Rowland Coffee Roasters is Dead, Long Live J.M. Smucker Co.

Despite what you may have read in the Miami Herald, I've been drinking Cuban espresso since 1991, not 1997.  It was too complicated to go into.  My ex-wife worked at an office in Miami with a group of viejitas who refused to leave their desks but who insisted she make their cafecito each morning and afternoon.  She brought the stovetop coffee maker to Syracuse with her, along with bricks of Pilon.  I was already hooked on the stuff when I moved to Miami.

Becky told me I had it all wrong.  Bustelo, not Pilon.  Don't leave the grinds loose so the water shoots through it easily, tamp it down tight.  Don't eyeball the sugar and the first black spit-up of espresso for the espumita, measure it.  I was even using the wrong brewer.

Whatever, I had been brewing delicious Cuban coffee for a good eighteen years and I never heard any complaints.

"Listen," Becky said.  "Don't mess with my Cuban cofffee.  I'm Manny Q's daughter."

 Or words to that effect, which, if you knew Papa Q, would be saying something.

Of course she was right (being right is one of her strengths).  Her espresso was darker, richer.  Her espumita the perfect caramel color each time, without adjustments.  She served her shots with a good quarter-inch of creme across the top.  I drink my "American-style" coffee - as they call it in Miami - black and sugarless, but those little shots of sugary espresso goodness are something special.

Miami brewer Rowland Coffee owns the two most recognizable and successful of the local coffees - Pilon and Bustelo.  Really, they're like Coke and Pepsi.  Some people taste the difference, some don't, but those who do are fierce advocates of their choice.

Rowland's patriarch, Jose Angel "Pepe" Souto, died four years ago.  His sons just sold Rowland to Smucker's for $360 million.  In cash, for some reason.  Jose Enrique Souto, who co-ran the company with his brothers Jose Alberto and Angel, called it, "The all-American dream to start a little business, sell it to a big company, and then go enjoy life."  I suppose.  But it sounds like Pepe dreamed of coffee, and Pepe's sons dreamed of money.

Souto claims this deal honors his father's legacy - "The future of our brand is assured with this deal."  Rowlands made $115 million a year, but we all know that won't be enough for a corporation that makes $4.6 billion a year.  People who need "creative ideas" to justify their jobs will get in there and try to make something happen.  They will decide a red and yellow package design is too loud for a mass audience.  They will kill the charm.

But that's just speculation.  The reality is that part of this deal entails closing Miami's facilities and folding those operations into Folgers, putting 150 employees out of business.  This also affects local businesses whose services Rowland purchased - pest control, linen delivery, area eateries, etc.

Hundreds of people are blown out of the water so three dudes can roll around in $120 million each.  

Simon & Schuster wants to brand this chick lit, but I liked the hardcover cover better;
you should see the Norwegian cover.

I sounded off on Fabiola Santiago's Facebook post of the link above, so she asked me to elaborate in a side email.  She writes for the Miami Herald, and coffee and books are my passion, so this happened.

Talk about books for years and no one gives a hoot.  Talk about coffee one time, the world listens.

I guess we know what more folks are addicted to.

**UPDATE 4/7/13**

Did you know there's a TED talk on Cuban coffee as an intellectual property?

My post originally stated that "Miami brewer Rowland Coffee began in Cuba in 1865, and they own the two most recognizable and successful of the local coffees - Pilon and Bustelo."  I got this info from the Rowland Coffee website.  A reader graciously pointed out that this isn't the case (in fact, "Pepe" Souto's obituary mentions that they were primarily ranchers in Cuba before they lost their businesses to Castro).

Manuel Jesus Bascuas started the very popular Pilon in Cuba.  According to his daughter, this was in the early 1900s.

Rowland purchased Pilon in 1967.
 
(As far as Bustelo, Gregario Bustelo started making coffee in 1920s and Rowland bought them in 2000.)

We have Manuel Jesus Bascuas to thank for the packaging and flavor we know today.

I Have News

First, there was Gabrielle Hamilton’s beautiful memoir, Blood, Bones, and Butter.  Her father taught her that money, specifically a lack of money, is a stupid reason not to do something.

That phrase haunted me for a time.

Then over vodka at Fox’s Lounge, two wise friends offered counsel.  

Finally, a line from Darin Strauss’ Half a Life jumped from the page (and the subject matter), telling me: 

"That's the meter you come up with, as you approach forty.  If your relationship fills you with a sense of luck, you've chosen well."

Of course you could argue these aren’t signs in and of themselves, but merely one big sign that I’m ready.  I don’t feel like arguing. 

