Ketchup

The abbreviated version with the usual apologies:

• Nick, Larissa and my Dad are in town!
• Bowling with jb, Nick and Larissa at Arsenal Lanes.
  
• Went to see The Dark Knight with Nick and Larissa.
• Kalina got me hooked on vampire novels written for teenage girls. I read about 2,000 pages in a week - and am eagerly awaiting the next one. The good news is that Larissa is reading them now, too!
  
• DC trip rounded out nicely with getting a lot done at work and seeing lots of friends. Tsoghig (and her adorable new baby), Nancy B, and even Val and Dezzie.
• Then I was in Oakland for a week for the CA Labor Fed. and the resolution I wrote re: prop 8 passed unanimously!
• The kittens all reached 3 lbs. (perhaps with the help of a couple extra servings of wet food) and are currently available for adoption at the humane society.

And the most exciting news of all:

• We shortened the cafe hours! I know this isn't good news for everybody (sorry!) - but I'm simply over the moon about it. Since we opened 8 months ago we've been open 99 hours a week and jb has worked just about every one of those hours. We want the cafe to succeed and thrive - but we also don't want it to be the only thing in our lives. Now we are going to be open 60 hours a week (7 am - 5 pm Tuesday - Sunday) and we will be closed on Mondays - a whole day...every week!
  
  jb of course assured me that she could work 99 hrs/week indefinitely, but I have a preference that she not keel over at 30, so I lobbied hard for a more moderate approach. We do hope to one day expand our hours again - but in the interim, I think this will be good for us. It not only frees up personal time, but also time to do cafe related things that kept being put off because of the demands during business hours. We also plan to open in the evening should anyone want to hold a meeting or event - it's all still pretty flexible. I do hope no one is too put out by this change and our customers will continue to support us!
  

Herding Kittens

Well, my new battery charger arrived in the mail, and not two hours later, I found the missing one. Ahhhh life.

I tried to get some shots of the foster kittens, but it was like, well, herding kittens. Here are the best shots I could wrangle.





















Rufus - Grey poofy one. Grumpy and greedy. He has so much fur he can't seem to walk right and wobbles around being crotchety.

Mabel - The tabby. She's sweet and pretty, but fairly nondescript. Likes to cuddle, but at all the wrong times, like when you are asleep.

Felix - The black and white one. Also pretty run of the mill, but is the most adventurous. He was the first one to figure out how to jump the gate and find his way to the bedroom.

Reese - One of the siamese twins - the one with the white patch on his nose. He is just sooooooo loving and sweet. Loves to perch on shoulders and purr in ears.

Mona - The other siamese twin. She's shy, but is the most vocal. A few times I've been convinced that a cat was dying a horrible death only to find her sitting in a corner and meowing her heart out.

All soon to be up for adoption at the Humane Society...

Right now I'm in my bed watching the pnc park fireworks through my bedroom window waiting for jb to come up from the cafe. It's been a long tough week.

heatwave

It's hot. hot. hot. hot. Too hot to eat, too hot to work, too hot to move. Talula is a panting drama queen and the kittens barely budge between noon and 6 pm. During the hottest part of the day I throw Talula in the shower for a cold water regaderaso since pugs are prone to overheating and I'm a nervous nellie. Aside from that, there's not too much action around here.

This morning jb and I went to check out the new bakery Hoi Polloi will be using (Allegra Hearth in Squirrel Hill) since we dumped our old bakery. The bakery we were using is all the way in Robinson and they wouldn't deliver to us because there were no other locations near us carrying their product (or so they said) so we'd go out there to pick up the bread a few times a week (read: pain in the arse). Well, just recently, Beleza began carrying their bagels, so that would mean there would be two Northside businesses using their product, so we were excited to finally get delivery. Well, it turns out that they weren't being entirely truthful about why they wouldn't deliver to us, and now are refusing to deliver to the Northside because it's "too dangerous" for their driver. The owner went on and on about it. Between insulting our neighborhood and the overall pain they've been to work with, jb sent them packing, so now we are in the process of switching bakeries. On the bright side, Allegra has a great product, is closer, and will deliver.

After checking out the bakery jb and I went to grab some breakfast together, which we hardly ever get to do. We are also in the early stages of our latest collaboration, so we have plenty to giggle and whisper about. It was a lovely morning. Then we returned home to our hot house.

