Category: coffee

Coffee

You ever take the first sip of your morning coffee, and think that everything about it is so perfect and fantastic that you feel like you’re a pool of coffee for a moment?

Yeah, me, too.

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Friday’s Theme Music

Volcanos erupting in Japan and Indonesia, threats of missiles being exchanged between the U.S. and North Korea, Black Lives Matter, voter right suppression, Russia-gate, white supremacists, gun control arguments, protests, the Weinstein scandal, war refugees, Pacific Northwest and California wildfires and destruction, the Hurricane Maria disaster in Puerto Rico, hurricane and earthquake disasters in Mexico, hurricane destruction in several other American states, plans to build a wall on the southern U.S. border, the President threatening freedom of the press, the Vegas mass killer….

Contemplating it all over coffee brought to mind Billy Joel’s nineteen eighty-nine song from “Storm Front,” “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” He covered the headlines from nineteen forty-nine, when he was born, until the year the album was released, but the fire goes on.

At least, it feels like it on this cool, autumn morning in twenty seventeen.

 

 

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His Dark Secret

His dark secret wasn’t that he disliked coffee. Nor was his dark secret the revelation about how broke he was, or how he collected cans and bottles from the streets and did odd jobs to have the money to buy a four-shot mocha at the coffee shop every day.

His dark secret wasn’t that how he worked for the money and spent it on coffee every day because he liked flirting with the young women who worked behind the counter. Neither was his dark secret his admission that his coffee shop visit was his day’s only highlight, and he looked forward to it each morning. No, his dark secret, that he didn’t share even with himself, was that they were the only friends he had.

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The Air, the Fitbit, the Writing, the Dreams

Our outdoor air sucks. Need more?

Smoke from wildfires is filling our air. The Air Quality Index leaped to one hundred fifteen last night. DANGEROUS. It hasn’t been hot, only into the nineties. We open the house at night to cool it off, and then close the blinds and windows during the day. Opening the windows last night sent us into coughing fits as wet smoke smells wafted in. Eventually, we donned masks.

Today isn’t as bad. The A.Q.I. is in the fifties, and officially, moderate. Visibility remains down. It’s like a white-out beyond a a few hundred feet.

All this wildfire smoke has reduced my Fitbit activities. Walking is way down, to five miles a day average. It’s not as critical as many other issues resulting from wildfires. None of the fires are directly affecting our community. We feel for all those being evacuated in those areas, and appreciate the firefighters’ efforts. If this stuff is terrible for me, a guy in his early sixties who considers himself in good health, those with emphysema and other respiratory issues must be deeply suffering.

I took to the Orson Scott Card method for visualizing and organizing the novel in progress. O.S.C. talked about just drawing places, like a city, and then adding details. With each detail and area added or defined, entertain questions about why those areas and details exist. I’ve done this exercise before, with excellent results. I wasn’t disappointed this time.

I had been editing the novel’s first draft. Halfway through that process, I perceived a problem. A new ‘greater arc’ was required as the solution. I could be wrong, but this is how I decided to address the issue. It’s essentially an epic. I like epics. Bigger is better.

This was decided over a four day period. Then, after deciding it was necessary, I went on a reading sprint. I finished reading two novels, and read two others, in five days. I also read fiction stories and news articles online. This reading stimulated my writing juices and invigorated my writing dreams. I found myself re-committed to who I was, and what I was doing. It’s a matter of taking a deep breath, turning on the computer, and putting the ass in chair, and the fingers on a keyboard.

This new arc takes place on a planet where technology fails. An outpost is established using outdated technology. Suddenly, it’s like living in a frontier castle. I loved that difference in direction from my usual challenges of visualizing the far future and other intelligent races.

I drew the outpost on my computer, and brainstormed about how the lack of technology affects them, and solutions and work-arounds. The team living in the outpost are hunting for people, but can’t use their suits or vehicles. They fall back to horses. Having horses adds more problems and dimensions.

So do the powerful windstorms endured on the planet. That’s why the outpost becomes a castle; something stout enough to survive the windstorms are necessary. That’s the iceberg view of all the scenes, problems, and challenges realized. I don’t want to give away more. Drawing and brainstorming in this manner was a catalyst to my imagination. I scrambled to capture ideas an create an event timeline. It resulted in *shudder* an outline. 

