More on Coffee

We agreed on a price and have drawn up an Asset Purchase Agreement. Very exciting! I went in last week and had my first day behind the counter, learning the espresso machines, how to brew, make sandwhiches, serve pastries, etc. It was great. My feet hurt, but it was great. I spent the entire day eyeballing the walls and the trim and the details, considering new paint colors and decorations.... the need to nest stirring inside me. I'll be borrowing extra money from the bank to purchase some new seating, nice paints, a stove, used sink, crepe machines and a toaster. Maybe more stuff... depends on cost and how much money I really want out on loan building interest....eeeeek.


I'll be leaving for vacation tomorrow after work. We pick up our rental van, drive to northern New York to pick up our friend and her daughter and then drive through the night to the eastern shore in Maryland where we'll spend two nights with Bill's family before we head south to the outer banks in North Carolina for a week! Ella is about to explode from excitement. Just playing barbies in the back of the van with her friend Amelia would be enough of a vacation as far as she's concerned. Bill has tried on his rash guard surf shirt and borrowed wet suit about a half dozen times since Friday. He's also been checking the water temperature and condition of surf every day on the surf shop's website. Me.... I just want to lay a blanket on the sand, not caring if it's sun or moon or storm, and just lay there and listen to the ocean drive out the activity in my brain. I'd like a week off from the activity in my brain. I don't want to think about business plans, three year financial flow charts, having to sheetrock the attic office in the space or how in the hell I'm going to handle learning all my inventory and purveyors. A break. The ocean. Then I'll come back and dive back into the java land.

When I get back in June, I'll be putting in a half dozen, maybe more, shifts at the shop... squeezed in on my days off from the inn. In July, while I finish working out the financing, I'll assume the owner's shifts so that she could devote her attention to her new business venture. Hopefully by August we'll close the deal and I'll be the bonafide owner. Still haven't found a new name for the place. It's currently called Groovin Beans and that name has got to go. I've had some great suggestions from friends but I'm still waiting for the heavens to part and the sun to streak down in golden rays when I hear THE NAME but that hasn't happened yet. Considering that it took us twenty days to name our own kid, I'm wondering if I should just get on with it and pick one for the shop. Otherwise, this could go on for years!

I meet tonight with the current owner tonight to go over our revised draft of the Asset Purchase Agreement, work out the details of our roles through the month of July and get the rest of the info I need to complete the financial aspect of the business plan. After this meeting I think I'll be able to wrap my head around the rest of my summer. I may even be able to organize those thoughts. Make a list. Not panic.

And then, maybe, the ocean won't have to work so darn hard to wash away my mind clutter. Maybe I'll be able to offer it up myself and watch it wash out to sea.

rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim rim

S*I*P*K*A

Drumming Words

Amidst the craziness of this coffee deal, getting ready for a week and a half vacation and hopefully purchasing the land next door, I'm taking a six week African dance class. The group that teaches the class is Jeh Kulu Dance Company and they are out of Burlington.

They're from West Africa and the teacher comes with three or four drummers. There are twenty or so women and two men, one of which shakes his bootie like no white man I've seen. The first class was held the night that our friend held the "dry run" for his new restaurant so I drank a half glass or so of wine before showing up for class that night. The second night, I skipped the wine by chance and discovered that the wine is essential. Even if it's three sips!

My good friend grew up with the Beatles and tarot cards. When I was eighteen or nineteen, her mom introduced us to a psychic who was in town for a few weeks. The psychic, upon meeting me briefly, proceeded to draw an elaborate drawing that she then explained. There were all kinds of details and totems and past lives, one of which was as an African woman (banished from the tribe, but that's another post).... I never knew how much weight I put into this encounter but I've always kept the drawing and remembered what she had to say, as did the friend I went with.

After these dance classes, though, graceful as I might otherwise be on my feet, all I can think to myself is that woman must have been wacked!

MORE ON COFFEE

Have I mentioned that I haven't had a cup of coffee since March?

I'm sitting with my friend's laptop, in the cafe she's just purchased (seems to be a trend within our circle right now) and before me are pages and pages of business plan guides, references, profit and loss statements and payroll information.

I just spoke with the current owner, who has been awesomely patient while I get all my ducks in a row, and told her that yes, for sure, I'm buying her stuff. I thought I had made that clear the other day but she said she had to get in touch with the owner of the building who wanted to put the shop in the paper to look for a new owner. So we clarified. I'm taking it on. We get together tomorrow so that I can continue to bombard her with more questions..... licensing, zoning, purveyors, insurance, utilities..... and to let her know my offer on her price.

