My oh my

by jylly

Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day...

63 degrees in Manhattan, folks, and not to be a Grandpa and start my sentence off with a cheesy old song and an announcement about the weather, but, my oh my, isn't it a nice day?? This will be my first winter in New York, and when you consider that I am a native Californian and that I have spent the last year in Hawaii and southern Italy, you might appreciate that this New York cold is a whole new ballgame for this beach babe. Today I took my baby (I am a nanny) to the park to celebrate the nice day. And, because we always go to the park in the morning anyway. We both wore trendy blue sundresses and had matching cups of coffee from the it-cafe of the moment, 9th Street Espresso (although to be fair Esme's was empty). It was just so gosh darned nice to sit in the sun and drink a good cup of (overpriced) coffee. Yay for vitamin D.

We visited Liz at her overpriced cafe, and she was patiently training her new counter person. I felt sorry for the new girl. The first day on the job at any food joint is awful, because you realize how much there is to clean, how much coffee will stick under your fingernails, and how little time you have to laze around in parks in sundresses with happy babies when you're slagging coffee and biscotti. Why anyone chooses actual labor over childcare is beyond me. But Liz is wonderoman, she can handle a hard day's work, unlike other women I know. She can even leave the pastry shelf alone, a feat that is beyond my comprehension. When I'm a barista, there are a lot of "broken" cookies that must be eaten immediately, usually because I pick them up and break them before stuffing my face. No bagel, donut, or can of whipped cream is left unmolested, and no cookie left unturned. I generally give free shit to everyone that I like, which means that every Guy in a Band, Guy with Cool T-Shirt, Hot Guy, Dorky Funny Guy, and Guy in general doesn't pay for shit, and usually I hand out my phone number as freely as the "broken muffins". I sit around at the bar eating stuff, texting boys, gossiping with my co-workers, blatantly ignoring everyone else, and generally just acting like the rudest, boredest teenager of your worst nightmares, so, yeah, long story short I'm really impressed with Liz's work ethic and attitude. She's the best.

If you haven't seen Liz, let me paint you a little picture. She has lovely, and I do mean lovely, red hair, a proper ginger shade, not like reddish brown or blonde with a dash of red. Straight up Little Mermaid red. And it's thick and fluffy like Ariel's hair, without the weird early 90's swept bang thing. She always has on something cool but in a carefree, non-hipster sort of way. By that I mean that she can wear jeans and a vintage blouse and not look like she spent $500 and 3 days putting it together, it just...is.

She has a great sense of humor, balancing sarcasm and sweetness with the greatest of ease and not in a patronizing way. Best of all, she is observant, incredibly observant. She notices a person's attitude and can analyze their thought process, something that I am baffled by. I notice emotions and pretty colors, Liz notices expression, rhetoric, and outlook, and she gets it in like 5 seconds. It's like everyone is a character in a novel and she's the English teacher explaining the character and their relevance of the story to the class. I mean that in a good way. She's someone who you can talk to about, like, the postman or the delivery guy for about 10 seconds and walk away thinking, "Whoa, that was deep." It's really hard to be brilliant and not boring or lame, but she walks the line and she walks it well. She's a very intimidating person to have a blog with, because while she is using big words and discussing attitudes and emotions and other brilliant things, I'm over here writing about hangovers and broken cookies. Yin and Retarded Yang, I guess, but maybe it'll work.

Anyway, Liz is awesome, like the weather today. Now excuse Grandpa Jyll while I go get another cup of coffee and read my paper.