We had a couple of friends over for dinner, trying to get through beer left over from hosting Becky’s sister’s 30th birthday party.  Becky and I also removed Dylan’s first splinter.  Our friends ran interference by way of entertainment while I used a needle to break the skin on the sole of his foot.  It had grown over, looking nasty and red.  Once I exposed the splinter, Becky performed the extraction.    

After five minutes of freaking out, crying, squirming, and refusing uncover his foot, Dylan chose to be brave.  You could see it happen.  Still crying, he stood up straight, moved to his mother’s lap, took out his Nintendo DS, and pretended his foot belonged to someone else.  Becky and I worked together seamlessly, as we often do.    

Dinner was filled with laughter.

Sitting on our stoop after our guests had gone, I couldn’t imagine life getting any better.  Like the first time I told Becky I loved her, I simply couldn’t hold it inside any longer.  With just the right amount of beer in my system (enough to lubricate the tongue without the origin of the emotion being suspect), I told Becky I needed to ask her a question.  I told her to be honest, and I would believe her.

I asked her if she needed a ring.

She said no.

So I asked her to marry me, and she agreed.

It wasn’t how I imagined it at all.  Later that night, she dug a princess-cut pink “diamond” surrounded by smaller white “diamonds” from her jewelry box (this is an actual cardboard box, by the way).  She’d gotten the ring from lost and found when she worked at Barnes & Noble and had never worn it.  I took the ring from her, then got down on one knee and described how I had wanted my proposal to go.

My description was muddied because I’d imagined it so many different ways.  I’d get Papa Q’s permission, and Dylan’s.  I’d get a credit card and max it out to buy the perfect ring, princess cut in a platinum setting.  It would be a birthday or holiday to disguise the intent, either a really fancy dinner at a new place or a familiar dinner at one of our places.  Afterward there’d be a movie, or coffee and dessert somewhere else just for the decadence.  I’d pull her close when we got home, then accidentally-on-purpose drop my keys.  I wasn’t sure if I’d do the “hold this” a la Adrian in Sex in the City or just grab her hand and launch into my speech, happiest man alive, try to make you happy for as long as we live, share our lives, etc, etc.    

I don’t know how much of this I managed to get across.  The night I proposed is a blur of emotions, difficult to see beneath the relief that I didn’t need to wait, and that she said yes.

Darin Strauss, my friends, and Gabrielle Hamilton’s father were all right.  I feel lucky, Becky didn’t need a ring, and lack of money is a stupid reason not to do something.

Even marry the woman of your dreams.

I Quit the Gym

The One with the Ballroom Dancing

Examining my monthly spending to see how my income can better suit our family’s needs. . . was how I originally began this post.  Truthfully, I don’t think about money all that much.  Well, that’s not accurate either.  I think about money indirectly all the time, as in I’d love to go out / visit your aunt in California / see an opthamologist / update my wardrobe, but after rent and groceries there’s not much left.  I didn’t “examine” anything, though.  There were no pie charts or graphs involved, I just got rid of things I didn’t need.  This fiscal spring cleaning led me to cancel my membership to Bally Total Fitness.

My relationship with Bally goes back to 1996, when I saw pictures of myself on Virginia Beach and realized over-eating every meal wasn’t the giggle it used to be when I was seventeen.  I joined Bally when I got back to Syracuse, and it only cost me $50 down and $35 a month.  

I stayed long enough to lose the jelly roll and stop feeling like my limbs were filled with lemon juice instead of blood after every weightlifting session.  Three months at Bally cost me $120.

Then I moved to Miami and saw pictures of myself papering cars for Starbucks short-lived Tiazzi frozen tea beverage.  True, the big green apron wasn’t doing me any favors, but I’d skipped Billy and Stephen and gone right to Daniel Baldwinsville.  I spent $250 on a Premier Membership, with access to a trainer, a supply of some kind of legal speed pep pill, and the promise that my monthly membership fee would only be $15.  

Bally had gotten smarter.  They locked me into a one-year contract, so I paid them $430 for my second go around.

On the plus side, you’d be amazed what those pep pills will do for your motivation.  I dropped back into the 190lb area in no time.  Unfortunately, the motivation only lasted as long as the free pep pills.  I didn’t want to spend money to buy more legal speed, so I stopped going regularly after two months, and completely after three.  Through the magic of automated debit, my payments continued.  When this contract expired in 1999, I’d paid Bally’s a total of $550.

1999 was also the year I got digital cable.  Apparently, sitting around watching TV and eating potato chips doesn’t burn calories like you’d hope; it was the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life.  

