On vacation for nine days, and thought I'd try to detox myself from an ever-increasing vice...
But after about, oh, 24 hours or so?, I wonder how anyone can function, let alone enjoy life, without coffee.
Had to find my way to coffee gradually in the early 90's, and I still can't drink it black (much to my embarassment). But started out mixing it with hot chocolate packets back in my Maybelline days, and gradually weaned the coco out of there. Still only an occasional fling though... Became a nice way to spend my lunchbreak at home catching up with Steven (while he was still waking up to begin with).
Until the new generation of coffee shops came along, including a cool new one on Main Street in Memphis. Started stopping in there on the way to downtown clients to get those yummy lattes (and it's not like I hadn't been a caffeine addict since 7th grade, when Coca-Cola became my fundamental dietary staple). Eventually, started stopping in there on the way out of downtown too. And that's when a fundamental new reality became impossible to ignore.
Those lattes were about three bucks apiece, which meant it was time to bring the technology in-house.
Thus began about ten years of my espresso habit. (The process of learning the process has come to mind lately because Ovais has just bought his first espresso machine himself. My first machine was very cheap and difficult to operate, so it was quite a learning curve for me. His Krup is fortunately much better than my old off-brand was.) Enjoyed how to make taste lattes and cappucinos for my guests, but ultimately settled on "lazy man's lattes" for myself. Didn't bother to steam the milk, and just poured four hot shots onto my sugar and then added 12 ounces of milk and ice.
Two of those four-shot lattes a day was my fix for years: one in the morning, and then one when I came home from work. Would gulp that latter one down and then take a quick nap, waking up energized for the evening. Course, in Lexington, I was also a guzzling fixture at Common Grounds, which seemed liked unnecessary money to spend for its own sake, but a reasonable social cost. I still thank heavens for that place helping me settle into a city full of strangers. (I lament that it's lost the social ambience that made it so ideal at the time, but at least it was there when I needed it.)
Once I moved here, an espresso machine was my highest priority. Bought a combo coffee pot/espresso maker on my second night here (and thereby quickly felt reasonably "at home"), and ultimately burned out two of them. But the second one was never used for espresso actually. Reflecting the real twist of this tale.
Even longer than coffee, I've been surrendered to a caffeinated soda habit. First obscene quantities of Coca-Cola for the last quarter of the 20th Century, then Mountain Dew once I moved to Lexington in 2001. (Don't really know why I switched, but the intake level was about the same.) Coke, of course, became rather less tasty after the industry switched over to hydrogenated corn syrup in 1989 - have always bitterly resented them for that.
So imagine my surprise when I moved here, and found Coke made with sugar again! And in the ten-ounce glass bottles! It was like a new fountain of my own youth. (Had already remembered the original taste very distinctly.) Ironically, Dew made with sugar is far too sweet for me. But with Coke back in action here, quickly found myself struggling anew against the heavenly elixir. Not like I didn't know it was bad for me. Which led to a conscious experiment that has mostly panned out well.
Decided (I guess about two years ago now?) to switch back from my iced lattes to proper cups of coffee. I'd finally found a bean that I really liked - Starbuck's Mocha Java - and the rationale was that drinking a pot of coffee for two or three hours was probably 12 times less sugar than the same timeframe of Cokes.
Mocha Java is only seasonally available, so I brew with espresso bean most of the time. It's tasty too. But lately as two pots a day has crept up to three, I've been wondering if it was getting out of hand.
Until today, when even 24 hours without made life seem very drab indeed. I recall the angst all too clearly: how do people live like this? (It does, however, help me understand why people watch television. No wonder!)
Seems we've all got our vices. Mine seem to correspond to Frank Zappa's. I can think of worse comparisons.
And, notably, the fundamental plan did work. Often go days at a time without soda now, despite a case of those elixir bottles in my fridge at any given time. Think of them now like most people would think of beer, cool and nice after a long day. But only an occasional indulgence, no craving.
So I suppose I'll just try to pull back to two pots a day for the moment, if I still want to get any work done.
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