Maia's business cards

There's this little deli in Ann Arbor called Zingerman's.  We go there a lot.  A lot.  Coffee, real bagels (not round loaves of bread like Lender's--barf!), occasional sandwiches of the lunch or breakfast variety.  Smoked salmon.

Our celebrity sightings at Zingerman's (everyone in Ann Arbor has a list): Clive Owen, Ed Norton, Mario Batali (many times), Courteney Cox and David Arquette, almost Anthony Bourdain and Ryan Gosling, and a totally random one described below.

Maia's been going there her entire life; her first visit to Zingerman's post-birth was at about ten days old.  Eli was sooner--I think he might have been three days old.  That's not counting the visit or two that I paid to Zingerman's during my two days of labor-before-labor.  Before Eli was born, the Zingerman's staff had offered, seriously, to deliver a sandwich to the hospital or to our house after his birth.  Zingerman's doesn't deliver!  (Well, not usually.)  This little anecdote serves as a nice segue into the story of Maia's business cards.

Maia makes quite an impression there, and she seems to consider the deli and the Next Door coffee shop as an extension of our house.  It's part of Maia's Ann Arbor domain.  She's been placing her own orders since she was about two, and she strolls around Next Door and greets the other patrons in a way that might, sometimes, be a bit too much.  We've had to ask her to take it down a notch.  She fancies herself an employee there sometimes and once, while she was clearing a table, the 1980s actor (and now director) Emilio Estevez helped her with a sandwich basket.  (Random.)

She frequently chats with Zingerman's co-founder and co-owner Ari, who asks her pertinent questions about school and Harry Potter and her books and art works and whatever else she might be focused on at the moment.  She always looks for Ari at his table in the back of the coffee shop and is genuinely happy to see him.  A couple of months ago, it came to our attention (via a request for how to spell our last name) that Ari was planning a surprise for Maia.  We didn't know what exactly it was (we'd heard "business cards," possibly) or when it would arrive, and due to the fact that Ari runs a multi-million dollar business, we would not have been at all surprised if it didn't come to be.

We should have known better, because we've totally gulped down the Zingerman's Kool-Aid and we know how they do things, and we know that their affection for our kid is genuine and real.  Of course Ari would do it, and it would be awesome.  The cards are fantastic: covered in rainbows and depicting a flying unicorn and the deli building with slightly demented looks on their faces!  Maia's portrait is drawn in Zingerman's style at the top, along with her title:  "Maia Genisio, CEO-in-training."  

We were all surprised and genuinely touched, I think, and Maia's thrilled.  She's handing them out with aplomb.  She gave one to Ms. Mariann today at school, and one to her best friend, Lia.  

Here is Maia with Ari, both holding up their Zingerman's business cards:

From Early March