I have a bad habit of stumbling over my tongue when I talk about money with someone. I have a hard time entering into a conversation about money with confidence and clarity. Maybe it's because I've had such a strange relationship with the stuff. When I turned eighteen, my great aunt decided that she wanted to share her wealth with her family before she was too senile or long gone to experience the satisfaction of seeing us all enjoy it. She married a wealthy man who taught her how to invest her money well. She was widowed at fifty, after which she married her sister's husband's brother (got that?) and the two of them enjoyed a sweet and comfortable life together.

So, at age eighteen I was handed a check for five thousand dollars. My parents, who were in many ways fairly controlling, chose this one time to not impose rules and regs and unsolicited advice. I have no idea why and now, in hindsight, I wish they had. I didn't even know how to balance a checkbook. I withdrew the money in large quantities from the ATM and it was spent on booze and weed and music and pretty little hippie dresses for all my girlfriends. It was gone by the end of the year.... and then, lo and behold, came another installment. Just go ahead and carbon copy that first year. More weed, more booze, more Grateful Dead shows and pretty little dresses. By the third year I "invested" the money in a 1972 VW van and paid my dad's quack mechanic to restore it so that I could get the hell out of dodge and find my place in the world. The fourth installment went toward massage school, fifth installment went toward a deposit on a sweet little cedar rental home shortly after Ella was born and the last installment paid for part of the deposit on our 32 acres of mountain paradise.

I didn't grow up with money. We weren't a wealthy family. I think I've mentioned in prior posts that my folks woke up and banged on the heaters to get em going and to scare the mice away. So being handed such large sums at such a young age with such little guidance really left me with no skills on how to budget. I'm still learning.

The years following such abundance have been sparse. We're a young family, getting going in a place where economic prosperity isn't a norm, and we're part-time farmers to boot. We're still banging on our own metaphorical heaters, I guess you could say.

It's only been in the past two years, maybe three or four, that I've gotten comfortable balancing a checkbook, checking my account online and keeping a general kind of budget when it comes to groceries, insurance, gas, etc.

So, I've gone over the first half of the business plan and now have to type it into some master copy. Next comes the financial peice that Bill helps me with. Bill, who has been on his own, for the most part, and self sufficient since he was fifteen. When we met, 12 years ago, he had an immaculate apartment in Lancaster, Pa, a good paying job and a very organized budget. He is the left side of my brain.

The Pagans are Coming! The Pagans are Coming!

Every year, on the first Sunday after May Day (or Beltane) people come out of the woodwork to gather in the woods behind the state house in Montpelier, Vermont for an event we call All Species Day.

I learned about it three years ago and it happened that my birthday, May 1rst, was on that first Sunday, so I got to celebrate it in this old traditional way. It was like a coming home. A hundred or so people of all ages gather in a circle in a feild around noon and witness or join in in a ritual to honor all the directions and their elements.

All the winged creatures of the East dance around in a procession within the circle.... little kids with paper mache beaks, old men on stilts with raven's wings. Then the summer creatures of the south, the lions, the goats (there was an actual goat on a leash this year!) took their turn within the circle singing their song to the south. Next came the pretty blues of the western waters... dolphins, little girls in their mermaid playclothes, a beautiful woman adorned in long blue dresses and silks and bells. And lastly, the earth creatures of the north... the elk, the deer, the bear. Old Abenaki women in leather mocassins and a man with the skin of a coyote draped across his shoulder.

After all the directions are honored, a bent old crone comes creeping into the circle, staff in hand. She crawls into a ring of haybales and disappears under her dark cloak. The familiar troop of dancers that organize this event every year start shaking their hips in their long white skirts and enter the circle in teasing waves, moving closer and closer to the center of the circle, to the heap of old crone and hay bales. They throw their petals onto the crones cloak, the dormant earth, convincing spring to come and then they sway back and forth, into and out of eachother and to and from the center.... like waves. Like sex. And only when the drums could beat no faster slender white fingers start to ripple from that heap of hay and then elbows and shoulders and long locks of dark brown hair and the shimmering green robes of the spring maiden. She's enticed, like Persephone, to come up from the underworld and bring with her the warmth and growth and rebirth that comes after every long winter. And meanwhile, the stag in his huge masked head and stilts, waits in the woods to guide us all in a drumming parade down the hill, across the street, around the roundabout and down Main Street and State Street in a long, colorful medley to the state house lawn. The dancers, still swaying their long white skirts, lead the parade and there are little kids dressed as rabbits, fairies, turtles, etc. all following parents dressed as older rabbits, fairies, turtles, etc. all walking slow in the procession. One of my friend's daughters trailed along a white paper mache crayfish, about two feet long and all trimmed appropriately in shades of pink, fastened to a little plastic rollerskate.

