Well, it has been a week. That said, my car is finally running again, but my technical curse continues to haunt my computer, this time in the form of non-functioning keys, or rather, keys that function only when the stars are aligned. Air dusters and percussive maintenance have so far failed to resolve it and I'm looking at a new laptop pretty damned soon. That said, I'm upright and facing forward, and my tech is mostly working, so I have to be grateful for that.
As a small aside, I noticed that I'm writing more daylogs these days, partly just to get out some stuff that I can't think up good titles for, and partly because I want to hit 104 writeups in a year. Silly me, but it's sort of important to me. In any case, a couple of things happened recently that I wanted to share, so please bear with me for a moment.
A Judgement of Kindness
I was recently taken with a desire for a junkfood lunch, and hied to the nearest hamburger place, a mom and pop hole-in-the-wall that I knew served a decent sandwich. I ordered and paid and was about to sit down and wait when my sleeve was tugged.
I turned to face the sleeve-tugger. "Are you English?", from a smiling woman about my age. I replied "Yes" and she asked if I wanted something to drink. I'd been considering a Dr Pepper or a good root beer, so I answered her. "I was just thinking about one, yes!"
She told me she would buy me one, and proceeded to explain why. It turns out that some years ago she'd been visiting a friend in Grimsby, a place in Lincolnshire with a probably-undeserved reputation for dullness. After they'd met up, they decided to go for fish-and-chips (and Grimsby being a fishing port, has excellent and fresh fish!) They found a local chippy, and argued (as is tradition) about who would pay. My new-found American friend said she'd pay, and wrestled her wallet looking for local currency. While she was trying to find her pounds, the lady behind her in the queue went to the counter and paid for the two fish suppers they'd ordered, presumably out of a sense of hospitality (although we can't rule out impatience, though I'm going with generosity and kindness). The lady (whose name I have forgotten, though it's a J-name, possibly June) was duly impressed by the gesture, and on hearing my accent, wanted to pay the kindness on to me. So she told me the story, I drank my pop and we said our farewells. I was touched by her thoughtfulness, and moved by her story., because I'm a big softy.
The Curse of the "cute barista"
I have recently found a new café (my previous favourite having closed to to barbarous mismanagement) and was delighted to see that one of the baristas from the previous place was now working there. Now I don't know if you've noticed, but even in a moderately busy café, baristas work their butts off. Prep the shot, pull it, foam the milk and add the whatever-Starbucks-additions the customer demands ,carefully pour the art and politely hand the drink to the customer, clean up and rinse-repeat. Next time you get an espresso drink, watch their process, the intricate dance of extraction and creation. This gal knew her business well, pulls one of the best shots I know locally and is charming and polite to boot. She also suffers the "curse of the cute barista", which I will now explain.
I went down this morning to meet with a friend for coffee and commiseration and some techy talk, which attracted another chap who'd overheard our conversation and joined in on the Linux stuff, just about the time when my cappuccino was ready and my name was called. As I started to sip at it, our new companion made the comment "Ah, you got the cute barista!" I responded that she was far more than a pretty face, that she was in the final throes of getting a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and was both smart and funny. I think I also said something along the lines of "Her name's Sarah", because goshdarnit we're inclined as a society to render those serving us as little more than mechanicals, service robots whose sole purpose is to satisfy our consuming needs and be easy on the eye. And Sarah is a gem. We've talked for hours about the history and future of computing, she writes elegant Python code that always works, is a Bash guru and has helped me set up both my NAS and a Nextcloud server in addition to brightening my life with tales from her courses. In addition, she volunteers to support a local high school robotics team. But all this guy could see was a dark ponytail, a smile and a sundress. Sarah texted me later, amused that I had risen to her defence (not that she needs it, she is a tough gal who also studied ballet when younger, and any ballerina is only a tutu away from being a martial artist. Same core strength, high kicks and stamina. Green Beret vs. Ballerina, I'd put at least a little money on the latter.
The moral of the story, were it needed, is to respect your barista, they understand coffee and work hard to serve dozens (even hundreds!) of drinks an hour, carefully and artistically done and usually with genuine cheer. They, like many in food and retail service, are under-appreciated by most. Change that—be kind and genuinely grateful to them and FFS, tip them when you can.
In conclusion
Happy Fourth of July, USians, Happy Week everyone else. Stay sane, stay healthy, stay happy and stay kind. I love you all.