The Buzz

It’s one of those hot, humid nights — thunder is cracking through the sky every five minutes, I’m sitting on my bed in my underwear with the fan and AC on, weirdly enjoying July heat but at the same time wishing autumn to roll in. It’s funny, because I’d been dreading the summer temperatures ever since I arrived (I’m much more a winter girl), but this season has been something entirely new to me, and, I'll admit, something kind of wonderful.

It’s wonderful because I can step out on to my porch and not have to shrug on a jacket. It’s wonderful because of the balmy newness each day has, when it’s a little cooler, before the real sun starts to kick in at midday. It’s wonderful because I can see my skin become golden, freckles on my nose and an easy, breezy Summertime Olivia seems to have appeared.

One thing I am thoroughly not enjoying, and never would have anticipated: fruit flies.

It’s been fruit warfare on a very tiny scale here in the apartment. What started out as open windows and a bag of grapes on the counter soon became one of those ten Biblical plagues that God sends to Egypt. Flies in the bin. Flies on the wall. Flies on the oven. Flies everywhere. No-one else in the apartment seemed to be that concerned — Sergei acknowledged that I’d chucked his grapes in the bin outside and shrugged with a “these flies are crazy, eh?”

Yes Sergei, these flies are crazy. But not as crazy as I’m going to get.

I made traps. I ate a plum and placed the flesh-covered stone in a water bottle with the top cut off and inverted, to create a funnel. I added vinegar and orange juice. I put cling film over the top and poked little holes into it. It looked absolutely ridiculous but I placed it next to the bin and hey boy the flies were crawling in and not crawling out. And don't even get me started on the grapes I doused in hand soap in the bathroom. Since then I have bought a little trap that will last for the next month, and I see all those little suckers congregating around it and getting stuck in there, ha! Now who's laughing?! But I’m afraid that they’ll soon catch on and start telling each other that it’s a trap and then they’ll turn on me and come knocking on my bedroom door asking for the overripe bananas that I’ve cling-film-wrapped and stuck in the fridge (nowhere is safe). For now, it all seems to be under control. But last night, I did find it difficult to settle to sleep — my mind was, forgive the pun, buzzing.

I was also buzzing with other thoughts, predominantly those of coffee (buzz buzz buzz!). My job at the cafe starts *officially* tomorrow (which, I guess by the time I post, will be today!), and the two days of training I’ve had have been extremely intense. My role at the cafe is exclusively “barista,” which means that all I really do is make coffees and other beverages of that ilk, and the beverages have to be very, very good. 

Do you remember when I started this blog, and I was working in The Restaurant, as I so called it? Well, this new establishment will be henceforth referred to as The Cafe, but you should know, it’s not really a cafe, it’s more of a Grand Cafe, in the European, Parisian sense of the word. We wear white shirts and people can come and eat little choux pastry things and then have lobster for lunch. We have sommeliers and serve French champagne. We have a maître d’, which, essentially, is Lumière from Beauty and the Beast (the actual guy isn’t really like Lumière, although he is very French). Our general manager is called Pierre, for reals. That’s what The Cafe is like.

And I’m so excited! Because there’s so many people who are staff there. We have baristas and bakery staff and kitchen staff and servers and sommeliers and floor managers and concierges and bussers and bakers… lots of potential new friends on the horizon, I should think.

So training was a full immersion in All Things Coffee. This time last week I would not have been able to tell you my macchiato from micro foam, but now I have been almost overloaded with information. I know about grinding coffee. I know about roasters. I know about blends. I don’t, sadly, have the skills to do proper latte art yet. Everything I do looks like a misshapen heart (much like mine! ah!) or a butt, depending on your perspective. We’ll get there.

We also had a tasting session for the little cakes and suchlike for the bakery. Much of it was watering mouths as plates of floofy little buns and shiny chocolate towers and castles of whipped chantilly cream were paraded in front of us, to then be utterly destroyed by our forks and spoons in hand. There was a lot of wrinkled noses and “Oh my GOD”s as we tasted, it’s all so good we were borderline offended by it.

So that’ll be keeping me busy over the next week! I also have another project to do with my music which I will be sharing a bit more in my next entry, hopefully. And as for the book… well, that fell by the wayside a little bit. I’m sure that I’ll be working on it again very soon and try to get the whole story down — hey, writing a novel of that size is difficult!

Anyway, I’m going to tuck myself in, light a candle (which promises smells of “Campfire Smores,” ah, Canada) and probably listen to my own songs for a bit before nodding off. You can join me by pressing play down below: this is my newest song that I wrote last weekend, about relationships where you end up missing their pet more than their person (tch, don't give me that look! I'll get over it when I find another hipster who spends his time reading Rousseau. I also really want a dog).