Once at the state house everyone spreads out their blankets on the big lawn and feeds their (by now) whinying, hungry children. People kick back to watch the spring maiden and paper mache stag do their hand fasting and copulation dance on the steps of the capital. The kids come back to life and jump off the canons, play chase, freak out and do their thing. Some more drumming, some more African dancing, a may pole dance led by fiddle and guitar and then everyone slowly trickles home to wait for next year.

I think sometimes about the people of my hometown, that old coal mining town where the politicians are all crooks and the general population is just generally disgruntled. Where it seems the atmosphere and enthusiasm are still coughing up old coal dust.... and I wonder what they would do if this scene came strolling into town, drums beating and plopped themselves down in front of the courthouse.....if a spring maiden and a handsome, bearded stag simulated good lovins right there with cars driving by and life going on. I look up at Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, all gold and overlooking atop the capital building and I thank something or someone somewhere that I landed here, of all places.

The whole thing might be a little more foof than I prefer but I love it all the same and am so grateful that my daughter looks forward to it every year.

Oh, and if anyone knows how to spell paper mache, let me know.

coffee coffee buzz buzz buzz

So I'm all the more wiser now that I met with my small business advisor.... who happened to retire from that post about two hours after our meeting on Thursday afternoon. But the nice fellow that he is gave me his business card and his home telephone number and personal email so that I could contact him with whatever questions I have and deliver to him my business plan and Monthly Flow Chart upon completion so that he could then make up a Three Year Projection Sheet for me to present to the bank upon requesting my business loan.

Breath.

I just sat at my kitchen table for two hours.... the first time I've had since Thursday to sit with all this information.... and I read through all of the paperwork about writing my business plan. To use a metaphor here.... this feels like a starfish trying to navigate it's way through a deciduous forest.... alien territory. I spent the first quarter of that time just sitting there with my head buzzing and eyes crossing, remembering that panic of sitting at my kitchen table trying to cram a semester's worth of neglected World History into my brain for tomorrow's final. The heat rushing into my face, that 'i'm so totally fucked' feeling creeping into my nervous system. It was like a disease that lasted from fourth grade until I stopped giving a shit halfway through my senior year of high school.

Anyway. I had to get past the daunting entirety of this project and began by simply reading through each section of what a business plan required. I had two outlines/workbooks to look at and compare and just took my time with it, like I was learning a foreign language. Which I am. This is. Bill suggested I write an outline, which is how he seems to function by simple nature, and I rolled my eyes like the adolescent I was reverting to and then, also like the adolescent, proceeded to do exactly as he suggested only after he was out of my way and in bed.

Business description, marketing, competition, operation, location, financials...... my head hurts.

But about three quarters of the way into this it dawned on me that I was starting to make sense of all of it and it also occurred to me that there have been plently of other ventures in my life that I've taken on without having had any prior experience. Motherhood, for one.

But when I started working at a group home for teenage boys in state's custody in 2001, I started there totally wet behind the ears. I had no degree in pyschology. I went at it with my heart. I read through case files, learned the lingo, toughened up, and loved them in a very quiet way. I became manager of that group home within six months and learned how to write reports, keep medical records, document case incidents, yadda yadda yadda. I learned how to hire employees, fire the ones that sucked and take care of the paperwork involved.

When the group home closed I stayed with the organization until all "my boys" graduated from the program and went on to stumble through their lives like we all do. I gardened until I knew what would come next. I had never gardened before. It was in that quiet, mindful environment, my hands in the earth, that I decided to get back into bodywork. I hadn't practiced in years but peiced together a worthwhile resume. From there I stumbled into my next job at the inn.... having applied for a job as massage therapist and gotten offered the job of massage supervisor. Here I learned marketing and promotion, budgeting, inventory, and how to dodge beauracracy and loads of bullshit.

And now coffee.
But first, a business plan.
And before that, sleep.

Ruminating Fears

I'm meeting with a small business advisor this afternoon to look over the Profit and Loss statements from the previous two owners of the coffee shop. I'm basically looking for someone who knows numbers to look at me in all honesty and either tell me to run screaming in the other direction or to go for it.

