I knew it was going to be one of those days.
When I wandered down the hall this morning, still half-asleep, my plan was to start the coffee maker, hit the bathroom, then have a large cup of coffee while watching/listening to The Today Show. Simple enough, right?
My daughter, M.H., had bought me a new coffee maker for my birthday. It was greatly needed and appreciated, as the old coffee maker was nearing the end of a messy death. Let's just say that boiling water in a tea kettle, then slowly pouring it through the coffee filter and hoping that the heating element under the coffee pot just doesn't quite cut it. The old coffee maker was six years old, quite a bit longer than most of my previous ones had lasted.
The new one is bright red and works well...as long as I remember to do things correctly.
This morning, I got up, filled the pot up in the sink, poured water into the maker, put the pot in the dish drain (The dish drain? you ask; yes, the dish drain; I'd wanted to dry off the bottom of the glass pot before putting onto the heating element, and didn't have a dry towel around.), then ground the coffee beans, put them in the filter, plugged in the maker, turned it on, and headed down the hall. (I hear what you're thinking: You didn't say anything about getting the pot out of the dish drain. Yeah, I know.)
So, I'm down the hall, getting ready to brush my teeth (morning breath; yuck!), when I hear my youngest utter an expletive, followed by, "Hey, Mom, the coffee!"
I hurried out to find coffee all over the place. The filter had filled to the top, then overflowed. (The top of the pot presses against the bottom of the filter area, which releases the coffee into the pot. But one must remember to put the pot where it belongs - which is not necessarily in the dish drain.)
Good thing I'd planned to do some laundry today, since I used up a few dish towels cleaning up. The second pot went a little smoother...
My family has a few coffee stories, as well as stories dealing with being a little klutzy. So, here goes.
M.H., B. and G. moved here from Rhode Island, where coffee is the state drink. In most places, schools offer kids a choice of regular or chocolate milk (or have in the past); Rhode Island kids get a third choice: coffee flavored. Even M.H. says I drink too much coffee.
True coffee story: My dad loved coffee every bit as much as I do, which is no doubt where I picked up my love of it. Mom was (and still is) more of a tea drinker, and I tend to drink a lot of that, too. But Dad and coffee...
Whenever Mom's parents came to visit for the weekend, there was usually one night reserved for hitting up a nice restaurant. Sometimes they'd bring us kids along, other times, it was just the adults. But the complaint was always the same: "John and the coffee."
See, it went like this: After being seated and handed menus, the waiter or waitress would ask what everyone was drinking. Dad, Mom, and Grandparents would all get coffee. Mom and her parents would nurse that one lone coffee through much of dinner, with occasional sips of water. That one coffee a piece created all sorts of havoc: Mom, Grandma and Grandpa all knew that sleep would be evasive that evening.
Dad, on the other hand, had a cup of coffee with the menu, another helping with the appetizer, a third and forth with dinner, another with dessert, and, finally, a last one after dessert. Wired for sound, right? Wrong! When everyone got home from the restaurant, Dad would sit, yawning, in the living room with everyone else, trying to make small talk. Invariably, though, within half an hour, he'd be upstairs, sound asleep, the coffee having had no effect on him. Mom and her parents, though, would be awake until at least 1 or 2 a.m. from their one cup of coffee!
Note: Anyone having been in the University of South Florida St. Petersburg's Florida Studies program knows that no matter how many words are added to the phrase True Story know where the phrase comes from. I hope Gary Mormino is enjoying his retirement!
Another true coffee story: When I was still driving cabs, I got a call to take someone to Tampa International Airport. Before picking the person up, I grabbed a large coffee and Boston cream donut from a nearby Dunkin' Donuts. After dropping the man off at T.I.A., I decided to swing through the Ybor City section of Tampa, since I had a friend who lived there.
I drove along the main thoroughfare (7th Avenue), but didn't see her. So, I stopped at the coffee place that was on 7th Avenue, went inside and got a large hot mochacchino. According to the person serving this up, it was an espresso, dumped into a large cup (so there were maybe several servings of espresso in there), with chocolate added to the mix, and topped with whipped cream. I'll go with that description. Drank it down, then got a large iced mochacchino to go. Got to the cab, started to leave, and Voila!, saw my friend. I honked, she waved, I did a U-turn and chug-a-lugged my iced caffeine rush before getting out of the car.
