Day of the Dead

another fine saturday

Quickly, I shall recap another fine Saturday.

As almost usual, we got caffeinated at Broadway. It was a cool morning in Kansas City. As we enjoyed some of the best real lattes of our lives, we watched the increasingly familiar tattooed families come and go. We are starting to get to know some of the local folks here who frequent the places we do.

We then checked out our future house we will rent. It's a two bedroom old place with some good light and a lot of birds for the cats. The nice thing: washer and dryer included and no yard upkeep. Come and visit us sometime soon.

For serious now, recap: hummus, green earl tea, incredible custard.

For more mundane updates and a strong lack of insight, stay tuned.

This is yesterday's
sketch of a
USPS businessman
sporting braces.


Meetings can be productive from time to time.

This is The Cave. It is where the rest of our company is housed. They work underground with weather that is always 70 degrees and overcast. Some have no whites of eyes...

Criminy!

It's been quite a week this week. Sarah, label girl has been doing manual labor at Parisi. She averages about 1000 coffee bags labeled every four hours. That's a good thing, for the rest of us are strapped, bagging and roasting 1/3 of our total order of 60,000 Lbs of coffee. It's kind of our dues paying time as a small company. You bust yourself for 10-12 hours a day for six days a week, and you learn what type of people you have to work with. We have a pretty good team of freaks. I am included in that category of freak for certain.

On a domestic note, we've had enough of the swank loft downtown. It took us a month of living in an apartment to figure that out. I think I may have mentioned that earlier. Anyhow, we are looking for a house with some nooks. I would like a studio to paint in as well. Sarah is looking to pick up a sewing machine. Ask her, and she'll sew you some nice slacks.

We are looking forward to a little bit of normal life again by drinking some coffee at the local Broadway Cafe and enjoy some being in Kansas City. It is a cool town. We are going to try to stop in at the modern art museum for a quick blood sugar drain tomorrow afternoon.

Sarah just reminded me of the fine dinner of home made lasagna we ate together around the cupping table tonight. Some of the folks from work hung out and drank a little wine and enjoyed not working together. It's a relief to work in a smaller company in which there is freedom to grow some culture. It's a pleasure to enjoy some counter culture to the former corporate culture. Much love to those reading this who are still in that place.

Well all, we miss those of you in other places and are excited to see you soon. Include Gail Hill in prayer for strength and focus to get through this here trial and opportunity for growth.

xo

house

Yeah, so we are looking at houses here in KC. we really don't feel like we are complete without a double mortgage. We have enjoyed our time in the Folgers' neighborhood. As much as we may fancy the city life, we belong more in the burgs, bourghs, bungalow areas of the city.

I was in a local television studio today, helping to promote our brand. Interesting places those are. I haven't seen a live studio set with the green screen and all before. They had a local gardener on, a coffee guy, and the customary adopt-a-dog lady. I don't know if that is normal, but it seemed pretty normal for a morning show. The hosts did well with the whole false life thing. They were essentially doing a broadcast in a warehouse with little play sets around them; complete with empty coffee cup drinking gestures, fake interest and fake laughs. One redeeming sign of hope was the fact that the male host was wearing beat up hiking boots with his suit. He was able to express himself only in the part of himself the audience would never see.

Does anyone out there like beef jerky? Does someone really like beef jerky? What's a good brand? What do you look for in a jerky?

Just curious.

Does this creep anyone out?

dogs & crusts

Sarah and I were and are able to enjoy a fine Saturday. This act seems to have eluded us for the most part due to our health as of late. We took a few hours to wander some of the areas of Kansas City. We had a coffee or two and looked around the Westport area. In which, there are a number of coffee and tea houses and some relatively funky restaurants and cafes. We ran across a little bass shop I will certainly patronize. He had nothing but fine basses and a degree in double bass. So that's a bit of a relief to not have to shop the big corporations or over priced local stores. This man had passion.

I feel like we are settling in a little bit; at least in every day sort of things. That is, at least we know where to buy coffee and really old maps and books in stores with smoking old men with nice mustaches. I feel attracted to the streets around Westport and to the people that are found on them. Once we find some good scripture teaching, we will be that much more grounded. We begin the hunt for a church tomorrow.

I hope you all are enjoying the change in the weather. Blossoms are showing up everywhere. I look forward to what Missouri and Kansas have to offer in the coming seasons.

Love to all the people from home. We miss you greatly.

I am she

How am I likened to the old bearded lady in the hair net at Costco?


Not as old. Just as creepy.

fine images

One thing I enjoy about KC is the attention paid to artistic expression. Throughout the city, I assume because it is old, there are many statues in many places from different times. Here's a photo of one such statue by our home.

Have a good'n.

What?!?

I just want to take a moment to recount a story I heard today. I laugh simply because of the comic value of the image provoked in my mind in response to the event. The event itself may have been terrifying and most certainly eventually annoying. My vignette version is as follows:

Carlye, Sarah's sister, was enjoying a touch of spring by choosing to walk to work today. I picture a music montage, you know, waking up, birds chirping, maybe writing in the mirror in the bathroom after a shower, singing into the hair brush perhaps. That's taking it a little far. But with the click of the door latch, the music ceases and Carlye strolls out into her day.

