Footwear, Optimism, & March Madness

Will I ever be too old to wear bubblegum pink knee-high socks sprinkled with hearts and flowers?

It occurred to me today while staring down at my lurid pink socks that there will come a time when I won't be able to wear the rather childish getups that I sometimes put together for myself in the morning.

This thought made me get all defensive for all of one minute before I decided now was now and later was later, and that I was going to milk my youth for all it was worth.

I then spent the afternoon singing showtunes.

I dreamed a dream in days gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

~Les Miserables. Coincidentally, I'm in the middle of reading Candide, which may as well also be called "Les Miserables", for it is essentially the detailing of one miserable event after another to illustrate the idiocy of the philosophical doctrine of Optimism. With it's humorously euphemistic and/or explicit mention of syphilis, sex, fingers being inserted into orifices "usually reserved for an enema syringe", and other X-rated topics, I had to check the publishing year: 1759! I guess that makes me the ignorant prude.

One day, about a month ago, we had a rather insane afternoon at the coffeeshop. "Wow, today was a madhouse!" I exclaimed at the end of the day. The next day, it was a madhouse once again. As the month went on, I realized the insanity of that first day was no exceptional occurrence: it was merely the beginning of the spring season at L.C. March madness indeed! Now that the schedule has changed, I've been working with different people every time, and it's taken some getting used to. I've learned that my abundance of energy is not suitable for everyone, so sometimes it's necessary to tame it. While learning to tame it, I've been putting greater emphasis on good customer service and good drinks to as many individuals as possible, which is a challenge with the increase in volume of customers that the warm weather has brought on.

It's been brought to my-- and everyone else's attention that each drink matters a hell of a lot. One bad drink that you let slip could boomerang back at you, whether in the form of a yelp review or a review by the city's premier food critic. People are harsh. Critics are a beast. First they'll attack you from the side with some witty insult about the way you dress, which has nothing to do with your work, and then they'll cut you directly from the front with a written, public reminder of that one bad drink you made on an otherwise good night. This latest review had its intended side-effect, I suppose. The Weekender was on top of his game yesterday and would barely let me help him the way I'm used to helping him. I learned later that it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with him proving to himself that he could handle the job and handle it well. He even made a marijuana leaf in one of his practice lattes. Nice. Not on purpose of course.

Yesterday marked the end of my 9th month at the shop-- my LC pregnancy, as I've been calling it (mostly to myself). I've just given birth to a beautiful baby...bean. We happened to get on the subject of names during our evening cleaning routine, and I discovered that as much as girls have a tendency to have an easy time picking out favorite girl names and bother themselves much less about boy names, boys have the opposite tendency. It seems like an obvious complementary tendency, but I always assumed picking out future baby names of any gender was a girly thing and that boys didn't bother with it much. According to my sample size of two, this isn't entirely true. My two male co-workers have boy names readily picked out, but girl names? They prefer to assume they won't have girls, period. Hah. Good luck against nature, guys.

I like Isabelle and Summer.