There is a strange lesson happening across from me at the coffee house.

My quiet space has been encroached upon by a 40 something computer nerd’s condescending lesson to his 70+ impatient student. “It’s called wireless. Do you know what that means? Radio waves. You are getting internet through radio.” He overpowers the smooth jazz, offsetting its effect.

Iowa City life has been unsettled lately. It’s almost August which means the end of the academic lease. Piles of cheap Target desks and bent floor lamps mark the lawns of student housing, along with old couches that no longer stand to be passed off anymore. In the daytime dumpsters overflow with opportunistic bums and dumpster-diving Ebay abusers, while at night they are set on fire by drunks and assholes.

Meanwhile, I am still in stubborn denial of my own recent residential shift and spent the last week feeding my summertime jet-setter fantasy in Hilton Head, South Carolina. It is an island for the stereotypical, southern privileged who divide their time between afternoon beachfront dining and late night beachfront drinking. Naturally, my Fairfax County roots fit right in. Mostly, and most surprisingly, I was looking forward to a family reunion of sorts. The first night I had dinner with members of my father’s small town relatives who travel in clumps and all carry the same ambiguous title “cousin” (hold my uncle who subsequently beat feet within hours of my plane landing). The cousins were soon to follow after snubbing an invite for after dinner drinks in my parents’ swank marina-front timeshare. So much for my northern-centric hopes for a week of ethnographic observation. I dressed up in designer jeans and heels for our first and, as it would turn out, last casual crab-house dinner, proving I can be an alienating force when I put my mind to it.

Back in Iowa I am also trying to expand my world understanding. I finally left Vegan Hell and somehow managed to completely miss a total you-can’t-quit-you’re-fired! moment. After a week in Hilton Head I walk reluctantly back wearing my little green bandana, expecting to finish out my last week. “You don’t work here anymore. Remember, our last conversation ended: ‘Whatever, don’t come back at all, it probably won’t even be busy that week!’” So I give her back the bandana.

Currently jobless, in a desperate effort to combat the horribly self-centered feeling I get from living the summer life of a college student (read: timing your own sleep schedule to coincide with the hours of your local bar), I have started volunteering. Working here, like any job where kids are involved (ahem, my preschool teaching days), is like sitting through an endless episode of Kids Say the Darndest Things. Only now much of it is in sign language. I am slowly learning to speak a few words and phrases, but am currently limited to only the most adorable conversations. I can now describe the trot gait as “silly”

or frantically beg for “more horse”

when the lesson ends. It’s endlessly inspiring and clamping kid butts to bouncy saddles is totally getting my arms back in shape.

So I guess the lesson is: Iowa City has a lot of couches for the taking. It’s a bitch to sort through 'em, but eventually I'm bound to find something.

Meanwhile, I’ve got an interview tomorrow for a secretarial position at the local substance abuse (rehab!) clinic.

Air framers around the world utlize high-strength, corrosion resistant aluminum sheet and plate made in the Quad Cities.

So, rather than spending the night in my parents luxurious Hilton Head timeshare with two bedrooms, a full kitchen, and HD TV in every room, I'm sitting all by myself in an aviation themed restaurant at the Moline Airport. My noon flight this morning gave way to mechanical problems, severe delays, and finally a meal and hotel voucher at the neighboring Holiday Inn Express. I will spend the next 24 hours here in lovely Moline doing...


On the silver lining side of life I have never had a better tasting Sam Adams.


EDIT: The second Sam Adams is the most delicious ever.

On an unrelated note, I think there is a bunny living somewhere in my apartment.

I only have one memory of a tornado in my past. I’m not even sure if it’s real or just a dream/film I saw once because so many of the details are vague. I’m young, probably seven, and we are visiting family friends. All the parents are out for the evening and we kids are home with a sitter, but holed up in the basement because there is a tornado somewhere out there. The thing I remember clearly is standing at the sliding door window looking out at the unusually blackened sky. I know that I shouldn’t be, but mostly I am standing there really, really hoping that the tornado will come. I just want to see it.

I’m at the coffee shop today talking online with my sister and listening to music (completely engulfed in my own world) when I notice one of the other hopelessly boring people who spend all day at coffee shops with their computers become suddenly very agitated.

“Is that the tornado sound?” He’s looking out the unusually darkened window talking to nobody in particular.

Does a tornado have a sound? I take my headphones off. I guess it’s pretty rumbly out there.

Nobody around me seems too concerned so I sit tensely and quietly, while looking up local weather on the National Weather Service.

WTF Iowa City?

Finally one of the girls working comes around to each table, “The tornado is in [some part of town I can’t relate to my part of town] and will be here in ten to fifteen minutes.” Note the part where she tells us it will be here, not might or could or it’s a remote possibility. Naturally, I completely believe her.

So we all shuffle to the one nook of the store with no windows and cram ourselves into two couches and a handful of chairs. We spend the next forty-five minutes pretending we aren’t actually sitting that close (hold the guy who knows what tornados sound like who is telling natural disaster stories to God knows who) while the employees take turns checking out the doors in case we need to move even farther back into the windowless yoga studio next door.

Eventually the threat is lifted and, as if on cue, nearly every customer in the store gets up to leave. I do too, though admittedly, much more apprehensively than my colleagues and head for home.

I get home to find the parking lot partially flooded, river rapids, and my kitty sound asleep on the couch. The first thing I do is check the window locks, close the blinds, and scoot the couch just a little closer to the back wall.