I tend to romanticize things and so I'm trying, hard as I can, to be realistic about the degree of work that'll be involved in this. The thing that scares me the most is dealing with the business end of things.... balancing the books, learning QuickBooks, payroll, inventory. A friend of mine just recently purchased a sweet little health food type cafe in Stowe and I accompanied her on her jaunt to Costco last week. I know she has to make a certain amount each day to just break even and that most days, being in the early stages still, that doesn't happen. So halfway through our shopping trip it dawned on me.....how is she paying for all this food? Just simple concepts like that trip me up. How do I pay for the food? What bundle of cash do I pay my employees with? It's not like I'll be going into this with any real capital and isn't having some initial capital the saving grace of most small business entepreneurs?

Granted, I'm not totally satisfied with my current job. I'm understimulated, under-appreciated, and completely fed up with a beauracratic environment. The bossies want me there a specific number of hours each week and for two and a half years I've been telling them that my position really doesn't require that many hours (in the off season, especially). In an effort to save my time and their money, I've tried proposing different situations but have been told, in response, that they don't care if I come in to count paperclips..... they want me there. So I go. But as a result, I have a lot of down time. I've been fairly spoiled. Leaving the cush-ness of this position, a guaranteed salary income, two weeks vacation pay, sick days, no financial risk..... all for a behind the counter, on my feet, greeting people all day, drone of the steaming whistle, good conversation, constant stimulation, casual environment and absolute and total financial risk. Hmmmm..... It's a tough toss of the coin.

Will I be able to come home from work and leave work behind? Will I be spreading myself way too thin? Will I absolutely love the transition? Will I drink too much coffee and drain my adrenals and put myself back on track with past health issues? Can I stand that temptation? I haven't had a cup of coffee in about a month.... a HUGE undertaking for my addictive personality.

So, here goes.
The owner needs/wants an answer by the end of this week. Pressure is on.

Sunday's Child ~ Full of Grace

I called my Nan this morning, first thing, mostly because I knew she'd be awake. I caught her on the john and in her birthday suit, which for some reason she felt comfortable enough divulging that information to me. I don't know. At 87, who gives a shit, I guess.

Before she wished me a happy birthday she told me all about this four thousand dollar check she received and that if she takes it to her bank she'll somehow get an additional forty thousand dollars from some Chris Roberts at the Golden Globe Awards. Old people can be so naive. It scares me. Scares our whole family.

She asked how old I was and told me that when she was my age she was finished having her three kids and her mother that year had helped her sew mother/daughter dresses for Easter. Something about the french stitches being all backwards itchy and some such detail I can't recall. She also told me that she was born on a Sunday morning at 7a.m. and that the church bells from the Polish church on Willow Street in Swoyersville were chiming. She told me that each of her children were born on Sundays and in the mornings as well and so was my Pop.

We spent about ten minutes on the phone, which is a fairly long conversation with my Nan, as she spends most days getting her hair done and playing poker. She wished me a happy birthday and when we hung up all I could think was, ' Is she still naked?'.

Birthday

I smelled fresh cut grass for the first time this afternoon.

I planned on spending the entirety of my birthday in the woods today but I woke to grey skies and cold temperatures so I took myself shopping instead. Went a little apeshit at the consignment store. I treated myself to some takeout sushi afterward and as I drove home balancing the soy sauce and raw fish with the steering wheel, the sun came pouring out and the clouds tarried along in another direction.

So I came home to a beautiful day and a beautiful birthday cake.... double layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and a fig and raisen goop between the layers. My chef friend, Jeff, gave me new windsheild wipers and a bulb for my left headlight. Bill and Ella got me fuzzy clogs and a beautiful embroidered April Cornell shirt. I guess there is something else in the mail but that'll be a while yet. I love presents.

I made myself some chai and pulled on my mudboots and a sweater to hit the woods before the school bus dropped Ella off. On the walk, I discovered this season's first spider webs, trout lilies, skunk cabbages, and leeks. I walked the land next door, the land I pray will be ours sometime soon. I found the far border, marked by a long stone wall and followed it till it trailed off. I then traversed the land until I hit the other stone wall and followed that until I reached the mountain stream. I followed the mountain stream to a point that was familiar and then walked further back until I came to "my waterfall".... a place I discovered three years ago when I took myself into the woods for centering and stumbled upon that waterfall like a small child in it's own universe. I also spied a mama moose with her baby that day.

From here, the sunny window and tall work desk, I'll go to my new African dance class and shake my bootie to West African drumming by actual West Africans! Vermont is so unbelievably white.... and so when I come across someone with some actual color in their skin I just want to hug them and buy them a cup of coffee. It makes me miss my hometown. It's one of the few things that make me miss my hometown. That and Middle Eastern cooking. And perogies.

And then it's dinner and vino at our friend's opening night at his new cafe. I couldn't ask for a better birthday!