As an organic writer, the outline overwhelmed me. Suddenly, there it all was, this part of the novel mapped out in all its complications and key events. I could imagine, see, and hear them. Writing them was required. It’s daunting for an organic pantser. I decided I would scramble to write key scenes and moments, and patch them together with bridge and pivot scenes, and build the story in layers, much like I used to do when oil painting, or writing a business case, or analyzing data.

I think that whatever opened my creative floodgates also turned the dream valves to full open. I had six remembered dreams last night. Friends from my past were featured. My wife also made an appearance. Of course, maybe it was the eclipse opening the dream and creativity gates. Who can say?

Trying to capture details this morning diverted personal resources already earmarked for other activities. I resorted to dream summaries. The dreams were wild. Once again, my muses were prominently featured. They were attempting to guide and assist me in different manners. Sorting the chaos was a fascinating exercise.

Having your muses show up in my dreams injects high confidence levels. I felt empowered and emboldened when I awaken. Yet, being me, the confidence evaporates to more normal levels by midday. Having your muses and some higher beings populate your dreams and offer encouragement has a good thing. I’m certainly not going to kick them out.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time. How about you, writers? Have you seen increased creativity? Maybe it is the eclipse.

Or maybe it’s the coffee.

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The Beer Tree

I was with a friend at a concert last night. He drank a Bud Light while I enjoyed a 10 Barrel Apocalypse. He always drinks Bud Light.

Cool for him. My beer buds don’t align well with Bud Light. I find it too thin, and lacking in depth and flavor for me to claim as a regular, or even to have in my rotation.

I contrast this with my Wednesday night experience. One of the BoBs regularly brews his own, and brought a couple bottles for us to sample. He called it an Imperial IPA. From his description, it sounded like a double IPA. However you reference it, this beer was fantastically smooth and flavorful. He’d bottled it in May, so it was just under two full months old. I’d expected high I.B.U.s and hoppiness, but neither were present. With an A.b.V. of eleven point two, it had a kick.

What impressed me that night was first, his explanation of the ingredients, and how he brewed it. Next, another friend’s insightful questions about where the hops were sourced and other factors surprised me. In retrospect, it seemed like he’s contemplating brewing his own.

As I do when drinking beer – or wine – I became contemplative. I ended up contemplating beer over my coffee this morning. My coffee choice is much narrower than my beer choices, but it’s evolved to that point. For my morning coffee, I like a French or Italian roast, without milk, cream, or sugar. For my writing session, I prefer a four shot mocha.

For beer, I have a choice tree. I prefer dark beers, so they dominate my beer tree, but my beer choice depends upon the food, event, and offerings. At the top of my list are Imperial Stouts. They usually deliver a significant kick, so they’re not often chosen. Dropping down the list, I’ll look for stouts and porters, followed by ales and I.P.A.s, Pilsners and lagers. Besides enjoying dark beers, when sampling one of the others beer variations, I’ve discovered I like citrus overtones, especially grapefruits. I don’t usually like fruity beers, but this year, I enjoyed several delightful beers with watermelon. I’m not surprised, as I enjoy buying and drinking watermelon juice.

And yes, I like my beer cold. I’ve tried it warm, several times (you know, to get a data set), and I prefer cold beer with a moderately small head. As an aside, I’m not fond of coffee in beer, unless it’s in an ice cream float. A coffee flavored stout with vanilla ice cream on a hot day is a damn fine dessert.

The thing with all of this, as with so many things, is that our individual choices are unique, and our reasons for reaching them are often more complex than the thought we give to them. While I give my beers a lot of thought and like to taste from a large swath of samples, because you never know what might impress you, my buddy preferred his Bud Light because of its light flavor, low alcohol content, and the lack of need to think about which beer he’ll drink, and whether he’ll enjoy it.

Which is why I’ve made the coffee choices I’ve made.

 

 

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Major Finding

After completing a personal test, I can confirm that drinking black, unsweetened French Roast coffee while eating a prune IS NOT a satisfying combination.

I can’t vouch for other coffees, nor say whether sweetening the coffee has an effect.

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