This time I wanted to do it right.  I was tired of putting down huge sums every time I got fat.  I wanted a low monthly payment I could live with the rest of my life, so if I ever caught the workout bug again, the cure would be as close as the nearest Ballys.  I became a Premier Fitness Plus Member because the monthly payment dropped to a mere $5 after a year of $15 payments.  It also came with a trainer for six weeks, plus free training consultation whenever I wanted it, for as long as my membership lasted.  It also came with a humiliating body measurement session, eight weeks of legal speed, protein supplements, and the promise that I could go anywhere in the world and always have a Ballys nearby to keep me in shape.  

The big pimpin' package cost me $499, bringing my total Bally payments (as of August 2000) to $1,229 dollars.  

I’ve been a Premier Fitness Plus Member since 1999.  Unlike some of the horror stories I’ve heard, my monthly payment did indeed drop to $5 after a year.  This lasted until 2004, when it went up to $8.  Since 2006, my monthly payment has fluctuated from $11.41 to $10.15, every other month.  I’ve no idea why.  

After the millennium, I read Critser's Fat Land and Schlosser's Fast Food Nation.  I eliminated high-fructose corn syrup from my diet, and ate every couple of hours.  I started doing yoga.  Gradually, over the course of a few years, I became comfortable with my eating habits and my weight.  Before the car accident I was very into yoga.  Post-accident, as soon as I was able, I was back in the gym at my apartment complex, and biking to and from work.  

What I did not do was set foot inside any Bally Total Fitness, anywhere.  

But I kept paying that $10.15 to $11.41 every month.  If I ever decided to blast my body into shape again, I didn’t want to lose a huge down payment.  Trouble was, that didn’t work for me.  I need exercise that fits with my schedule, and biking to and from work and is it.  Finding time to travel to a gym is not.  

I’ve paid Ballys $2,178.44 for very little of my time.  I could have travelled.  I could have bought clothes.  I could have bought a used car.

Anything but exercise.  

SOBE 2011: Thanks for the Memories

People travel from all over the world to attend the South Beach Wine and Food Festival (and I’m not just saying that- accents abound, and my favorite customer of the year was a restaurant owner from Greece).   If you tried to book a hotel room within a hundred miles, you’d never know we’re in a recession.

As we have since the festival’s inception, Books & Books sells cookbooks at the Grand Tasting Village.  Not the bargain basement Kidz Kitchen ticket for $20 at Jungle Island, or an $85 Lifestyle Seminar or $150 party at a swank hotel, not the $200 Bubble Q or Burger Bash, but the hot ticket: $225 of all-you-can-eat-and-drink fun, right on the sand.

Here’s what I don’t get.  Folks shell out upwards of $400 dollars to eat and drink, and then not only protest when presented with a $30-$40 cookbook, but actually get offended by the suggestion that they should purchase a book to meet their favorite chef and have him or her sign it.

“I’ve spent $540 dollars on this weekend,” one woman told me, “I’m not spending another $40, that’s ridiculous.  I’m sorry, but it is.”  

Um... how much can you eat and drink between 10:45am and 6pm?  If tapas and sliders flowed over you on a river of vodka, you still couldn’t consume twenty bucks a minute worth.  Yet a cookbook your grandchildren could use one day is the rip off?  The phrase more money than sense comes to mind.

You could try to explain that the cookbook money is not going to The Food Network.  You could explain that the money they spend on Rachael Ray’s Look + Cook (“Isn’t she rich enough already?”) doesn’t actually go to Rachael Ray.  But these folks are slugging back wine faster than the sun can dehydrate them.  It’s not the ideal forum for a discussion on independent book selling.

But it is fun.  Folks come to have a good time, and they’re high on the atmosphere before they imbibe a thing.  When the gates open, people actually run across the sand like children on a playground who want to get the best swing.  How can you not love that kind of enthusiasm?  

The food is unbearably delicious.  From gunpowder cocktails made with actual gunpowder to a simple barbecued beef brisket sandwich, I wish every plate came with a logo so I’d know who to thank for some of the amazing creations.  Instead, I’ll just say thanks to everyone who cooked.

Except for the free food tent for employees, “catered” this year by Dominoes.  No wonder the volunteers left early and no-showed in droves.   

In the portable bathrooms out front, I stopped for one last pee break on Sunday before it was time to pack the books up.  In the lowest denominator of male bonding, the dude next to me slurred, “That was totally worth it, huh?  I wasn’t sure going in, but that was a lot of free stuff.”

He wore khaki shorts, a button-down, short-sleeved knit shirt, and leather loafers.  His body was buffed and outdoorsy.  He looked like a chiseled, blonde, happy J Crew ad.  I was wearing ratty jeans, sneakers, and a sweaty black ABFFE t-shirt which said, FREADom. 

