Sunday, December 04, 2005

Coffee Snob

Somewhere along the line I became a coffee snob. 
When I lived in Colorado, I hardly ever drank coffee.  When I did I usually added a packet of hot coco or laced it with sugar and milk.  I had only been to Starbucks once, it was a novelty out there, and thought it was good but not really worth the three bucks.
Apparently all of that has changed for me.  I’ve become a coffee snob. 
On my last trip to CO, mom brought coffee with her.  Freshly roasted whole beans that we hand ground Thanksgiving morning to make some very wonderful coffee.  The smell was dramatic and the scene was like a commercial.  There was my Grandfather, in the kitchen cooking breakfast.  There’s my mom, talking to Grandpa and I and taking the freshly ground coffee from the hand grinder to the pot.  And there I was, grinding coffee.  We stood in the kitchen, well used over the years, in the half light of morning chatting and making coffee.  Really, it is what memories are made of.
But back to the issues at hand…
The next morning mom and I were not so quick to rise and Grandpa went back to his normal Folgers.  I thought, well okay.  At least I don’t have to grind more coffee by hand.  Yeah.  I’m pretty sure the coffee gave me a stomach ache.  I wasn’t completely sure, but I decided it must have been since the next morning my brother and sister-in-law also served me Folgers and I had the same reaction.  I decided then that it must be true.
I am a coffee snob.
I am so glad to be back in Washington, where the nearest coffee shop is only two blocks away.  The coffee girls are so nice and they make coffee with such love.  I have a Starbucks in my building and two just outside (one to the northeast and one to the southwest) There are coffee shops every where you go.  I was really excited for Monday morning, to know that Freeman would be getting up (it was his turn to make breakfast) and make a fresh pot of coffee using freshly ground beans.  Ah, the joy of coffee.

Friday, December 02, 2005

So it goes…

Not meaning to be dramatic or anything, but this week was pretty, well, dramatic. 
It didn’t have to be, it just ended up being that way.  But it was dramatic in a low key, slowly everything is going out of whack kind of way.
Monday was Monday.  I said a couple of things I really wanted to take back and knew I couldn’t so I felt a little crappy about it.  Not much I could do but berate myself for the rest of the day.  (hence the post about nothing nice to say and wanting to rant on Tuesday.) Plus Monday was catch-up day for those of us that decided to take a holiday around the holiday.  I went home exhausted and didn’t sleep well.
Tuesday was more of the same at work.  Class Tuesday night was uneventful.  Uneventful in that I refused to read aloud what I had written earlier in the week.  Mostly because I was reading it over and thought, “well this is nothing but crap.” And was to embarrassed to read it.  I was embarrassed to have written it.  I’m embarrassed that I turned it in for the teacher to read it.  The only thing I figured out was how the evil guy is killed and that my character has nightmares.  Really creepy ones.
Tuesday afternoon they took my hard drive at work.  Mine was drying and they came to take it away with the promise that I would have a new one Wednesday. 
Wednesday morning came, and went. The guy finally showed up about 9 to install the new hard drive (after calling me at 8 and telling me he would be right over…) We had a fire drill (whoohoo!) so he took off before it had finished installing.  Um, okay.  So I sat down, logged myself in and got ready to work.  Only it didn’t work.  And the guy didn’t actually leave me a number to get a hold of him.  Yeah.  So, after making a couple of calls I finally got the guy.  Here’s what he said, “Yeah, it must be a bad hard drive.  I had some errors when I was installing it, but I just kept going anyway.  I’ll be back later with a new one.” Yeah.  That was at 10:30.  He did show up later, at 3:30pm.  Uh huh. 
Meanwhile I got nothing done.  Nothing. 
Then yesterday I was sick.  Not head cold sick, not flu sick, but sick of work.  Sick of being tired.  Sick of sitting at my desk and not wanting to be here.  So I stayed home.  And it snowed!  Freeman stayed home too (he was actually a little sick, for real) and we had a great day.  We watched a movie.  We had a fire and drank warm drinks.  I baked brownies and he made soup for dinner.  And it snowed.  It was beautiful!
Today is Friday.  After working on it all morning I finally have my computer up and running again.  Now I just have to figure out how I had it all set up so I can recreate it.  It’s not snowing anymore (at least not here) but it is rainy and cold.  I’m ready for a nap, instead I think I’ll work on my homework a little…