I get to work remotely about four days a week, which is fabulous.
One of my favorite cafes to work from is the Freight House Dunn Brothers. This is the view from my table:
I get to work remotely about four days a week, which is fabulous.
One of my favorite cafes to work from is the Freight House Dunn Brothers. This is the view from my table:
I spend an embarrassing amount of time at Dunn Brothers. It’s a local coffee chain but each store feels like an independently run coffee shop (in a good way.)
Dunn Brothers is a common stop on our morning dog walks. The dogs are incredibly patient.
Something went wrong during this morning’s drive. I looked down while driving on Highway 62 and I was covered in in coffee. One of the coffee cups was partially collapsed and I was pretty convinced that I should not be driving. The coffee cups looked pretty rough when I got into the office.
I read for my federal tax law procedure class at the Freighthouse Dunn Brothers, which is one of the cutest cafes in Minneapolis (pictures here).
I’m at Dunn Brothers and trying hard to not laugh. Minneapolis cafes are prime territory for awkward conversations, and this is precious.
I am sitting near a middle aged man who is a caricature of a slimy Hollywood producer – facelift, all black clothes, tasseled shoes, bluetooth in ear, and a really glossy facelift.
Hair plugs’ victim is a cute, 20-something year old girl.
I spent the morning at the Uptown Dunn Brothers my nose in my Ableton manual. I ordered Ableton last week, but it ships from from Berlin so I run the demo version on my school laptop.
When I came back to the apartment this afternoon to find a FexEx sticker on the front door of the building. Apparently Ableton arrived! The mailboxes for my apartment are tiny, so tomorrow includes an adventure to find the St. Paul FedEx facility…which might be a disaster…
After the dog walk, I jump in my car and try to head to school, but my neighborhood is gridlocked. There are no left hand turn signals to the highway onramp, and there is a fender-bender at the intersection I need to turn at.
So I cut someone off, bypass my regular on ramp, and decide to go through downtown… except the traffic is at a standstill at the next light as well because there is ANOTHER fender-bender at my left-hand turn lane.
Some people asked why I refer to the Uptown Dunn Brothers Café as “the brothel.”
Well, the café isn’t a brothel, but apparently there was one upstairs.
I mentioned the café before because of the odd naked mannequin in the back:
She’s from finals, but I forgot to post the picture here:
Here’s an outline of my spring semester. A lot happened…
January: The semester starts.
I walk into Dunn Brothers before work this morning and there is a tall barista who I have never seen before. The hulking Barista looks surprised:
Hulk: “Wow! You smell great! What are you wearing?”
Me: “Oh thanks, it’s Abercrombie.”
Hulk: “Is it Fierce?”
Me: “Why yes, it is fierce.”
Hulk: “I like it! I just wish they would bring back the original Abercrombie scent, you know, the one from when we were both in high school!”
Me: “Uh, when were you in high school?”
Hulk: “Mid to late 90’s…”
Me: “I’m not that old.”
See, in law school Saturdays are off the chain. Behold:
How do I contain myself? Someone call Lindsay…
I’m at Dunn Brothers on Lake Street. I search the wireless networks and then start laughing uncontrollably:
I am so glad that one of my coworkers is at Dunn Brothers tonight. Now I am not the only witness to the batshit-crazy going on the corner.
There is a bloated, 15-person group in the corner which looks like a book club. Tonight’s theme is “outsiders and specialness” and the conversation contains such gems as:
Middle Aged Lady: “Can I tell you guys something? When I was young I thought I was special. I thought was really special! I thought I was so special that I thought I would have a virgin birth! And it has taken me 55 years to realize I AM NOT SPECIAL. I AM NOT SPECIAL AT ALL!”
Things got a little weird at Dunn Brothers yesterday.
I first noticed a naked, oddly painted mannequin on the balcony of the apartment above the café.