We hugged, then went back into the same coffee place to talk over - you guessed it - large hot mochacchinos. The server raised an eyebrow as he served us, no doubt wondering how sleep deprived I'd been - or would be. This time, we each added a large brownie (one for friend, one for me). The things had to be 2 inches on each side and 2 inches high, then topped with chocolate syrup, whipped cream, a scoop of ice cream, more chocolate syrup, and topped with a cherry. (As Paula Deen might admonish, we have to get our fruits and veggies in somewhere!)
Then, as we got ready to leave, I grabbed another large iced mochacchino to go. Fortunately, there'd been a shift change, so it was a different person handing it over.
By the time I got back to the Pinellas side of the Howard Franklin Bridge (a.k.a. the Frankenstein), I decided I'd best get a plain old large coffee from Dunkin' Donuts before pulling onto the nearest cab stand, where two other drivers were sitting, talking, while waiting for calls. (One of the two was my friend Kevin.)
"Hey, Robin, how's it going?" the other driver asked. And I was off and speed-talking.
"Well, seeIgotthiscallthatwenttoTIAandthenIwenttoYborandIgotsomecoffeeand..."
Kevin and the other driver's eye kind-of widened. About the time one of them got a call, though, I'd hit the caffeine wall. Anyone familiar with vinyl might know about 33s and 45s; there are those of us who remember seeing 78s and 16s. Let's just say that at first, I must've sounded like a 33 being played at the speed 45 or 78 (think Alvin and the Chipmunks), then, after hitting the wall, sounding more like a 78 played at 33 or 16...
"Wow, I think you'd better steer away from the coffee for a day or two," Kevin offered as he drove off for his next call. He might've been right.
Another coffee story: By the time Dad had married my step-mom, I'd started sending pans of fudge as one of my Christmas presents to Dad and P. They both kept an eye out for the package: Dad was ready, willing and able to finish most of the pan of fudge with a pot of coffee, while P. was prone to dole the fudge out a piece or two at a time. (Does that coffee-and-chocolate thing sound familiar?) I'd inevitably get a call from Dad the day the package came, when I'd hear which way it had gone.
True (tea) story: My mother, whose maternal grandparents immigrated from England, was more of a tea person than Dad was. If there was cause for celebration, fix tea; if someone needed cheering up, fix tea; if someone felt a little under the weather, fix tea; if...well, you get the idea. I can't begin to count the number of times I'd be home sick and would be given a cup of tea and toast.
One rainy afternoon, Mom's mom came to visit. She lived maybe a fifteen minute ride from us and would frequently bring homemade oatmeal or peanut butter cookies.
This particular rainy day, I was home sick; I was definitely on the mend, but, since it was rainy, Mom had decided to keep me home, while sending my sister A. to school.
While Mom stood watching out the door for A. to get home, Grandma poured both of us another cup of tea, pushed the plate of cookies toward me, and told me about her one brush with fame:
When she was eight years old, she and her parents lived in Denver. Half-way through the school year, Grandma's teacher informed the class that the following week, she'd bring a friend of her's to class; her friend was none other than Buffalo Bill Cody.
The day before Buffalo Bill was to come to class, Grandma stayed after school to tell her teacher the news: she had found out that morning that her parents were moving the family back to New York; they were leaving by train the next morning. Grandma was heart-broken: she loved her teacher, who apparently very caring with the children, and she was going to miss meeting Buffalo Bill Cody.
At 6 the next morning, Grandma sat on the train as her parents handed the porter their luggage. She was lost in her thoughts when she heard a familiar voice say her name as a hand touched her shoulder.
"Lillian," her teacher said. "I have a very special person who said he wanted to meet my student who was leaving for New York."
Grandma turned to see her teacher, who had gotten up extra early to see her on the train. Beside her teacher was none other than Buffalo Bill Cody himself!
I went back to school the next day. And while I've met many people over the years, some famous, some almost famous, most just ordinary people, I still feel that tea will cure an upset stomach (especially if it's with toast or cookies), that coffee is wonderful, and that both are tied to an occasional quirky story.
At 2 in the afternoon, I wonder if it's okay to put on another pot of coffee...
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