I wasn’t sure how to answer, so I said as kindly as I could, “I work here.  At the Books & Books booth.”

“Oh,” he said, facing forward hastily.  I looked down and saw I was peeing on the front button from someone’s pants.  Either the guy was in such a hurry to relieve some of the booze that he ripped his pants open and lost a button, or he ate too much and it popped off on its own.

Either way, that’s a hell of a party.

The Customer is Never Wrong, and the Guy Who Signs Your Paycheck is Always Right

Working in a retail or restaurant chain, the policies are simple.  Employee conduct is outlined in a handbook of some sort, aided with classes, and more often than not hammered home with badly-performed, outdated videos.  Customer interactions are even broken into handy bullet points.  When dealing with a dissatisfied customer, follow your ABC’s.  Acknowledge the complaint.  Believe we can do better.  Conclude with a solution.

The frontline employees, the cashiers and the customer service reps, their job is act like service bots.  If they don’t follow the rules in all situations, the handbook also has detailed descriptions of the disciplinary action they’ll face.  

If the clerk can't make a customer happy, enter the supervisor.  Usually hourly, making only a buck or two more than the folks in the trenches, a supervisor / lead employee / key holder backs the employee up, reiterating the company’s policy.  The dissatisfied customer must then re-state his or her complaint more vehemently.  This allows the supervisor to override policy, to a point (see Employee Handbook, pg 75).  

If the customer still isn’t happy, it's time to bring in the heavy artillery.  The retail manager's job is to undercut everything his or her employees have done so they look like assholes.  Depending on the nature of the complaint, this may involve rebuking the customer service person, the supervisor, or both, while the customer smugly looks on.  

We're so used to this ridiculousness that we barely notice how ridiculous it is, like Auto-Tune or Paris Hilton.  

At an indie, the employee handbook is the wit and whimsy of the owner.  Nothing is ever written down.  When it comes to customer satisfaction, there's rarely any behavior you can't play off.  Instead of a clearly delineated pay system which rewards X-number of cents after Y-period of time, you need to beg and crawl for every raise.  For employees, the environment hinges on whether the owner got a good night's sleep or had a decent breakfast.  For customers, you're always King (at least if the owner is around).  

 In fact, there are always dozens of customers who enjoy "special" treatment.  Sorry, we don't sell eggs by anything less than the dozen, or hold books longer than two weeks, or give discounts over ten percent, or hold newspapers, or make sandwiches with more than 3oz of meat, or allow refills . . . except for Mr. Zamuda / Mrs. Griggs / The Fallons.   You could be putting in 40+ hours for two years before you meet a "special customer" who's "here all the time" and "deserves special treatment," but God forbid you don't recognized him or he'll be forced to tell your boss how things have gone to shit since they hired you.  

Often, the demands of these "special" customers are so strange you wonder how they came about.  Two and a half packets of Equal for Mrs. Sanchez's coffee, heated precisely to 185 degrees... really? Mrs. Vollmer can keep a stack of this bestseller on hold for her book club behind the counter for six weeks?  Really?  Mr. Conner can keep his personal stash of frangelico behind the deli counter for us to mix into his order of rice pudding?  Really? 

I used to shop at a bagel place with this sign hanging behind the counter: "The only joy more exaggerated than the joy of parenting is the joy of owning your own business."  I think of that quote all the time when I see the way customers suck my boss dry, one sip at a time.  Every waking minute of his day is devoted to someone else.  

Miraculously, he doesn't seem to mind. 

Isn't that we want in a small business?  A tired but charming personage behind the register with kind eyes, one who sees we're a few bucks short on the total, then smiles and says, "Close enough" before bagging our purchase and inviting us to come again?  Someone who successfully carries the heavy weight of ownership, embodying the dream of entrepreneurial success, yet at the same time shows us how difficult it is, so that we never lose our heads and quit our stable jobs?

When you work for a small business, you trade a thousand corporate-hairball policies for the approval of one person.  I don't know which is better, but I do know I've stayed at Books & Books longer than any other.  I know when I had my car accident and laid in bed for six weeks waiting for my bones to knit, my paycheck arrived in the mail every pay period.  I know when my bike got stolen, Mitchell gave me his.  He offered to guarantee a down-payment to our landlord so Becky and I could move in.  He lent Becky the money for her Pigeon tattoo, then decided it was a bonus when she tried to pay him back.  I know he's helped get one employee's daughter into a good school, and instilled a love of basketball in her which changed her life.  