Then, when I got inside of the café, I set my stuff down and went towards the restroom. I opened the door and surprised a little old man who apparently didn’t know how to work the door lock. I was horrified. I quickly closed the door as he started peeing on the wall in shock. SO embarrassing.
I then sat back down and recognized a nearby gay couple. They were at this Dunn Brothers cafe the last time I was here, last September.
They are an odd couple, not only because one of them looks like Tracy Morgan, but because they had one those “status of the relationship/our feelings” conversations that is WAY too intimate for a crowded café. It was gloriously awkward, and my friend Mike and I were amused.
So of course, five months later, I run into this same couple in the middle of the very same awkwardly intimate conversation. Déjà vu!
A hearse pulled into the parking lot as I left the cafe.
There was blood (hopefully) painted on the back window of the hearse, which was driven by a soda-toting hipster who I’m pretty sure lives in the naked-mannequin apartment. Somehow that’s not surprising.
We had a mannequin as our floor mascot in the dorms one year. The freshmen found it in South Beach, brought it back to campus in cab, and clothed it with stolen clothes from the laundry room. It rotated from room to room, and was pretty random, and fun. I kinda want a mannequin now…
My favorite Dunn Brothers cafe in Minneapolis is the Freighthouse. It is built in an old freighthouse and has a great upstairs loft.
It is also close enough to school that I can pop over during lunch, but far enough that I don’t have to worry about running into other law students.
I study at the Freighthouse often, and the hot baristas have nothing to do with this. Really.
This is why I usually have a coffee tumbler:
I’ve been a coffee-soaked law student for over a year now, so I just shake off the dark roast from my copy of the tax code and I’m ready to go.
Note: Best Week Ever (BWE) posts are a summary of the prior week.
This week had a surreal vacationy feel. It was like spring-break minus the nice weather.There was Trivia, yarking drag queens, dancing, and intense pool tournaments.
On Friday, I somehow found myself at a house party in the exurbs. There were about 8 people, but I only knew Jack. After an unsuccessful game of Categories, Jack’s friends separated into small groups and started bickering.
It was a chaotic scene that felt like an episode of The Real World because the partygoers kept interrupting their trash talk to give me back story as if I was one of the confessionals.
The hostess and her boyfriend fought mostly because he didn’t like her tone, which she couldn’t control because she was drunk. They were too crunk for Jesus to communicate properly, so there was a lot of running around to separate rooms, screaming, and dramatics.
One guy kept rattling on about his most recent trip to jail, and another girl spent a hour telling me an epic story about her evil Russian stepmother. The girl’s stepmother stories apparently enraged one of the partygoers who started mumbling dark threats and eventually went up to the girl and shouted, “NO ONE LIKES YOU! WHY ARE YOU EVEN HERE? NO ONE WANTS YOU HERE! YOU’RE A BITCH!”
This happened as she stood near the hostess’s awkward apartment-mate, who spent most of the evening by himself playing shoot-em-up video games. The gamer and I exchanged a look like “oh snap, thank god we aren’t involved in this….”
Aside from my social activities and Real World cameos, I also worked on my days off from school.
Apparently this is what I look like when I get a securities regulation case at work:
I really like my job, but I hope that if they hire me after graduation that my coworkers won’t wear hot pink skinny pants. Amber was so shocked by the pepto bismol pants on Friday that she sent me an emergency text. It was glorious.
I spent most of my non-working time this weekend cleaning and doing homework. Today I went to Dunn Brothers to study for corporate tax, but I failed to notice that there were no open seats until after I ordered my coffee. So I chugged the coffee and went to the Purple Onion, which is closer to campus.
The cafes immediately surrounding campus aren’t busy at the beginning of the semester since the undergrads are still doing more drinking than reading. They complete the transition from bars to books about a week before finals, so there is room for me for majority of the semester.
The last major thing that happened this week was the end of the relationship.
The cattle call started once my “single” status hit people’s facebook streams – dozens1 of casual friends who barely kept in touch while I had a boyfriend are suddenly coming out of the woodwork and are desperate to “hang out.”