Tomorrow we have dinner with friends of ours from DC who coincidentally also moved to Pittsburgh (cause all the cool kids are doing it). I'm excited to see them and catch up. We used to work together in what seems like a different lifetime. Back when I was was an intern by day and a waitress by night and could hold my liquor like a champ while rocking the karaoke scene until the wee hours only to be at work at nine am. Ha! Gosh I wouldn't even recognize myself.

worth 1,000 words

• I've been avoiding posting since my camera battery has died and the battery charger is nowhere to be found.

• We're fostering another litter of kittens - five this time. They are such a pain in the neck - good thing they are freaking adorable. There are two siamese (twins - ha), a black and white one, a medium haired tabby, and a ridiculously fluffy grey one. You'll just have to take my word on how cute they are until my replacement battery charger arrives.

• I'm really enjoying my break from work travel. I'm home until July (and even them I'm only going to DC).

• We got a couch. We'd been without anywhere to sit in our home for some time. It was ridiculous. Seriously. Nothing. A bed and a plastic chair and that's it. We thought we'd wait until renovations were done before we got a couch - but since that seems like it won't be until we are in our mid-sixties, we figured we'd go ahead. People who haven't lived without a couch won't understand the new found appreciation jb and I now have for the simple act of sitting on the couch. It's divine.
  

• I cancelled our cable. And I gave away the tv we had in our bedroom. So now there is only one tv in our home that only gets two fuzzy channels. I always say I wish I watched less tv - but I'm not sure I'm actually watching less tv now, but I am squinting a lot more.

• Summer is heating up - and we are sweating our dupas off. We've been getting quotes on installing central air - they are all astronomical. I guess we're stuck with our window unit and fans.

Rundown

• My dad is in from Mexico and he finally got to see the shop. We've had a chance to catch up and spend some quality time together. On Saturday we had an incredible dinner at Muriel's.
• I made brownies from scratch for the first time. I used a recipe from the Martha Stewart Baking book I got for Christmas - but I substituted whole wheat flour. They turned out awesome (if I may say so myself!).
• Angie reached the minimum weight for adoption and went back to the Humane Society and now our home is officially kitten-less. My plants are very happy about this. I'm a little sad.
• Hoi Polloi started getting it's winter box from Kretschmann Farms!!! Our specials feature the organic, locally grown, seasonal goodness.
• We got new furniture for our bedroom. It feels so grown up to have nightstands that match the dressers. It's still just Ikea, but it's the nicest bedroom set I've ever had. I'll post pictures once the transition is complete.
• We had a milestone at Hoi Polloi on Saturday with our biggest sales day to date! Thanks so much to everyone who's come in!
• jb and I went to see Juno. So sweet.
  

And then there was one

I have good news and I have bad news. Which do you want first? The bad news? Ok - the bad news is that we are down to only one kitten. On the bright side, the good news is that we are down to only one kitten.

Two of the kittens and the mom are ready for adoption and they stayed at the humane society after our last vet appointment. I was really sad to see them go, but our home could certainly use the break. When they first arrived they were so small - they would wobble around for a little while and then nap for hours. Well, a couple of weeks ago they hit their troublemaker age and it just seemed like there were kittens EVERYWHERE! On my pant leg, in the curtains, balancing on the edge of the turtle tank, under my feet... When we tried to go to sleep we would hear them bounding from one end of the house to the other. And my plants - oh my poor plants. Apparently kittens have a deep rooted hate for all plants. They chew them, scratch them, climb them, dig them up, pee in the big ones, and knock over the little ones. They were driving me insane - luckily they were also adorable. I hope they all find good homes with lots of cuddling.

I finally managed to set up my "vanity" in my bedroom. On my side of the bed is the window wall of our bedroom - which we've dressed with lovely sheer curtains. To the left of the windows I put up a mirror that I painted to match our accent wall and a glass shelf. The shelf hold all my "lady" products and earrings and the mirror has hooks where I hung my necklaces. The mirror was put up with mighty putty (it finally came!) and the shelf is held up with gorilla glue (I tried the mighty putty, but it just ended up pulling the plaster our of the wall. To the left of my new beautifying area I hung the piece I painted on one of the wooden shelves of our old closet. Now I just need to organize the rest of our bedroom.

