Tribute To Shutdown Lifted
My friends and I met up at Peets Coffee shop in Alameda as we did a mini tribute for their welcome back to work after 43 days of patience and hope. I believe that was the longest shutdown so far and hope it remains lifted. We had some coffee and pastries to warm up the morning. Relax a little and have conversation and enjoy laughter. It’s funny how the line in Peets starts in the peak early morning’s weaning down 30-40 minutes later as customers order. It does happen at various times and then it quiets down a bit. Later on, around 10am-ish the line starts again as people fill up seats, stand around by the counter waiting on their drinks as the barista mixes the latte’s, cappuccino, and mocha’s. Customers have just a simple coffee with creamer while some just have it black. Peets coffee shop is a welcoming environment filled with happiness drinks.
My personal best is a mocha with oat, very simple. My friends have their latte’s while one of them just drinks hot tea. There’s four of us that meet up every month just to stay in touch and remain connected to the world outside of personal and family stuff. Us women like to just chat about how our week went, and how they coped with the shutdown, how they got by while waiting patiently for the house to make decisions and how it affects personal life, what issues we’ve experienced and how the work around it went financially. Two of us has a partner and two of us is single and we’re just all content with our lives. I’m the only government worker who works for the State, while two of them are Federal workers. My point being, I wasn’t affected by the shutdown since I was still working. Many State employees don’t always have the same holiday off that Federal workers do. Federal workers were shutdown, not State government workers. A lot of people from private industries sometimes don’t understand that or just unaware of it.
It is my hope my girlfriends enjoy our meetups as much as I do and that we continue and grow as the weeks and months progress by keeping in touch. It’s nice to have a friendship outside of work and a personal life as it is therapeutic. We build camaraderie, share common interests, hobbies and just having conversation about family. With everything going on in the world around us, it makes it all better. We understand, laugh together and build each other up, so tribute again to the Federal shutdown having been lifted.