Random Observation

I was told recently that I was dehydrated.

I don't see how that can be. My coffee maker holds about a gallon of water and I go through that every day.

:)

The Morning Ritual

I am not a morning person, as many of you already know. But, as I have children, I have to get up early whether I like it or not (NOT!). To save a lot of strife so early in the day, there is a ritual that the girls have known since infancy.

And now you are so unlucky as to get a peek at it:

Bedhead, or, why I don't go to bed with my hair wet.

Jeezus Edith! Do NOT ask me to do algebra in my head before I have coffee.

Strike that. Do not EVER ask me to do algebra in my head.

Seriously. Not yet. Fine, yes.
Luke Skywalker can come to dinner.

You know the rule! Two cups! Mommy needs two cups of coffee.
Wait . . .

No really. Wait!

Almost there. . .

All better!

Mwah!
Time to go and scrape out the curls!

Confessions of an Ex-Peet’s Girl, Or: I Heart Philz

My near-obsessive love of coffee came a bit late, which may surprise those of you who assumed that my mother put café au lait in my sippy cup.

In college, I didn’t have extra money to spend on the good stuff, so the coffee was whatever was on sale and the pots of it I drank while waiting tables. In other words, not exactly the finest. There was the occasional splurge at Mischa in Old Town, Alexandria, VA. But it was Thomas who introduced me to Peet’s Coffee. Having lived in the Bay Area for a couple of years, he had become addicted enough to make sure that he received a steady supply once he'd moved to the East Coast. It was not a luxury he was willing to give up.

And then we moved to California and there was a Peet’s within walking distance of our house. The Starbucks was closer but, as Hannah once told a barista there, “Mommy doesn’t do Starbucks.” (She was three years old.) Both Hannah and Charlotte spent not small-ish amounts of infancy and toddler-hood smelling of freshly brewed coffee.

Charlotte’s pre-k is two blocks from a Peet’s. While she was still adjusting to preschool, I’d skulk outside the door for the five minutes it took for her screams to fade away, beat a hasty retreat to the end of the typically long line at Peet’s and then vulture for a table where I could work for a couple of hours.

Being a tad predictable in my coffee habits, I always ordered a non-fat café au lait and a plain croissant. After two years of this, one of the guys at the counter, Mike, started to just ask “café ole with a croissant?” But as the wait for a table got longer and longer, I began to think about finding a new place. And then my friend Elisa told me about Philz Coffee, which had opened down the street.

Philz is an independent coffee shop, founded in San Francisco in 2003. They have five stores there and have finally branched out, with cafes on the peninsula (Palo Alto), in the South Bay (San Jose), and the Easy Bay (Berkeley). I’m lobbying for another in Redwood City. There are currently 20 blends to choose from, which may seem intimidating at first, but the staff are able to suggest a coffee blend based on your usual coffee drinking habits. They also take care of the cream and sugar, so ensure a perfect cup of coffee. Oh, and if you don’t like it, they’ll make you something else.

I felt guilty about it at first, almost as though I was cheating on Peet's. But now I spend a bit of time at Philz, and as soon as I walk in, they ask if I want large Ambrosia. Yes, yes I do. Low-fat and no sugar, right? Yep. One day I’ll branch out, but for now, I like that someone knows what I want. Even if it’s “just” coffee.

The only problem I have with Philz, at least the Palo Alto cafe, is that if you have a Mac you generally can’t get on the network—free WiFi isn’t exactly helpful if you can’t access it. But I’m not going to blame this on my new favorite coffee shop. I’ll blame it on AT&T instead.

If you’re not fortunate enough to live in the Bay Area, order a pound or so. You won’t be sorry.

Random Request

Let's say that you're waiting in line at your local coffee shop.

Emphasis on "Coffee Shop."

It is not a pharmacy. HIPAA does not apply. The person in front of you is not giving out sensitive information and, in most cases, will not mind if you overhear an order for a nonfat soy double latte, or anything else on the menu.

It's a coffee shop, not a bank. You do not need to stay behind some invisible line and wait until the Next Available waves you over.

Rather than force the line behind you out the door, please, move up. Really, it's OK. And if someone gives you trouble, tell them to talk to me. Especially if I'm waiting, un-caffeinated, in a cold rain.

A Sign of the Apocalypse?

Starbucks announced today that they will close 600 stores in the U.S., plus scale back the number that had been slated to open. That's 600 fewer chances for Hannah to tell random baristas that Mommy doesn't like Starbucks.

In somewhat related news, I have yet to receive my shipment of coffee from Joffrey's Coffee and Tea. Neither has Thomas. And yes, I'm outing them now--I think I've been very patient and waited long enough. But if you like--they're more than happy to give you 25% off your first purchase! Email me and I'll send you the promo code. But don't hold me responsible if your order never arrives.

