3468 Caffeine and NJ country squire living

Thursday, February 16, 2012

What part of “Thou shalt not kill” don’t you understand?
-- God --

-----------------------------------------------

I mentioned a while back that I'd had some dreams lately of a very unusual nature. Like, very sexy. And I wondered why.

I'd forgotten something from long ago, 48 years ago. When I was in college, you could buy pills in the campus bookstore that would help you to stay awake to study. They were super caffeine.

I tried them a few times, and discovered they were no help. I stayed awake all right, but I was swamped by very sexy daydreams. My libido jumped to the top of the scale. I even started eyeing the 75-year-old security guard on his rounds. Definitely not conducive to studying.

It's the caffeine!

I never used to drink coffee until I discovered vanilla creamer. Now I have a few cups every morning. But, it's a mix of half ordinary instant coffee and half decaffeinated, and I make a three-cup pot using about as much coffee as one would ordinarily use for one cup. So I didn't think I was getting that much.

On the evenings of the interesting dreams, I'd had a pot late in the evening.

Hmmm. Next time The Man drifts by, I think I'll treat him to some caffeinated Silk. Not that I need an aphrodisiac when he's within reach, but it could be interesting anyway.

--------------------------------

Last Sunday I went to a Meetup luncheon a bit south of here - six other women and me. One of the women was a realtor, and she was doing an open house that afternoon at a house in Wall that was listed at $900,000+. I'd heard that Wall was the snooty neighborhood. Three of us decided to attend the open house and check it out.

It looked nice from outside - a huge square two-story with a porch around three sides, and a patio and pool off to the side. It had a lot of windows, and huge rooms. It was apparent that a decorator had been engaged to do the window treatments. But after that it was a mess.

There was different colored carpet in every room, and the upstairs hall carpet was a tough industrial-looking gray berber which ended up clashing with all the different colors and textures at every door jamb. Rooms didn't flow nicely. Halls twisted. Levels didn't flow. It seemed like every 10 feet or so you had to go up or down three or four steps. The bathrooms looked very small and plain, like they'd bought the fixtures from my builder's leftovers.

The house didn't feel at all comfortable or happy. It looked ... well ... like a house divided into warrens where emotions would be hidden away. So many windows, but so little connection within. I wasn't surprised to hear it was on the market because of a nasty divorce.

It was a disappointment.

But I think maybe I would enjoy watching for more open houses in the Wall area.
.

3238 My strange relationship with coffee

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

A girl has to have a life goal before she starts dating boys, or boys become the goal.

------------------------------------------------

I read somewhere that coffee can contribute to the formation of kidney stones.

I have a strange relationship with coffee.

I like coffee ice cream, and chocolate covered coffee beans, and the Starbucks frappuccino that comes in the little bottles in the corner store (which doesn't actually taste like coffee).

I intensely dislike brewed coffee of any kind, and especially Starbucks brewed - it tastes burned, and too acid. I intensely dislike the smell of brewed coffee in the morning. It can make me feel sick. The simple smell will make my stomach roil and fill with acid. Extended exposure to the smell can cause diarrhea. That could have been a major problem when I was working. Luckily, I had a private office with full walls and a door, some distance from the coffee machine. After about 10 am I could handle the smell better.

So, do I like coffee or not? Some people say I like bad coffee and don't like good coffee.

Over the past three years I've developed a morning taste for very bad coffee. I have three cups of it almost every morning. I love my personal mix:
1 well rounded teaspoon of store-brand instant coffee (the usual for one cup),
1 super-heaped teaspoon of Coffee-Mate sugar free French Vanilla (enough for 1.5 cups of coffee),
3 cups of boiling water
Make it in a teapot.
Yummy. It's delicious, and has none of the bad effects on my digestive system.

So, if the doctor asks how many cups of coffee I drink per day, what do I say? It might be three cups, but it's the equivalent of one. And do I count the occasional orgy of chocolate-covered coffee beans?
.