Ch- ch- ch- ch- ch- ch- ...

... ch- ch- ch- CHAIN-jez, turn your face astray, ch- ch- Changes!

Thanks David Bowie for giving me a way to introduce a new post ...

My oh my, but have I had my share of c h a n g e s to The Plan in the past weeks and months. So far I've been rolling with them pretty well, I think. [It's all good, as Hadleigh used to constantly remind me.]

When Crystal and I arrived to help out with the running of The Bean Cycle, the plan had been for us to spend four days, then return to Evergreen and the Denver area until starting our road-trip east: Crystal to Chicago where she was going to connect with an old friend from her days in Alaska, and me from there on to Columbia, MD where I am planning on spending a few days around Christmas with family.

But Crystal got a news of a death in the family of her Chicago friend, and decided to leave in time for the funeral to take place the following Monday. I had really enjoyed hanging out in Ft. Collins and it was pretty clear that Crytsal's nieces Leslie and Penn' could use some help, so I decided to stick around! So I've been a part-time resident in Ft. Collins this past week, with about 6 more days to go. [Her nephew Chaz, the 4th business partner, is usually around, but is taking a little time off to chill in Seattle, and is due back this Thursday.]

It's been great to re-connect with The Young Brandts, (TYBs for short). I met 'em all when I first visited Crystal after I got out of the Peace Corps back in 1986. And Penny went with Crystal and MY niece and nephew on a 10-day jaunt from Amsterdam across Germany and up to Sweden about 8 or 9 years ago. It's been fun to re-connect with them, and of course completely mind-boggling to meet their adult selves for the first time.

Crystal came in to the office one day last week and said 'hey Chaz just came in' so I went out to say hello. I was of course still looking for that scrawny little kid whose fuzzy photo had been stashed away so long in my memory banks, and it was pretty funny when, after scanning the whole coffee house, I realized that the big tall dude standing in front of me was him! [he for you purists]. Crystal laughed and said, "Didn't the red hair give him away?!" Well I suppose, but he's been working out too, and is just a little bit .. well, bigger and taller than I remembered!

The coffee house is great! It's in a huge old building in the old part of town: high decorative ceilings, recently re-exposed wood floors, huge plate-glass windows up front, etc. They've been open about 5 months now, and good word-of-mouth advertising has kept them pretty busy.

At first all I did was to kind of just observe how things looked, and how business was done. The next day I started typing up a list of suggestions which before I knew it had turned into a 3-page document which I called Queer Eye for the Coffee Buy. [Cute huh.] Not knowing jack about how to run a business, I tried to focus on the design element and other little things that they had undoubtedly thought of but perhaps had not had the time to implement.

I got to decorate the Christmas tree which was fun. They had chopped down and brought in a huge blue spruce tree -- I'm guessing about 12' [3.6m] tall -- so I needed a step-ladder to reach the top parts. Two strings of 100 red lights, 3 boxes of different sized blue ornaments, and red and green candy canes were all it took to spruce up the place [pun so definitely intended] and give it a really nice holiday atmosphere.

I also got to put my creative energies to good use in re-doing the sign on which they list their whole bean coffee prices: a 4'x8' blackboard listing not only the 20 different kinds of beans they sell, but information on body [light to medium to full]; flavor characteristics; and of course prices for half- and one-pound bags. I used about 6 different colors of neon-chalk, which was fun. The whole thing from planning and info-gathering to prepping the board and lettering took about 8 hours.

I've also harnessed my artistic talents to re-do the sandwich board which they prop up on the sidewalk outside the shop, and to make little signs [I chose Showcard Gothic font in 18- and 24-point]: some for the sides of the coffee-pots telling what's inside, some to inform customers what kinds of baked goods are on sale. It is SUCH a cool place, and I've really enjoyed being a part of helping it grow, even for a short time.

All of their coffee is organic fair-trade. And not only that, they are one of only 2 coffee houses in town that roasts their own coffee. Leslie is the certified Roast Master Queen [I've learned that the correct technical term for this is barista] and about 3 or 4 times a week she will heat up this huge coffee roasting machine that sits proudly at the front of the shop and roast up kilo after kilo of Organic Fair-Trade coffee. I'm so proud to be a part of the operation for a while.

Hey it's just gone ten minutes past ten [almost closing time] and I've still got a few more things to do to help with getting ready to head on out of here. Check back tomorrow for the conclusion of the news of the past week .. got some more good stuff to share with ya! For now I'll just say one thing: yo GA, yo GA, yo GA, yo GA!

;o)

And I'm back! It's gone Thursday, and I've got to wrap up this week's post. I wanted to add that I've gotten back to my yoga practice in a style I've never tried before, called Bikram Yoga, named after the guy who developed this type. It takes place in a room pre-set to a temperature of 105 F [41 C] and like 80% humidity, so that you're already beginning to sweat even as you lie down on your towel-covered mat. Sessions last 90 minutes, and I've really enjoyed feeling so much more connected to my own body: "joy on the cellular level" is how I like to refer to it. I did my 3rd class in 3 days last night.

This Bikram yoga is apparently a chain that has spread around the world. The one in Ft. Collins has a deal where for $20 you can go to as many classes as you want. So after I noticed this one as I was walking from the coffee house back to Penn's place, I thought I'd check it out. And on Monday I went and paid my money. [It was a nice coincidence -- or the natural expression of the abundance of the universe that I had manifested for myself, but coincidence is so much more convenient, don't you think? -- that Leslie had given me $20 Sunday evening for having finished my artwork on the whole-bean coffee-price blackboard, after I had already made the decision to sign up.]

So between yoga and helping out around the coffee house, I've kept myself pretty busy. Today instead of going to yoga at 5 as has been my practice, I'm going to go at noon so that I can attend one of the 6:30-on-Thursdays classes at a local Buddhist Center. They started what they're calling Buddhism 101 back in August, and tonight's class is their last until after the holidays, title: Learning to Love Purely, described as 'the source of happy and healthy relationships.' Who couldn't use a little bit of that?

So to polish off this week's blog, then off to 12:00 yoga, then back here for some more online time in the coffee house office, hopefully to identify someone who will be driving back east for the holidays and who wants to share a ride. The office is usually pretty free since the girls are so busy running the business! Yesterday was one of their best business days yet, and Penn and Leslie are amazing the way they run the counter while roasting beans, busing tables and washing dishes, all at the same time, not to mention all of the behind-the-scenes stuff that has to happen to keep the whole thing going! But Chaz is due to return today from Seattle, which will take some of the pressure off.

Although there's lots more I could write about the week's events [including a really positive first meeting with a 'life coach', and the beginnings of the idea that I might return to Ft. Collins to settle after the holidays!], I really need to stop here and devote attention to other goals.