I am like the 10-year old girl who is suddenly popular because she is the first one in her class to use a training bra. I feel suspicious and harassed essentially for the reasons stated in this post.
Over the coming weeks I will weed out the true friends from the fair-weather suitors. We’ll see how that goes.
1 Literally, dozens. My inbox is full. You’d think Beyonce was on auction or something…
First, I had the mildly annoying situation of my coffee gift card reading as if there is only 31 cents on it when the online balance is $49. The balance should be about $93 because I put $44 on it yesterday… anyway, that is NOT the drama keeping me from my tax reading…
The drama was Flem, the crazy, coughing man who was speaking REALLY LOUDLY on his phone and engaging in total overshare. Here are some gems:
Flem: “I cough, and I cough, and I cough. I live in a homeless shelter with about 40 other men and I am the loudest cougher in there.”
Flem: “Wait, I have another call coming in…yes sir. Yes. Yes sir. Well let me put you on my reject list…”
Flem: “…and I was riding my bike, all 230 pounds of me, and I crashed on the sidewalk and cracked my rib…”
Flem: “I’m living with a bunch of negros. At the homeless shelter it’s all negros. And I’m not a fan of the blacks. And no, they can’t hear me – I’m on the white part of town.”
Flem: “Things are rough here in Minneapolis. I just sold my last food stamps for $30.”
Flem: “I am taking all my medications, I’m doing all the right things…I keep my pajamas and flipflops there, I have my own uh…”
Flem: “I keep thinking I’m dying of some incurable lung cancer because it hurts so much…”
So I am sitting here exchanging smirks with the people around me. I love that this man sold his last food stamps but had a working cellphone with a headset. One of the Baristas did not appreciate Flem’s black-comments and asked Flem to leave.
Barista: “Um, excuse me sir. Can you please leave? You are bothering customers.”
Flem: “Okay, I dig it. I dig it.”
Barista: “Uh, thank you.”
The Barista goes back behind the counter and Flem changes his mind and goes ape-shit:
Flem: “BUT WHAT ABOUT WHAT FREE SPEECH? IS THERE NO FUCKING FREE SPEECH AT DUNN BROTHERS?! HUH?”
Barista: “DUDE! Get out of here!”
Flem: “No! I will not get out of here! The police won’t come before I get here! Blacks are niggers! NIGGERS! I know because I live with them!”
Barista: “DUDE! Shut up and leave!”
Flem: “NO I WILL NOT LEAVE! I WILL STAND HERE! CRACK CULTURE SUCKS! BLACK CULTURE SUCKS! EVERYONE IN HERE IS WHITE!”
Flem turns up the volume. He’s throwing a full out fit. Everyone gasps. The scene is charged and totally awkward.
This man is literally standing in the doorway, head raised at the sky screaming like a toddler having a temper tantrum. This was ten types of crazy. Hello Minneapolis!
Flem eventually left. I am just glad I am by the back door so I can dash out when Flem comes back with a gun…
Just had an odd exchange at the Pelli Library café.
Me: “May I have a large coffee with room for cream?”
Barista: “Sure. That’ll be $2 please.”
(I hand him my Roast Masters card)
Barista: “Does this have money on it?”
Me: “I hope so.”
Lady behind me (muttering): “Smartass.”
I turn around to find a squat woman smirking at me. I shoot a nasty glare and turn back to the (horrified) Barista, ignoring the commentator.
Barista: “Uh, here’s your card. It has $12 left on it.”
Me: “Thanks.”
Dunn Brothers’ Roast Masters card is a modern punch card. You get a free bag of beans or drink with every $40 you spend.
It’s also a gift card. I put money on it so my bank account isn’t littered with $2.09 coffee charges.
It’s slightly annoying when a Barista asks me if there’s money on the card. I’m not pulling out another card or cash…so, I hope there’s money on the Roast card because otherwise we have a problem…
Can you imagine being asked if there’s money on your debit card before it’s even swiped?