Where’s My Coffee?

Recently a coffee company ran a promotion offering bloggers a pound of coffee in exchange for information on coffee consumption and, hopefully, a blog review. Given my little problem, I jumped at the chance, happily forking over information on my coffee-drinking habits: How often do you drink it? (Daily) How much per day? (2-4 cups; often more) How do you take it? (With a little milk) Do you drink flavored coffee? (Not if I can help it) If you could invent a flavor, what would it be? (Chocolate tequila. No really! I’ve had a fantastic white chocolate tequila truffle from Gearhart’s Chocolates in Virginia. Try one--they deliver!)

The coffee never came. Which I didn’t realize until last week, when I received an email to update me on the promotion results. They had compiled all of the answers and thoughtfully included a brief note to the effect of “If you haven’t yet received your coffee, don’t panic! It’s on the way!” Which sounds very much like “The check is in the mail.”

I haven’t written them off yet, but I'd think they would be more interested in a nice review of their coffee rather than a not-so-nice review of the company. The coffee wasn’t actually free after all; it was payment for marketing research.

How to Spot an Addiction

Most of us, if we're honest, have at least one addiction. I have at least three:

Caffeine: Here we have the usual symptoms: headache, slight tremor (I said it was an addiction!) and incessant yawning.

The day of Thomas’s triathlon, I was so worried that there wouldn’t be enough parking that I most reluctantly drove past the only Peet’s I’d seen for miles. My reward was a half-empty parking lot and all of the above-mentioned symptoms. I had no caffeine until Thomas had finished the triathlon and grabbed a Red Bull for me. My first. If it weren’t all sugar, I could easily see getting hooked on that—I felt all sparkly after the first, so of course I had a second. I hear there’s a diet version . . .

Chocolate: See above, minus the yawning, add in extreme daily craving.

I grew up a Catholic and, every year, I would give up chocolate for Lent. And every year I would fail. Perhaps subconsciously I knew that I was not, in fact, a Catholic, though a friend of my mother’s tried to convince me that I would make a marvelous nun.

I’ll wait until you’ve finished laughing.



So how bad is the chocolate addiction? Trader Joe’s sells chocolate covered edamame. I saw it for the first time yesterday and, after my initial “Eeww,” I went back and considered. After all, I’ve never had chocolate covered edamame. And it was Chocolate Covered. In the end I decided against it, but not so much because of the Eeww factor, but because I still have a perfectly good box of chocolate covered espresso beans.

Hockey: See above.

I love hockey. Especially playoff hockey. I was in the crowd when the Sharks lost the season opener to the Calgary Flames. It wasn’t great, but it was OK—six games left, and we got to rip the officiating on the way home. The Sharks won game two. But when they lost the third game after blowing a three-goal lead (all three scored on the first three and a half minutes of the first period), I literally felt sick. Not as sick as after the 2004 elections, but sick. Game four, the Sharks scored two goals in the last five minutes for the win. The final goal came with 9.4 seconds left in the game--and when you're curled up in a miserable ball of anxiety lest the Flames score again and send it to overtime, 9.4 seconds feels like an eternity.

I don’t know what I’m going to do when the season is over.

Thank god they don’t make chocolate-covered hockey pucks.

Do they?

The Weekly Dammit, #12

Dammit #1:
I've been so busy writing that I don't write anymore. Anti-dammit: I really like this project, and when I'm writing for someone else, it's much easier to stick a deadline.

Dammit #2:
I worked 30 hours last week--in addition to my day job. Literally. Most of it was at night after the girls went to bed. I've found that the combined gentle snores of a Great Dane and a husband pretending not to sleep in front of the TV create a very effective white noise.

Dammit #3:
We have a new coffee maker, one which has achieved near-deity status in our house. No more brewing a pot at a time, hoping that Thomas won't make it slap-you-silly strong again. Now I just set it the way I like it and push the button. One perfect cup of coffee at a time. And then another and another . . . And one slightly more than perfectly caffeinated mom, jittering through her day. (I'm not sure if this is an actual Dammit, or just gloating.)

Dammit #4:
There's a new kids show on Nickelodeon that was touted as the one show that parents would actually like, too. To this I had to ask, "WTF were you watching when you wrote this article??" (The article I was actually reading the one time we saw the show.) Seriously, there were only two things I liked about Yo Gabba Gabba: 1) It was only on Noggin once--to preview before they moved it over to Nick. 2) I didn't actually have an ice-pick in my hand with which to jab the memory of it from my head. I almost feel as though I owe Barney an apology.