Tree Climbing Season

This one doesn't really have anything to do with coffee. Just some idle musing between sips...

Springtime. When my older daughter was 1, spring was Doodlebug-Picking Season. She must have been just the right height, toddling on those newly minted legs, to spot the roly-poly bugs wherever we went. She'd crouch in the rock garden outside our apartment door and pick one out from between the rocks, then wait patiently for the rolled-up doodlebug in the palm of her hand to feel safe enough to uncurl and explore, its teeny legs traversing her hand and her chubby fingers, its antennae waggling this way and that. How many times was I too impatient to stop and gaze with her? How many doodlebugs did I make her put back in the rock garden before going inside?

When she was 3, spring was Acorn Collecting Season. Anywhere she walked, she'd stop to pick up handfuls of acorns. We'd find acorns in her pockets when running the wash. We'd get to the car, and she'd show me the four or five acorns she had gathered on the way from the front door. She wanted me to keep the acorns in the front seat until we got wherever we were going, but would usually forget about them by the time we got out of the car. Rather than have the front seat turned into a granary, the repository of the acorns, I usually tossed them out into some bushes the first chance I got. And whenever I picked her up from daycare, she'd give me a few acorns she had collected on the playground that afternoon. "I got these for you, Daddy!" If I had kept all of the acorns she'd given me, I'd have a barrel full of them now.

Now she's 10, and I realized yesterday that this spring marks Tree Climbing Season. On the walk home from school, she eyeballs every tree in every front yard, calculating the reach to the first branch, scrutinizing the strength and thickness of the branches above, declaring whether each tree is a good climbing tree or not. When we go to the park, she runs past the playground equipment and heads straight for the trees. And, for now, she still looks to me to be the keeper of the trees. Not that I can take the trees home as I could with acorns or doodlebugs, but I can help hold the moments for her. "Look, Daddy, look how high I got!" And I think I finally learned not to throw these back.

Fill 'er Up

When it comes to refills, I'm a "yes" man all the way. I try never to respond "no" when a server asks, "More coffee?" To say "no" would be an insult - not just to the server or the good host offering the coffee, but to the Fates themselves. You would dare to reject this wonderful, open gesture? You might just as well burn a winning lottery ticket, turn away from true love, thumb your nose at world peace. To say "yes" to more coffee is to say "thank you" to the universe.

Happy Hour

Dropped by my new favorite neighborhood coffeehouse yesterday, Black Hole Coffee, for Happy Hour. Yes - Happy Hour in a coffee shop. It's just about the greatest idea ever. (Though I might also contend that every hour in a coffee shop is Happy Hour.) Monday-Friday, 4pm-7pm, free coffee with the purchase of a pastry or brownie or some such item (free coffee? those are two of my favorite words, right up there with incognito, serendipitous, and riboflavin).

So I got the brownie, which was really more like brownie cake, the size and shape of a slice of apple pie on my plate. Or like the brown Arts & Literature piece for a really giant game of Trivial Pursuit. Sat down with a book (Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian; highly recommended), a cup of coffee, the enormous brownie. It was OK (how can a brownie not be at least OK?), but there was something odd about it. Some flavoring that one doesn't usually encounter in a brownie. I couldn't put my finger on it...but I eventually put my tongue on it. Between my teeth, that is - I put my tongue on the odd flavor by extricating a foodbit from between my teeth: bacon.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like bacon as much as the next guy. But in a brownie? Please. Don't mess with my coffee, and don't mess with my chocolaty dessert treats. Shouldn't there have been a warning on the brownie, at least for vegetarians? (Not that I'm a vegetarian myself, but I'm trying to rally some allies in the fight against the bacon-brownie.) Next time, I'll play it safe with the blueberry muffin.

Philosophy of Coffee Time

The first thing you should know is that I'm a coffee lover, not a coffee snob. Coffeehouse coffee, diner coffee, donut shop coffee, gas station coffee, taco truck coffee, courtesy coffee in the lobby of the bank, kitchenette coffee in the office of your insurance agent... Any coffee, anytime, anywhere - that's my motto. The best cup of coffee is the one right in front of you. Each sip is a celebration, a pause out of time, a moment just to be. So pour yourself a cup, friends - because anytime is the right time for javatime.