Hey Jakey,

You can't tell from the pics below, but I was at it again with the scissors. My hair-cutting privileges have been revoked. Coming at you from the left-hand side, you look like a 'tard. I'm sooooooo sorry. I don't know what possessed me. I thought I could trim a tiny bit off the sides, but I guess even that is beyond me.

It's utter CRAP admitting that there's something in this world that I SUCK at. Hurts almost as much as admitting that T is a better designer than I am. Now *there's* something that really rankles.

The coffee shop down the street is closing at the end of the month. Which would be today, I guess. I have mixed feelings about this.

When they first opened about three years ago, I was there every morning. I was greeted as I walked in the door with, "The usual?" "The usual" was a medium iced decaf americano "with room" [for cream]. To which I added two tbls of half-and-half and one half of a sweet-n-low.

About a year ago, they started hiring high school kids. All of a sudden, instead of prompt, efficient service, I got surly stares from behind the register, and that was only if they deigned to acknowledge my presence in the first place. I would wait at the counter forEVER, while they stood around, acting too cool for school, snapping gum and desultorily telling each other about when they were going to take their next break.

The next to the last time I went in, a catfight erupted at the register between two employees. After waiting for several minutes for someone to acknowledge me -- the only customer in line -- these two gals started fighting over who's turn it was to make coffee versus who was to run the register. There was much slamming of drawers and shouting and cursing.

And then the very LAST time I went this particular establishment, I never even GOT a coffee. The place closed at 7 p.m. and I rolled up to the door with you in your stroller at about 6:20. As I approached, the lights behind the counter went off. I tried the door. Locked. I peeked in through the window and, sure enough, there were a bunch a punk-ass kids stooping down behind the counter and peeking out at me. WTF. I never went back.

And now as I read in the paper that they are closing down, I must reconcile with myself my shameful patronage of that huge retail coffee conglomerate that opened up downtown a couple years or so ago. *Maybe* they would've made it if I hadn't jumped ship and given into Starbucks' consistently prepared grande iced americana, world-beat music and wi-fi. But you know what, *maybe* they would've made it if they had made a decision not to shit all over their loyal customers with a cadre of incompetent boobs for employees.

I've been reading sickly sweet odes to the damned place in the letters section of the newspaper for the last few days, and since I'm a decent sort of gal, I won't weigh in with a *bitchy* letter to the paper. I'll just vent(i) here, sweetie.

Love you!