I've also screamed at him like I've screamed at no one in my life.  I've walked for blocks while tears streamed down my face, wondering how I could possibly go back to work.  That was years ago, when I put in way too many hours and had no life.  I've seen others burn out, though.  When you're given certain tasks but are allowed to make up your own rules to accomplish those tasks, the only person you really answer to is yourself.  Some crack under the pressure.  I found my balance.  

As much as Becky and I struggle with bills, it would take a lot more than money to get me to interview someplace else.   It's tough to imagine another job out there where I could be myself, every day, all day.  

My awesomeness is not in any handbook.

Here's Hoping All These Words Will Matter

When the crowd at Books & Books asked Lane Smith about his process, Lane said it took him ten years to finish John, Paul, George, and Ben.  He works on a lot of things at once.  It takes time to finish a project, time to store it and forget about it, then time to revise with objectivity that only comes from distance.  Meanwhile, he’d visit Mo Willems in his studio nearby.

“'How’s it going, Lane?'”  Smith said, pantomiming a frantic Mo drawing at break-neck speed.  “'I just finished five books this morning.'”

Even if I make enough money that I could quit my job and write full time (and part of me still harbors that fantasy, that my first book will be successful enough that I could be nothing but a writer), clearly I’d fall into the Lane Smith category.  I’ll never be a novel-a-year guy.  

I’d like to think that means I’m about quality, like David Mitchell or Nicole Krauss, but honestly it’s more about attention span.  I’ve already entertained myself in my mind with this story half a dozen times before I sit down to write it.  I know exactly how it will end (well, 90% of exactly) and sometimes getting there just doesn’t interest me.   

I think I’ve found a solution; I’m writing two books at once.  On Mondays I work on The Block.  Tuesdays, the last morning Dylan is with his father, I take the opportunity to sleep in.  Wednesdays, it’s Scratch the Dead Places.  Thursdays, The Block again, Fridays, Scratch again.  The weekends are reserved for whichever one has compelled me less during the week.  When a story is shouting in your head to get out, all you need is a couple hours in the morning to keep it fresh.  If the pump needs more priming, then you’ve got a problem to work out.  You need a solid chunk of weekend time.  

More often lately, I’ve been lazy about my other writing during the week (if lazy can be described as work, cooking dinner, doing dishes, reading, or sharing time with Becky), and I need to spend the weekend on next week’s SwF&F posts, or my monthly book missive for THL, or something Lip Service will hopefully choose for a future event, or a piece for DadsMiami, or whatever I hope someone will publish to increase my profile.  

  I’m enjoying the process, but I wonder if I should push myself harder.  It’s one thing reading four books at once, but working on all these stories at the same time means I hardly move.  I only finished the first draft of my first book because I gave myself a deadline.  Should I do that again?

It feels so early in the process of both books to be worrying about this (even though Scratch is a third draft and The Block a second), but at the same time, I worry about getting older with nothing to show for my work.  Part of me is content to push the cursor a few inches a day, knowing the end will come eventually.  As Sugar says, “Your book has a birthday.  You  don’t know what it is yet.” 

Another part worries the end of me will come before my career ever starts.  

A Job Aint Nothin' But Work, or A Bright and Shining Lie

The other night I was at an upscale Indian restaurant, celebrating the birthday of a close friend.  It was one of those potentially awkward social situations where everyone involved knows one person but not each-other.  Sitting there, merely one beer into it, I pulled out a lie I haven’t used in years.  I loved this lie for many years but I assumed it died with all the idiocy I committed in my twenties.  

Not so much.  I told this table of old friends and new acquaintances I had been accepted to Yale.  

Let me explain, I’m not a liar.  I don’t do it comfortably, often, or well, except in print.  But when I choose a lie, it usually involves my past, and I tell it over and over until I need to remind myself it's a lie.  The truth is I didn’t want to go to college.  I was an artist.  What lame-ass artist needs college?  My guidance counselor pointed to my SAT score, my ACT score, and my academic record.  She told me I could go anywhere I wanted.

“You could get into Yale with these scores,” she said.

Somehow, this led to me telling people I was offered a full scholarship to Yale and turned it down.  The only college that offered me a free ride was the Rochester Institute of Technology.  I turned it down.  Artist, remember?  Plus, I was young enough to believe that free rides lurked around every corner.  

Throughout my twenties, I painted, I wrote, I dabbled in theater.  I worked a series of jobs which were beneath my intellectual capacity, if not my station in life.  I didn’t drink.  I dabbled in pot and mushrooms, tried coke a couple of times, and dropped a lot of acid.  And I told people I turned my back on Yale.  The lie proved that I once had potential and a fine mind, that someone important had looked at me and said, “Yes.”  