40% of scientists believe God will answer their prayers. pg1

I am at work the other day (read: Vegan Hell) staring idly at a table of mothers and daughters dressed in long dresses with flowers and lace (the kind that calls for stockings). Anyway, they get up to leave and one of the women does a slight double-take at me. I smile as she walks over and asks, “Are you a big reader?”

And I say “Yes!” with an even bigger smile because I know I must be looking smart and studious that day.

“Are you in college?”

I am so in college! I did college and now I’m back for more, lady. “I am.”

I am getting strangely excited, because I have been feeling bad about myself working a low-paying, food service job while all my friends are in fabulous internships and begging career track jobs.

“Good.” She reaches into her very professional looking bag/purse, “In that case, I think you will really enjoy this.”

She hands me a magazine printed entirely on newsprint. It’s called “AWAKE!” and the front cover had a fish on it and is asking me “Is there a CREATOR?” It seems to be a Christian propaganda magazine geared towards children/young adults who are questioning, but not too intensely.

“Thanks, I’ll look at it.” I say with every intention until I noticed the September 2006 stamped in the upper corner. Suddenly I am less enthused.

A little while later I was telling the story to a regular. She thought it was pretty funny and really wanted met to “enjoy that.”

I said, “I will, when I read it using my college degree.”

(and I would have if my boss hadn't kept throwing it out, even after I kept fishing it out of the garbage. She's so closed minded)

The proper accessories can draw attention away from your problem area midsection.

There are a few things I really like about this pattern:



Firstly, Post Cereal sponsorship.
Second, the foregrounded woman's Michael Jackson-esque glove style.
And finally, the woman in the background's Elton John inspired glasses.


I need to learn how to sew.

Save me

The best part about that last post is the fact that I'm actually sitting in another coffee shop while writing it.

I can only think of about three people who will find this interesting

I just started working at a vegan restaurant masquerading as a coffee shop (meaning I was profoundly misled when applying). The woman who owns it watched closely as I made one of maybe two actual coffee drinks ordered the whole day. This is how it goes:

Pulling the shot

(I hate using barista terminology btw, but it adds to the story)

I fill the portafilter with fresh espresso grounds and tamp it down.

“Was that 30 lbs of pressure?” She is hovering.

I’m thinking What the hell? “I don’t know. Did it look like 30 lbs?”

“We have a scale for you to practice on over here.” And they actually do.

I stick it in the machine with the unverified tamping pressure, but the soy pitcher is filled with breve so I have to wash it. I leave the shot unpulled. Nobody wants an old, bitter soy latte.

“You can’t leave it like that or the espresso is going to loosen and the shot will be AWEFUL.” I look at the very still-looking machine and she goes ahead and PULLS MY SHOT.

Only half goes into the cup because, well, the cup and I weren’t ready for the shot yet.

“You need to put the cup all the way under or you lose some espresso.” No shit.

“Oh! This is DISGUSTING!” She is smelling the cup and gagging. After she pours the whole thing out and GETS AN ENTIRELY NEW CUP, she decides it would be best just to do it herself. She does and I steam the soy while thinking mean things about her and her stupid green bandanna (of which I have one too).

After, she smells her own shot and tells me how much better it is.

Steaming the milk

I pour my perfectly steamed soy and she marvels at the foam. Damn right.

ANYWAY, the point of this story includes these later comments during a conversation with a customer:

Comments

She refuses to order a coffee without sampling it first.

She will not drink any coffee from a pot.

She once GAGGED when trying coffee from a pot and couldn’t believe the customer behind her still ordered.

She has a friend who considers himself a ‘coffee-coinsure,’ yet still drinks coffee from gas stations!

She thinks iced coffee is gross.

Concluding

Dear Canyon,

I miss you and all of your unpretentiousness.

Dear Iowa City,

This

is unnecessary.

Sometimes I like this place

I just saw a HOUSE propped up on giant wheels and PARKED ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD next to ANOTHER house on wheels.

Both had 'for sale' signs in the windows.

Old Navy makes a killing in Iowa City

Back when Amy and I were too young to celebrate our independence in Washington DC my mother used to drive us to her dad’s house in Warsaw, New York.

Warsaw in all her glory:


Warsaw would host an annual Fourth of July parade and carnival. The carnival (as I remember it) consisted entirely of mud and cotton candy. And a pony ride. And I loved it.

This was the first Fourth since the Warsaw days that I haven’t celebrated at home in Virginia or sitting across the river from the National Mall. Instead I took my visiting mom and dad across the Iowa River to Coralville, the closest thing to Iowa City with a mall and home to the Coralville Fourth of July Fair and Fireworks display.

At the fairgrounds Miss Iowa was sitting at a little wooded table at the end of a line of about thirty little girls twirling batons and clamoring for autographs. Some of them matched in black and white leotards, there was one Pocahontas, countless cowgirls, and just enough red white and blue fringe to keep the whole place celebrating. Beyond that there were only about ten food vendors and as many b-list carnival rides (read: no farris wheel OR carousel). The only truly inspiring ride was a kiddy coaster titled Desert Storm. I got to watch a tiny little girl ride around in a bumpy circle, a gun in each hand and a tank underneath her, squealing between her redwhiteandblue streamered pigtails.

It was like this:
!!!!!

That night we decided to simply open the curtains and watch the Iowa City fireworks display at a sharp angle out my parents hotel window.