The Run Away Business Meeting

In light of recent events, Mona and I decided we needed to have a business meeting.

The way this business meeting came about, is the same way most business meeting happen...

I went home on my lunch break and I found Mona sitting in our living room with her bags practically packed telling me she's running away RIGHT NOW!

Me: Can we wait until I get done with work to run away?

Mona: Well, I was going to run away without you, but I was to lazy and now you're here.

So, I got out of work early, we canceled our evening plans, cashed in our coin jar ($83 dollars!), downloaded a playlist, and hit the open road.

We rocked out to Nero/Skrillex 'Promises' and set out on our path for Milwaukee.

We ended up in the Historic 3rd Ward District. Super cute area of Milwaukee we have never been before. It has lots of cute little shops and restaurants!

Our "business meeting" was held at the wonderful Cafe Benelux. I loved the look and atmosphere of this place. The food was unique and good!

www.cafebenelux.com

We had  the pork belly satay, sesame cilantro slaw, peanut sauce, for an appraiser and then we split the  sprocket, which is a burger on a baking pretzel bun with bacon, cheddar, duck fat fried egg, garlic aioli, and tomato jam. We also had the traditional frites and the sweet potato frites along with the roasted garlic and red pepper aioli dipping sauces.

Wonderful!

I wish we had places like this were I'm from. It was very inspirational setting for our meeting.

We talked about where we are and where we want to be when it comes to opening our own coffee shop. And getting out from under The Man or in our case The Man-dy.

The ways things have been going with our coffee boss, Mandy, right now, is highly motivating. It's forcing us to kick start our own shop into high gear.

One of the tricks I learned in business school is to set a definitive and measurable goal. Using numbers and deadlines.

So, our goal is to save $60,000 and open our coffee shop by the end of 2015.

We are going to have to save 2,500 to 3,000 every month for the next two years to reach our ambitious goal. It's going to be a lot of hard work and cheep meals, but we can do it!

We both have two regular jobs. We both get tips. We both dogsit.

I am going to start donating plasma again and try to sell some of my artwork.

Mona is going to find more paying gigs for her music and she is going to try and win jingle contests (she already has a few in mind).

Once our lease is up we are going to move to a cheaper apartment.

We are going to completely get rid of our TV bill by cutting even basic cable and cutting down our electric bill by making sure to shut off lights.

And we are going to eat as many meals at my parents as we can without them realizing what we are doing.

We are going to save every possible penny. 

After dinner, with our stomachs full and our goals set, we took off for the Miramar Theatre on Oakland Ave to hit up their Tuesday open mic night.

There were quite an assortment of musicians and poets.

One skinny, nerdy looking white kid unexpectedly wrote rap lyrics.

Another rapper (obviously rap is popular in Milwaukee) reminded us of how Tom Haverford from Parks and Recreation and how he would act if he tried to rap.

One musical looper was having technically difficulties so he tried to do a comedy routine. Not good.

And a poet was talking about vaginas and whores fairly explicitly and then apologized several times afterwards for if he offend anyone.

You could say the experience was interesting. 

Mona was by far the best person to preform and I don't say that due to bias because she is my sister or the fact that I helped write the music.

At first she was a little thrown because she had never played on an actual stage with lots of bright lights and all before.

Afterwards she said she didn't know how to act because she couldn't see the crowd and get people's reactions, so she felt like a fool.

I, of course, agreed with her 100%.

No, she did an awesome job and even gained a few new fans!

By this time it was after 10, and being the party animals and expert runner away-ers that we are, we headed home and went to bed.