Looking back, it's obvious I wasn’t proud of how I chose to live.  Dusting the lie off after so many years must mean that again, I’m not proud of my life.  I want more than just putting a roof over my head.  I turned away from all the stupid things I’ve done, but it’s time to do something, to stop defining myself by what I’ve overcome and become.  

Because I toiled well in lowly positions, I was rewarded with toil in management positions.  I gave more hours to Starbucks and Borders than anyone should give to any job and didn't get much back besides money (and not much of that).  So I dropped out.  I quit being a manager.  I decided to toil on writing until the time my art was recognized.

Unfortunately, in the weeks leading up to the birthday dinner, I was working sixty and seventy-hour weeks.  This doesn’t make me that unusual in the working world, but I’m not some financal wizard or medical guru or any other job which might have a monitorial or altruistic payoff.  I work in a bookstore.  An independent bookstore, so good on me, but I'm two missed paychecks away from homelessness.  

That’s all business is - busy-ness.  It puts a roof over your head and food on your table, but it probably has little to do with the work God put you here to do.  I’ve been so busy lately I’ve lost that perspective.

Looking around the dinner table at the Guidance Counselor, the teachers, the independent film producer, and the musician, I saw people who are doing what they want to do... and I brought up SAT scores.  I can’t blame the beer and I can’t say it flowed naturally from the conversation; I engineered a topic so I could plant my favorite lie.    

It came from feelings of inadequacy, from letting myself drift rather than taking the oars, from letting my life live me.  

Despite what you hear, people can change.  It’s just more work beyond that first choice than most can face.  I need to choose not to be a workaholic and a perfectionist on a daily basis.  Any financial analyst will tell you two things; make your money work for you and pay yourself first.  My art isn’t working for me yet, unless it’s the satisfaction I feel in crafting something new, but I can certainly pay myself first.  I can take the time to work for myself before I work for anyone else, to be my best and brightest self at home rather than sparkling for strangers.

Someday instead of my job, my work will pay the bills.  

     

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, how I love you, and how sad when it all comes to an end.  This year my nephew Jason couldn't make it, but my brother and sister-in-law did.  

We had nineteen kinds of dessert. 

Aunt Val's neighbor had the night off from his job as a prison guard and brought his wife over to Thursday's bonfire.   

My cousin Margaret brought her significant other, Justin. 

My nephew Steven brought his significant other, Reina.

And of course, Clan Curtis / DeSocio / Jacobs finally met Becky, AKA Cleopatra, AKA the Girl with the Pigeon Tattoo.

We drove, and despite car games, awesome sing-alongs, and a two-hour side swipe at Savannah, it's not an experience I care to repeat any time soon.  Particularly the part where we couldn't find a cheap hotel.


We started pulling over in Virginia, going into hotels and seeing what a night cost.  We took turns to stay awake, all the way to Pennsylvania.  Past two am, unable to drive another foot, we reclined the seats and proceeded to sleep in the car.  It was 30-degrees outside.  Those $50 nights at the Loews Becky's sister hooks us up with have us spoiled.  


We're already saving our pennies so we can fly up next year with Dylan, so imagine him photoshopped into these photos.

My sister Cass, her son Johnny, and my sister-in-law Kim

My cousin Shannon and his wife Christina, with my Mom

The group, minus Kim (behind the camera) and Aunt Val (in the kitchen)

My brother AJ, Me, Becky, and my sister Cass

Me, Becky, and Shannon & Christina's daughter Sophia, pre-snowball fight

In the meantime, I'm hoping my family will visit us so they can get to know her better. 

The Turkey Bowl was two-hand touch with just a few guys.  I lost most of Friday to a Labatt Blue hangover, so we missed driving to the Rez.  Becky didn't get to eat any apple pie the whole time.  On the way back, route 95 was choked with bumper-to-bumper traffic from Pennsylvania to Virginia.  I kept saving it for later, so my one serving of corn chowder went bad on the drive back home.  Heartbreaking.

The beauty of being with family is not that the good outweighs the bad, it's that the bad is a mild afterthought.  

Here's to another great year.

I Love it When a Plan Comes Together

Days were dark. Becky and I wanted to move in. We had the place all picked out, and a landlord willing to cut us the deal of a lifetime. What we didn’t have was first and last month’s rent. My lease was expiring, and all we had were dreams.

To top it off, Dylan’s father didn’t want Dylan to transfer schools. Dylan’s current school was five minutes away from him and DF refused to make the drive. DF said he would agree to the transfer if it was what was best for Dylan, but he never did the research. Miami Shores Elementary is a decent school, but Coral Gables Elementary is top 30 in the state, top 10 in Miami Dade County. Even better, Coral Gables Elementary recently became Coral Gables K-8 Preparatory Academy, a public school teaching grades K-8.

