Reflecting On A Bright New Day

The night before I'd been sitting at the next table when Carol walked up, threw her arms around my neck, and we exchanged cheek kisses. She then went inside, but soon reappeared coffee in hand, sitting in the same seat as I'm occupying in this photo. Monkey was at home and Monkette was sitting on the table. Carol used to work here as a barista, but had been off at college in California for the past few months, and she was back home for the holidays.

About the first thing out of her mouth was "Are you going to sue AT&T for stealing your idea?" I asked her how she'd found out about it. "I saw the commercial on TV and the first thing I thought about was that they were using a Monkette look alike and copying your blog idea!" She went on to tell me that she followed the blog every day, and had turned on a bunch of her friends to it as well. Monkey and Monkette had fans in California! After a few minutes of catching up she said that she was sure we'd see one another again while she was still in town, and yes, she had my cell number and my email, but she had to leave, people to see and places to go. Another hug and cheek kiss, then she and Monkette waved at one another as she drove off.

Monkey and I got up bright and early. We needed our coffee and we needed to talk strategy. Jon Sinish had sent me an article from some learned medical publication about how good coffee was for you, that it should be consumed black because milk products nullify some of the beneficial chemicals in it, and decaffenated coffee loses most of them in the process of removing the caffeine. It increases brain function and delays the onset of Alzheimers, amongst other things. They suggested drinking at least six cups a day. Monkey was thrilled to hear that. Prior to this he'd only heard the "It'll stunt your growth!" mantra. The article said there was no truth to that. I did tell Monkey that those little cups he uses were probably equal to two cups for a little fellow like him.

We decided to follow up with the email exchange with Jon Sinish about finding a New York intellectual property attorney, try to make a list of people who'd seen the commercial and made the blog connection, visit area business, etc. We finished our coffee and headed back to the house. We had people to see and places to go.