Thankful

Well, we did manage to pull off Thanksgiving, if just barely. Usually my family goes to my Aunt and Uncle's home in Cincinnati for Thanksgiving, which is a blast and a half, but this year between half of us being in Mexico, my mom and Stephanie working, and jb and I being so busy with opening the cafe, we weren't able to get away. Steph worked 12 hour days the day before and the day after Thanksgiving. My mom is a flight attendant and didn't come back into town until Thanksgiving day at 5 pm. Jb and I didn't even realize Thanksgiving was sneaking up on us until Sunday. So it was looking like we might have to cancel Thanksgiving dinner altogether, but at the last minute jb managed to find the last hormone-free, grass-fed turkey in the tri-state and whipped up a spur of the moment feast.

Stephanie, jb, and I headed over the Burgan house in the morning and everyone pitched in to throw together stuffing, apple crisp, mashed potatoes, chocolate pecan pie, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and all the fixins. It turned out really nice, you'd have never known we threw it all together that day (gives me a lot of hope for the cafe). My mom got home around six and we had a great dinner. The one drawback is that my grandma and other family in the area couldn't join us (apparently my Aunt planned her own dinner that we weren't invited to- ouch). We had a lot of fun, ate tons, played Apples to Apples, and it was great to be frantically working on something aside from the cafe.

As soon as the we slept off the meal, we were back to work with the help of the Burgan clan. After all our worrying about should we or shouldn't we get professional painters - they never showed up. Story of our freakin lives. So we took advantage of the small army that is jb's family and got a solid first coat up. We also managed to get the rest of the furniture for the dining area. We've had to piece things together from thrift stores and sales, but hopefully it will look cozy and eclectic rather than a bunch of cheap garbage thrown together.

I've refrained from blogging about the kittens lately, to avoid the "crazy cat lady" label, but this picture was just too cute not to share. They are more than TWICE the size they were when we got them. We will most likely only have them for another week or so. If anyone is thinking about adopting, these are just the best kittens (and they are great with dogs!).

Good Things about this week:

• We bought a gallon of organic milk at the co-op on Tuesday that was past its sell-by date for $0.99 - and it's still good! Seriously - I just had a glass.
• We are officially an LLC and have an EIN. We are so incorporated - and we close on the loan next week!
• The kittens have done the impossible and gotten even cuter. This week they got super active and curious.
• I'm currently sitting in bed eating nutella and graham crackers
  

Bad Things about this week:

• We were supposed to start demo on the wall where we want to put the counter in the cafe, but we have not had any luck getting any of several contractors to show.

• I started to cover the windows (so that we can keep our renovation growing pains under wraps) with these awesome "Imagine Peace" posters that we got at the Hirshhorn. We grabbed a stack the last time we were there before we moved and I thought we'd have plenty to cover the three windows, but we barely had enough for one. I guess the other two need a plan B.
  

• I'm currently watching Herbie Fully Loaded.
  

What's new pussycat?

Today is jb's first day without smoking. She's being a real trooper and I'm so proud. Today was also my first day back at work after a week off for some minor surgery. I'm feeling alright, just rather...delicate. While I'm not always as energetic as I'd like to be, I'm used to being pretty hardy and strong. Lately I've been so easily fatigued and frankly it's getting irritating. On the bright side, jb and I are fostering a litter of kittens who cannot seem to get enough cuddling. We are fostering a mama cat and her three kittens through the Humane Society down the street. They are absolutely adorable and there has been unbearable puppy-kitten cuteness, but it seems to be impossible to catch on film.

I made the mistake of taking my attention away from the little black and white one for a moment in order to read a bit of the book for our upcoming book club and she showed me. She climbed from my shoulder, down my arm, up the book and balanced on the corner meowing until I gave in and continued to pet her. The beauty behind fostering is that you get the best of both worlds - enjoy cute kitten-ness and then when the novelty wears off, return them to the shelter to find new homes. Unfortunately, the catch is that it's nearly impossible not to fall in love so when the they are big enough to be adopted, I have a feeling we may be a kitten or two richer around here.

In other news, our Halloween party is fast approaching and jb and I have been running around putting finishing touches on our top secret costumes. jb's is coming along nicely after some snipping, sewing, and gluing - mine was doing well until there was a wig crisis.