DF didn’t see it as beneficial for Dylan’s education, he saw it as doing a favor for Becky, trying to make her life easier just because she has a new boyfriend. A forty-minute commute was out of the question, never mind that Becky had been making it for two years.

There’s a reason for clichés. In this case, it’s always darkest before the dawn applies.

Cleopatra Pater – a teacher whose opinion DF still respects – spoke with DF. Cleo Pater made it clear that moving to Coral Gables would be a huge advantage for the Monkey. DF agreed to the transfer.

The same day Becky spoke with DF and found out he’d agreed to make the commute, I spoke with our landlord. Carroll agreed that Becky and I could move in with first month’s rent plus whatever we could put toward a deposit of last month’s rent. We’d pay extra each month, until she had her deposit. When Becky called me with the good news about Dylan, I told her my good news about the new place.

Suddenly, Dylan was slated for a much better school and we had enough money to move.

No matter how badly a day begins, it can still end well.

F. P. & L. is Scandalous

Florida Power and Light requires a deposit to turn on your electricity. On their website, FPL explains that unlike most businesses which are cash upon liking (I paraphrase of course, but any excuse to use the phrase “cash upon liking”), poor old FPL gives their product away for a month before asking for payment. Since they run on a three-week billing cycle, that’s seven weeks of service before they see a dime. If you’re assessed as a high-risk client, they look at the average bill for two months service at your address, then they require you to fork it over.

In our case, that was $400 to have our lights turned on. Remember when I said who gives a shit about my credit rating? Well, this is a fine example of why it’s a good idea to have decent credit. I was wrong, and my words taste bitter.

So wait, aren’t we paying in advance for something we haven’t used? Multi-billion dollar monopoly FPL whines about the equation in reverse, but if I want to store food and not die of heat stroke, I’ve got no choice but to shut up and pay.

I’m sure FPL has been burned. So what? They always manage to turn a profit, even when people go for weeks without power in the wake of various hurricanes. Their rates remain high while they promise that second power plant which will reduce our bills once and for all.

It’s not ironic that the segment of the population least-equipped to pay is the one hardest hit by these deposits, it’s increasingly typical of American culture. Google “Florida Power and Light” with “deposit” and you’ll bring up FPL’s website and a couple thousand complaints about the practice, which is no surprise. However, the backlash in the comments section of these articles and posts is disturbing. Even allowing for trolls, there’s a prevailing sentiment of “you’re a deadbeat who fucked up your credit; quit whining.” Maybe I’m reading too much into these websites. The internets are filled with crazed morons.

Not us, of course.

I’m debt-free. I got in credit card trouble a long while back but I took care of it, and without declaring bankruptcy. I’ve been a renter for eighteen years in three states and I’ve never defaulted on a lease, skipped out on a utility charge, or left a bill unpaid. And apparently, my credit sucks.

FPL is just being cautious (and getting capital for investments, of course). They pay the deposit back if you ask them nicely after twenty-three months of consecutive, timely payment, so why am I whining about being labeled a deadbeat?

Well, if you pay late, they hold the deposit indefinitely. Glory of glories, they also hit you with more deposit fees for being late. Suppose I need to wait for a paycheck to pay my bill because I didn’t have the funds. Even though my service was not actually interrupted, I’ll have to pay an additional “deposit” in the neighborhood of $60-$80 (not to mention a 1.5% late fee) on top of the monthly service bill. That should make it easier to pay.

I was shocked to find out about this practice. So is everyone I’ve told. The question I hear every time is, “Can they do that?” Of course they can, and they are.

It’s not like you can choose the other power company down the street.

Rent to Own

I’ve been a renter since I left my parents home at the age of nineteen. My Aunt Jeri rented her apartment in Syracuse before moving back to the reservation. She had nothing to show for paying forty years of rent, and she upbraids me for renting from time to time.

When I ask friends who own houses and condos what they pay monthly on their mortgages, it’s always a fraction of my rent. I know I’m making fiscally unsound choices, but try coming up with a 10% deposit on a house, or 30% deposit on a condo (chuckleheads with homes have prevented me from getting one of my own because of their stupid choices; Florida homeowners tried to use condos as income-generating second properties during the housing boom, then defaulted on their loans in droves, so banks require 30% of the selling price to buy a condo; 10% on what a condo costs is feasible, but when I learned banks want 30%, I stopped saving; if I had 30% of what a condo costs, I’d use it for 10% down on a house; now for the end of a sentence interrupted so long ago, you forgot the beginning) on a bookseller’s salary.

