Category Archives: toledo

stand in the place where you live

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Working Remote

While my son was attending The Inventive Artist camp this week at The Toledo Museum of Art, I spent my mornings working from Black Kite Coffee, just a five-minute drive away. I’d never done the working-from-a-coffee-shop thing, but plenty of people love it, so I figured I’d give it a go… instead of driving to the Art Museum and back twice daily.

A+ would do again! Black Kite has fantastic coffee, food, ambiance, and staff!

On Monday, I ordered up my usual Americano with Splenda and attempted to camp out at a hi-top table with backless stools. That worked out for about half an hour before my 45-year-old body started to protest. Once I finished my 16oz Americano, I moved to a normal table with chairs and ordered a cinnamon roll (lower left in photo).

I decided to order a different drink every day after that, focusing on Black Kite exclusives like the Ohio Honey Lavender (HIGHLY recommend), the Aztec Latte, the OWE (Old West End) Latte, and the Peachy cold brew. I also tried some foods from local purveyors of deliciousness, including the Earthen Dragon Bakery and Vegan Taste Toledo (whose Samoa Bar I had already tried at another local coffee shop and OMG YES vegan desserts can be awesome).

Super grateful for being able to support Black Kite Coffee this week.

P.S. The spider plant on their front counter had 6 or 7 babies hanging from it on Monday. By the time I left on Friday, there was only one remaining.

P.P.S. My Memaw always said that plant starts grow better if you pinch them off and take them without asking. Just sayin’.

pandemic, the ongoing saga of my job, toledo 1 Comment

Back Downtown

Since Connor is attending a science camp downtown this week, I decided to request a temporary cube and work from the actual office instead of driving to and from downtown twice every day. Most of my team is now permanently remote, and the few of us who will be going back in-person a few days a week need to wait until our floor is fully renovated in September.

Facilities sent me a layout diagram and marked the cubes I could choose from, so I picked the cube closest to my boss’s boss. That totally paid off, as I got a tour of one of the renovated floors that’s identical to what ours will look like when it’s done. It actually looks… workable. But we’ll see.

Over my lunch break, I enjoyed an iced coffee outside (and finally used some of the birthday coffee funds from N)!

After work, I walked across the street to pick up Connor from camp, then we slogged through the heat and humidity to get back to the parking garage. On the way, we saw this great view of the High-Level Bridge, framed by the Junction building, and Connor convinced me to take a picture.

So… the last time I actually worked a full day downtown was October 2020. It surprises me to say, but it was satisfying to be back in a more formal work environment after working from home for so long.

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Road Closed

[Taken June 22, 2019 at 10:24AM]

I took my son to Imagination Station the same day the pedestrian bridge across Summit St. was coming down. You don’t often get to stand in the middle of the road in broad daylight, much less get to watch a bridge come down, piece by piece.

Today, not only is the pedestrian bridge gone, but most of the front lobby of Imagination Station has been demolished in preparation for the Discovery Theater.