Not to go all product placement, but I think I mentioned the Starbucks I was in last week, didn’t I? All the outside doors made it look like a bank, although I knew there was a Starbucks nearby, since there was a rooftop sign. I opened the door, thinking the bank might know where the coffee was, and this is what I found. The Wells Fargo part is off to the right, a full-sized bank. The coffee area is on the left, also larger than most. Incredibly weird. Someday I’ll be able to pick up my dry-cleaning at the vet’s office and buy an ice cream sundae at the steak/Chinese/Ethiopian restaurant on the corner.
I am, I admit, able to do way more than I’d ever have thought, right here, right now. I’m sitting at a small round table in a nice little coffee shop close to my new work. I’m online (seamlessly – god, I love my new Mac), and if I wanted to , I could download a new CD’s worth of music, or I could pay any bill that I wanted to (I do all my banking online). I’ve got my iShuffle’s earbuds stuck into the computer on one end, the other ends in my ears, playing an iTune party shuffle so that I don’t have to listen to the nineteen year old at the end of the place blather on about what a brilliant lawyer she’s going to be. My cell phone is to one side, and my knitting is next to me.
See, this is going to be my new routine. For the next few months of training, I’ll be working 6pm-6am, and my new job is on the worst commute corridor in the Bay Area. Normally a thirty minute drive from my house, if I left at 5pm, it would take an hour and a half to get here. You do the math. So I’ve figured it out. I leave at 4pm, make it in the getting-heavy traffic in about forty-five minutes, and then I sit here at the coffee shop (locally owned, thank you) and do what I’d be doing at home, if I had the extra time: drinking coffee, and writing. And all the while I’m only ten minutes on surface streets from the job. Hooray for computer time!
It feels really good to be back on midnights, also. Last night was my first "real" shift, with the trainer I’ll be with for a while, and I was on the radio all night, really dispatching. I hadn’t realized how strange it had felt to be doing a month of theoretical training with no application until I started talking on the radio last night, sending rigs to where they needed to go (badly – the identifiers and new streets are so foreign to me). But I was working! Felt good.
Man, this is a hip place to hang out, if you’re cool and seventeen. I’m neither. Huh. No wonder they’re staring. Or maybe it’s because I’m not wearing a costume, and they all are. Oh, Halloween. (I dressed all in orange to go my sister’s party on the weekend, and when Lala came over I said, "I’m the Great Pumpkin!" She said, "You look great, pumpkin.")
Awwww….
They’re probably thinking, “Is that THE Rachael? The one who ran the marathon? The one with the hot girlfriend? The awesome knitter? THE RACHAEL, here?”
Or, maybe you are stickin’ out like a sore thumb, I dunno.
I’ve totally been to that Starbucks and thought the exact same thing! It’s over on Van Ness and Pine or somewhere around there, right? I went to a newspaper convention in the hotel next door a few months ago and spent my whole lunch break in there because I was so fascinated.
Weird.
Aww, that was sweet what Lala said. To let you know, your package was mailed today. You should receive it Thursday or Friday of this week.
That La is too sweet. I’m glad you found a cool place to hang out before work — that was a very smart idea of yours. You’re a great-looking pumpkin, and a smart cookie!
awww is my response too
That Lala! You gotta love her!
Lala, what a sweetie! And you are *so* hip enough to hang out there.
Glad your new job is going well!!
Way to thwart traffic and get some relaxation time in as well! Glad being back to work feels good.
I have so much respect for what you do in your job! I have a great friend who is a dispatcher in Oregon. I have sat with her two times as an observer. Talk about multitasking! I don’t know how you guys can keep it all straight. I got to sit at both the police and fire radios and my head almost exploded after an hour of listening and trying to keep up with everything she was saying and typing. It is such a tough and important job. Thank you for helping save lives.
That sounds like the perfect way to start the work day (night). I usually use my 2-hr train commute to knit and read. But it’s not nearly as comfortable as being able to spread out at a Starbucks/bank. And there’s no wireless. 😛 Lala is so sweet!
You LOOK 17, and if you’re not cool, what does that make the rest of us?
They’re just starstruck. Stupid kids. You are the very coolest in all the land.
I love your new routine.
(procrastination…yes, I should be writing) MWAH!
That place looks awesome! The coffee/bank thing reminds me of a club in Cincinnati I went to a few times–damn, can’t remember the name. But it was a bar/music venue AND a laundromat. If you brought in a load of laundry, you got some money knocked off your cover. Not that I’d recommend doing your laundry there…but…dang, what was the name of that place?! That’s going to bug me for the rest of the day.
That place in Cinci sounds a lot like Bar of Soap in The Deep Ellum District of Dallas.
http://dallas.citysearch.com/review/9612066/1147092/
Daaaaaaaw! Nothing quite like being admired and loved by the one you love. That was so sweet. That totally lifted me out of the post-Halloween slump.
Geez, and I thought it was weird that XM radio got together with Starbucks to broadcast the channel, HEAR Music,”The Voice of Music at Starbucks”, so you can have a potentially seamless life, listening to it in your home, in your car, at work, and in line waiting for your coffee, and now, while your doing your banking. At the drive-thru ones, you can listen in stereo…in your car and through the drive up window.
That’s one sweet girl you’ve got.
aw, that was so sweet of lala. 🙂