Talk about experience...

This week at Old Skool I:

• Worked with Tammy, the head of Old Skool University, to write a curriculum plan for their new class of students.
• Wrote an outline for their new apprenticeship program.
• Created a training plan to equip youth trainers with teaching skills and tools.
• Helped create a new wine list.
• Got to play the role of server, host, busser, bartender, dishwasher, prep cook, and manager.
• Had to tell myself to slow down, as my tendency to constantly edit everything I touch was verging on obsession, my idea-generating mechanism was overheating, and my workaholic meter was climbing.

Remember, Teresa, you're still learning.

A Life of Various Blessings

The other day I sneezed on the bus and was blessed by the man beside me. Thank you, sir, for halting my downward spiraling opinion of this vehicle.

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Old Skool's host is a 6 foot-something youth who goes by the nickname "Bird Man". Thus, we have formed the unstoppable "Team Bird!", complete with handshake. I look out for him when he needs a hand with guests, to take a break, or vent to someone; he looks out for me when I don't yet know protocol, when I have to transport heavy loads, when I'm tired and he orders me to sit down, when it's late at night and he offers a gentlemanly arm, walks me to the bus stop and waits til I get on... I think I get the better end of the deal.

A sobering beginning and end to each day.

I have come to refer to my closest friend (we spend two hours together each day), the city bus, as the Great Equalizer. Side by side sit well-dressed businessmen, students, homeless folk, and addicts of all kinds. Vastly different yet all dependent on this box-shaped vessel to transport them to their destination. As a rule, people on public transit mind their own business. I was hoping the bus could provide me with a platform for that much lacking human connection in my life, but if you look at someone too long or attempt to hold a conversation, the response you get is generally the rabbit-like fear of frozen expression and averted eyes, making it clear that you are scaring them; only crazies try to talk on the bus. So people are generally quiet, but when you get a "raver", as I've begun to call them, the bus develops an erie ultra-silence, as people try too hard to disappear into themselves so as not to become a target for the presiding "lunatic". The bus is a world of its own: all these people thrown together and unable to escape until the bus-world collides with their respective portals to the outside world -- which seems safer and more sane only because all the "crazy" (or, more often, just different) people are farther spread apart. It's easier to ignore the things you don't want to see when they're not sitting next to you; when people's chaotic or broken lives can be kept on the other side of the sidewalk or the other side of the city instead of jammed into the neighboring seat. Things are always clearer closer up, and this miniature world inevitably becomes a magnifying glass into the human existence. Perhaps I should instead call my friend the Great Microscope.

It is no wonder that the bus often leaves me feeling melancholy and slightly disoriented. I have not yet decided the best practice for surviving this situation. Shall I continue to ride, observe, and be melancholy? Retreat into my book or my own little world, and numb myself to the experience? Avoid the bus altogether? That would be quite the walk.

Check Mark: Week 1

Living in a new city is a surreal experience. It is simultaneously home and totally unfamiliar...

Working at Old Skool has followed suit. It feels very normal to go in, participate in meetings and discussions around the organization, work in the restaurant and joke around with the employees....
yet at the same time everything is new and I am constantly learning.

On my first day I overheard a conversation taking place in the kitchen.
Student of their training program, talking to one of the already graduated employees: "So, is this a church?"
Employee: "No, I mean, it's not like a religion or anything... It's more like a family."

It's true, Old Skool feels like a family, and the youth have openly and quickly welcomed me into it.

So has Steve, the restaurant's Director of Operations, who reminds me of my good friend Guy Western. It is a great feeling when you know you don't have to try to prove yourself to someone, but you are seen for who you are and automatically valued for what you can offer. Thank you Steve! It is because of you that I am in a perfect position to learn everything I need to know to run a restaurant well.

Greatest accomplishment so far: Last night I earned the entire staff's respect by taking on the cooks' challenge to eat a full rack of ribs. I felt a little guilty for not sharing, but my competitive streak came out, and heck yes I can eat a full rack of tasty barbecued ribs!

San Francisco

Get ready - the real adventure has begun (please click on that link....sorry, couldn't help it).

1940s supper club? Live entertainment? International Soul Food? Run by at-risk youth?
Yes, these all exist in one place.

Welcome to Old Skool Cafe! Watch this short video and be amazed (but first you might want to click on that there link and check out Old Skool's awesome website while waiting for previously clicked on pump-up song to be over).

Talk about outside the box -- this place is it. I am excited to say that starting tomorrow I will be working here as a full time volunteer for at least the next 2 months. I suppose that's a bit outside the box as well. 

My (awesome, crazy, enthusiastic, resourceful) friend Michelle Turner suggested I do another outside the box thing -- give people the opportunity to pay for my salary, since Old Skool Cafe cannot. I hadn't even considered it, had no idea if I wanted to do it or how to do it.... so she patiently walked me through setting up a site on Razoo. Check it out - this will link to my page, but there are so many neat things on this site you could support!

There will be much more to come about Old Skool Cafe in the weeks ahead... get ready.

A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them.

Have you ever had a big exciting event planned for the evening of a very busy day? You run around all morning, all afternoon, you're exhausted, and you have just enough time for a sufficient cat nap to boost your energy. You dream about strange adventures for just long enough to feel fully refreshed, and wake up just in time for the real event of the day.

That is how I feel about finally arriving at my destination.

Everything is beautiful in its time, including a spontaneous cross country road trip -- and the end of the road trip. There is something so fulfilling and invigorating about knowing your traveling has, for a time, come to an end.... and now you are really about to start living.

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

I have a dream.

Recently it has taken the shape of a bakery, restaurant, or cafe that exists beneath the home of the young women who run it. Why? Adventure, business training, full-life mentoring, a self-sustaining and self-replicating venture.... the pursuit of this idea is why I'm going to San Francisco.

It's true that my dream has taken many turns, from this big picture (aka by some as Mama T's Cafe), to just a home (for children, young women, or lost and lonely people), to a school (for kids who can't read good, per Derek Zoolander), to a farm school.... In the spirit of allowing my vision to mold as I go, I think it is good that I have an eclectic one.

What do I really see in my mind's eye?
A big, old, wise house whose entire yard is growing vegetables, herbs, and tall, wild-looking flowers, topped by trellises and arches sporting vines of peas, string beans, and morning glories. If you walk up the little stone path to the front door you will enter into a lively and colorful room wafting cajun spices, coffee, and laughter. Is it a restaurant? Maybe. But maybe it's just for the people who live there, or who come in. Maybe we'll sell our baked goods, or handmade crafts. We will definitely have music concerts and plays.

I think this is what I want most.