had been rare and brief. After Joyce died, I had hummingbirds—everywhere. In my garden, and everywhere I went.

I could never quite decide if she was the hummingbirds, or if she sent them…

In the years after Dad died, I felt him in different ways. When I went to the beach, it seemed that I would encounter one solitary gull, waddling along the edge of the surf, or soaring overhead, who would connect with me. And I would always say, “Hi, Dad…” Because I just knew it was his spirit, come to touch me, come to let me know he was in a place of ultimate freedom and beauty—there on the wild beaches of the Oregon coast.

And then there were the eagles. I truly believe Dad sent them. Sent them to remind me of my strength. At a time in my life during which great decisions needed to be made, a time when his guidance would have meant the world to me—he dispatched those great, noble birds to give me the quiet nod that he could no longer give me as father to daughter.

And Mom? Mom passed away almost two years ago.

My relationship with my mother was complicated. Let’s just say, I thought I was…not her favorite child. And our personalities were polar opposites. Most often, we just didn’t GET one another.

So I was surprised to realize, recently, that even she has contacted me through an animal host.

She has sent me…cats. Those creatures at once maddeningly independent, and yet undeniably dependent (upon someone to look after them while they project that pretense of complete aloofness and self-sufficiency.) SO like my mother…

Mom has sent me Orangie—

And Acer—

And a host of other scraggly strays that slink around the periphery of my yard, hoping to grab a few morsels from the “community” cat dish…

And Bozo—the beautiful runaway who showed up at the restaurant a couple of weeks ago, and is now ensconced in my bedroom, waiting to be integrated into the indoor cat community. (Such a stupid name for a gorgeous and obviously expensive cat...but the hubs started calling him that, and it has, unfortunately, stuck. Maybe I should just spell it "Beauzeau...")

I truly believe— in a way not at all connected to the tired, uninspired spirituality of conventional religion—that our loved ones never really go far away, when they go.

We just need to know where to look for them.

Tired Somewhere Else

This has been a hard week. It always seems to go that way. I have a space of time where things go well—it looks like we are finally turning the corner, and there's going to be some real progress and change at the café. And then it just…goes away.
Time was that, after some small victory or accomplishment, I would turn my beaming face around just in time to slam into a wall. Like, BLAM! Out of nowhere some really bizarre crappy thing would blindside me. The wheels would come off and spin away in ten different directions. And I'd be sitting there holding my splitting head together with my bare hands wondering what the f**k had happened this time.
So I suppose I've made progress—because that doesn't happen anymore. I've learned to expect the blow, so I don't get blindsided. I don't slam into the wall, I laboriously turn the wheel to swerve around it. Right into a ditch. The wheels don't come off, now; they just grind to a halt in three feet of mud.
Between training and tweaking the new chef, getting the new baker on track, fighting with the non-existent air conditioning in 105 degree weather, organizing a fashion show to be put on by the salon across the street (in my dining room), thinking about the holidays and catering menus and et cetera ad infinitum, NOW would not seem to be a good time to be away from the café for nine days.
But Scandi week waits for no (wo)man, so I am going down to Junction City to do that thing. And, in reality, it seems like exactly the perfect time for me to be getting some time away from the restaurant, because I have HAD IT with employee traumas. This past week, some of the craziness was of my own making…but other ongoing stuff, and new crap cropping up like Wack-a-moles, have put me in a "Get me the hell out of here before I do something I'll regret" frame of mind.
So the restaurant will have to take care of itself for a week, while I work my ass off doing something else. It's unfortunate that I won't be rested and refreshed when I get back. I'll be an entirely different, and with any luck—richer, kind of tired.
That will have to suffice until I can take some real days off…

How It's Going...

If it seems that I am neglecting my blogging, please forgive me. I have been spending inordinate amounts of time online…but I’ve been attending to other things.

Business-related things.

Surprise…!

I finally bought a domain name for the café and am working on a website. If anyone is interested, it’s www.oldtowncafescappoose.com. You’re welcome to go by and see what my hours of clickety-clacking away have produced (thank god for the “starter website builder” tool…)

Oh, and I was talked in to rejoining the world of Facebook as well. Had to start up a page for the café…so, again, if anyone is interested, when you’re on Facebook, just type “Old Town Café & Espresso” into the “Search” field on the top, and you should be able to find us. We are a motley crew… :)

So, you ask, how are things going with the new chef?

Incredible. Wonderful. Doubt if things could be better. SOOOO hard to believe.

But there it is.

I’m fully expecting to be smacked in the face with reality, very soon. In fact, when my young chef called the other day to confirm what time he was supposed to be at work, I honestly thought he was calling to quit. No, there would be no reason to expect that…other than the fact that it is exactly the kind of shit that falls out of the sky and hits me in the face on a regular basis. My whole life is about “once burned, twice shy,” since I became a business owner.

But, today…things are good.

Really good.

On top of everything else, I’m acquiring a new (to me) vehicle. Which I am going to go pick up tomorrow.

A mini-van. No more driving the Great White Rumbling Beast everywhere I have to go. Can’t say I’m going to miss that at all…

And Sunday is my birthday. Okay…maybe that’s not so great.

Don’t get me wrong. I love birthdays. It’s just that ever since my age became a two-digit number starting with “5”…well, I just can’t believe I’m that OLD. Or maybe there are days—maybe EVERY day, for at least the first few minutes after I roll out of bed—that I CAN believe I’m that old. Pretty scary, that.

But it is what it is.

Well…that’s the update. Soon…very soon…I’ll come back here and write something real. And interesting.

I’ll tell you all about my continuing love affair with my new chef. Okay…not a literal love affair.

But…well…Life is damned good.

The Next Level

A little over a week ago, I wrote, almost as an aside, that I had gone and hired me a real live dyed-in-the-wool chef. A foodie. Someone who knows how to cook and loves doing it.

And then, yesterday, I realized quite out of the blue that we had reached the third anniversary of our purchase of the restaurant.

So, there it is. Three years into the thing, and I’m finally going to make this restaurant MINE. By getting out of the kitchen, handing the sauté pan to someone who really KNOWS how to operate it, and using his skills to advance my vision.

No more pushing someone else’s dream up the mountain. I’ve proven I can do that. That in itself is a tremendous accomplishment…there have been oh-so-many times in the past thirty-six months when I’ve nearly conceded that, indeed, I could not. Do. It.

The time has come to bleed and sweat and ache, and laugh and celebrate and high-five, not just for something I “can do,” but for something I can love and be proud of. This young man, this twenty-five-year-old in the early years of what I’m sure will be a fine career, is going to help me get there. If we’re lucky, we can have a long, mutually beneficial association. If we’re lucky.

Tonight, sitting in the restaurant, on a beastly hot evening when I was pretty convinced that people would rather walk over burning coals than sit in our poorly air-conditioned dining room and consume pasta, I watched group after group come in, sit down, enjoy a meal. I lent a hand here and there, answered the phone, opened a bottle of wine, seated some folks, schmoozed a little…

And then I went home and left the clean up to the people I pay to do that.

For the first time in three years…

the FIRST TIME

in three years

I felt like I OWNED a restaurant.


And it felt

FU**ING AMAZING.

Happy...

…Birthday to the hubs. Fifty-three years old today.
How old is dirt, exactly?

…Anniversary to the Old Town Café… Three years ago we embarked upon this wild ride of restaurant ownership.

Still haven’t taken a dime out of the place.

But…

The doors are still open…
The bills get paid…
The paychecks don’t bounce….

So we must be doing something right.

Cheers…!