There’s freedom in renting. If the air conditioning breaks, you call the landlord and he or she has it fixed. If a hurricane destroys your apartment, you rent another that’s still standing. If the roof leaks… well, never mind.

As a renter, you can bob and weave. I’ve experienced Miami in the peripherals of Kendall, the very heart, and now the Spanish garden that is Coral Gables. I’ve always wanted to know what it feels like to wake up, take a walk, and do yoga on the beach. I haven’t made it to Miami Beach yet, but who knows what could happen down the road?

Renting also comes with a number of perks. You get the voyeuristic, felonious thrill of opening mail for people who aren’t you. You get to play detective with carpet stains. You get to find layers of paint around electrical outlets and speculate on the previous tenant’s design choices.

You also get neighbors living in much closer proximity than with a house, folks with whom you’re not obligated to actually speak. Get into a volume war with every sound system in your complex, because at least your music doesn’t suck. Hack into your neighbor’s wireless internet connection without worrying about the signal strength, and do it guilt-free. Masturbate to the sound of your neighbors fucking and imagine they are gorgeous supermodels because you’ll never have to see them.

Oh, it’s a glamorous life, my friends. But please, home owners, don’t be jealous. After all, you get to fix your own plumbing problems.

First Do No Harm

I’ve been tempted to return to my Starbucks job for the health insurance, which cost me $30 a month (I heard it’s $52 right now, but I’m not sure). Before Starbucks, there was Borders, Cheesecake Factory, and Bennigan’s. Corporations might be the reason our economy is unbalanced, but they love to throw health insurance your way on the cheap.

Books & Books offers health benefits to full-time employees, and to certain folks labeled part-time who average enough hours to qualify. We use a local HMO, Florida Health Partnership. Because FHP's rates increase every year, our insurance payments have increased every year. Books & Books matches our monthly contribution, but without a raise to compensate, my take home pay keeps diminishing.

The most recent hike just happened. If I stop the insurance, I’m looking at an extra $2,490.54 a year. This merits serious consideration.

How can you not have insurance?

If I was going for my yearly checkups, I might care. But my doctor was in partnership with another doctor on the beach. FHP included Beach Doctor on the list of approved Primary Care Physicians, but not my doctor. When the partnership dissolved, so did my yearly visits.

I'm a biker, remember? It’s much easier catching a ride to a house party on SOBE than a doctor’s visit. If I’m not getting checked up, I’m flushing money down the toilet.

Yes, but what if Something Happens?

Well, something did. Geico covered the bills because it was a Motor Vehicle Accident, plus I had FHP to back them up. Well, la-dee-frickin’-da. Once I left the hospital, I made follow-up appointments for specific dates and times. Those follow-ups consisted of showing up at nine and taking a number like it was a deli. It was 3pm before I looked around and realized I’d been looking at the same faces all day. I didn’t take a number with other folks scheduled for nine; everyone scheduled on that day, insured and uninsured alike, took a number and waited.

Oh, those payments really came in handy while I was sitting on hard plastic for seven hours with a fractured pelvis, sacrum, and ribs.

If something catastrophic happens (and having just finished Portnoy’s Complaint I really want to write “God forbid”), a hospital will treat you. So what if you can’t pay?

For several years, my ex-wife had three different forms of insurance. No matter how many times, or to how many different people, we gave information on our primary, secondary, and tertiary accounts, hospitals still smacked us with thousands of dollars in bills (my ex is a transplant patient; it took a phone call to the Miami Herald to finally stop the nonsense; don't tell me newspapers are irrelevant). When situations arose where folks saw thousands in unpaid hospital bills on our credit report, we were told time and again that, “we look at medical bills differently” than other debt.

Who cares if my credit rating sucks? If I want to buy a house, or a car? Twice this summer I’ve eaten beans two meals a day to stretch my funds until the next paycheck. I don’t see myself pulling my new vehicle into a home I own any time soon.

Carl Hiaasen wrote that the human body rarely offers up any good surprises past the age of forty. As I approach forty, regular check-ups will become more important. I know this. Of course I won’t cancel my health insurance; I’m just worried about supporting someone besides me and looking for extra income.

As far as the accident, even if hospital debt is “different,” getting demands for payment in the mail is still stressful. I have to balance the couple hundred I paid for a helicopter ride, prescription co-pays, and a walker (“For patient’s comfort” so not covered, never mind that I couldn’t walk without it) vs. the $30k I would have owed for the hospital stay.

Still, I look at that $95.79 I could be saving from my paycheck and think there’s the month I wanted to spend in Italy for my fortieth birthday, there’s the cushion I’m supposed to have for emergencies, there’s my robot butler.

France is looking better every day.