Purple Past

I had a visitor tonight at the cafe. Last time I saw her was sometime in June I believe; she was wearing pajamas, fresh from across the street. She correctly guessed my name (not that is that big of a deal), and said I reminded her of a lover she once had. It was awesome. She came in tonight, but did not seem to recognise me, and she was frantic and really wanted a coffee. Good story.

Last night I roasted my first two batches of coffee ever. It was exhilarating, after I got past all the nerves and all. I didn't want to fuck it up and ruin a bunch of beans, and it requires 95% of your attention for 12-15 minutes. When people came in I would run over to them, do one thing, then have to run back to the roaster to check the temperature every minute. But it was really fun. It may even be something that I would come in and do on my days off, to give the Boss Bitty a break. I roasted two batches of Bolivian, which is what we use for espresso here. Both turned out really well; after examining them last night and today, there were very few imperfections, very uniform in darkness, and I had difficulty seeing any scorch marks on the beans, which is a good thing considering I have been noticing them since we began roasting. I think it has something to do with the fact that the contractor was incompetent and really fucked up the installation. We still get smoke in the cafe, even though I have found an almost foolproof method to make sure most of it goes straight outside.

The point is, I really enjoyed roasting and I want to do it more; so of course today I hear Boss tell me that we will not be roasting for a while - we will get our beans from our sister cafes in Nova Scotia for a while. Why? Well, the aforementioned contractor problem; they refuse to fix the problem, we will or already are initiating legal action against them. They took three weeks longer than projected to install the roaster, and it cost three times as much as it did in Nova Scotia! Now they refuse to fix the problem and are altogether just being jerks. Meanwhile, we are scorching our beans, smoke is getting into the cafe and people's lungs, and the roaster itself is potentially getting damaged. We can not just let this go. So for a while until that is worked out you will not perhaps walk by and smell us roasting coffee. Damn, I was just getting started!

Tomorrow is Nuit Blanche. I work twelve hours at least. I am already tired, in anticipation. Upstairs Bitty (Wintana) may be helping out tomorrow, which is awesome because she is awesome and a bitty. Really I only want to associate with bittys. Its such a hard life.

Check out this neat behind-the-scenes look at Project Blinkenlights, which is turning the City Hall towers into an interactive electronic display canvas until the 12th.

And some info on some cool exhibits that I won't get to see. Boo hoo.

And the "love" letter I wrote? Well, let's just say that nothing ever goes as planned or expected with Irish. And it is never going to be easy to be with her. And that doesn't matter. And I miss her terribly. And she is a bitty.