Enjoying the unevenness of the old Winston-Salem sidewalk, she counts her steps between the cracks. Suddenly, her hairs raise on her arms with the uneasiness of being watched by something creepy. Carlye quickens her pace. Over her shoulder, a diminutive form parallels a similar path.

Almost certain of danger now, Carlye breaks into a run. It's at this moment her pursuant makes its move. A neighborhood squirrel leaps through the air and latches on to Carlye's thigh. Panicked and shrieking, she attempted to shake and kick the menace loose.

Unwavering, and with definitive motion, the squirrel sinks his or her teeth into Carlye's leg and bounds off in that bounding squirrel way. She blacks out. and I picture the camera whirling above Carlye's upturned face, descending then into her esophagus. She wakes up, cradled softly above the pavement by a square jawed Swedish medical intern.

That's another story though. And I am obviously no storyteller.

Our hearts go out to you tonight Carlye. We never knew anyone who had to get rabies shots before. xo

mmm... Folgers

Though I can't smell it from my chair inside, I know it's out there. Rank and musty, baked and funky, the scent of America's ubiquitous excuse for coffee fills the streets. Still, there's something pleasant about it. Perhaps it's because I am in the business of coffee that I can tolerate it with subtle curiosity.

Twenty foot containers holding 36000 Lbs of coffee at a time are dumped into a pneumatic tube and pumped six stories up to the top of the building. It would be something to see if you could see it. It is all concealed by steel tubes. The only signs anything is really going on besides normal factory activity are:

1) Semi trailers filled with nitrogen are pumped day and night into a two story tank with a reservoir resembling radiant heat coils. The metal is frosted over and the ice pushes through the holding fence.

2) The second floor has a blur of red from the plastic cans that are churned out of that place and pumped directly to your cupboard.

3) The smell.

Come to KC and find out what I mean: miles of smell.

Fog Monday

Today is one of those foggy days. You know the days when you feel your chest is impacted with cotton balls. You feel good enough, but slow as if you are perpetually waking from a deep sleep.

I am trying to catch up with work today. There are constant meteors flying through the rafters here at work. I dodge some and take a few. Only on my extremities do I feel the burn. My core is cool and calm these days. There's just not enough hours in the day as they say. So it ends up burning a little...

Thanks to the Hills for putting a photo on my flickr page. Darn near made me weep. Them's good people. They are like perpetual springtime. Yep, there's the birds nesting in Gail's hair and TJ is molting and moving towards mating ritual with the rest of the bucks. There is often a distinct scent of methane near the forest of Cash Drive. Experts assume it is associated with decomposing leaves heating with the weather. We know better don't we?

Much love to the Hill people of NC. Here's a photo to brighten the day. It was a moment of spectacular light.

so... Opera

I don't know what a couple of rednecks were doing at the opera. Oh yeah, we got free tickets from the orchestra bass player from down the hall. We enjoyed 2/3 of the show. We had to leave, for our butts were bound tight and numb from the curiously springy theater seats. (Thanks to Jeff for the tickets.)

The opera tonight was 'The Barber of Seville". Sarah and I were both familiar with the name. We were not expecting to recognize the majority of the score. It was the 'Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigarofigadofigdofigadofigadofigadofigadofigado' music from the opera episode from Tom & Jerry. See? Redneck. My reference to 'culture' comes from a cartoon. (yours too, no?)

Anyway, it was a good experience. The woman on my right had her chin on her chest, snoring, and there was a foot tapper behind us tapping 16th notes with the orchestra. It's those certain types of humans that complete every public experience. Whether it be a movie theater, a concert, an airplane flight, or a restroom, there is always a cherry for the top.

Here's to the gum chewers, the mouthful talkers, the chair tappers, the foot waggers, and the hecklers of the world. Here's to my hang ups. Here's to the opera.

update

well, here we still are. Sarah is a bit ill, and has been for some time now. It seems like we've both been a bit rough around our edges since our arrival less than two weeks ago. At least it's only been a couple of weeks.

The weather is improving here. Temperatures have been in the sixties. The smell of acrid roasting coffee from across the street does not change according to air temperature.

The cats are enjoying creative loafing in our place here. They have duct work and partial walls to perch upon. Their only worry is the monster that apparently lives outside our door. Sounds from the hallway instigate the flip and poof response.

Trash on the street in KCMO is interesting. One day, the wind was carrying musical scores from Jewish and catholic compositions. Another day, I found a home gown action photo of a random Kansas City Chiefs tackle.

More trash updates to follow.

Well, here we are then.

Greetings friends, this is the first of many updates coming to you from KCMO. Sarah & I have landed fully and almost have a rhythm to our days. I loosely describe rhythm as a routine involving waking up, drinking coffee, sometimes eating, petting cats, smelling acrid coffee roasting across the street, talking to one another and going to sleep. This is not a bad routine, it is simply life starting to ooze out like the good stuff from a Chewel.