Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Speak freely, just not stupidly
I read an article on the internet today about an elephant that had killed its handler; it was a small story, no more than 10 lines, not many details since the family hadn’t been notified. The article itself made me a little sad since I know that most of the animals kept in captivity have had horrendous lives and occasionally they turn on well meaning people trying to take care of them. What really got to me though were the comments listed below by others that had read the story. Tell me what does the species of the elephant have anything to do with the political climate of today? In another story recently where a police officer had been shot, a person had wrote that we should be celebrating the day because a “pig had been sent to slaughter”; or another where a young woman was brutally beaten and raped by an older family friend, and again there were comments celebrating the act and pushing for more acts of the same kind.
I know the internet is for the most part a nameless faceless place for people to voice their opinions from the comfort of their desks; it can be empowering to know that your “message” is out there for all to read if they want to (me included in that). So here’s my two cents for all the idiotic people that think that just because they’re nameless and faceless on the internet, that your message is still wrong. Your argument is flawed, and just because you were smart enough to find a computer and type the words out on the screen does not mean that you have an informed opinion on the matter.
I actually appreciate more the people that are trying to sell things in the comments, like you can get 50% off if you go to this website, or I got a message about a family member that was trapped in a foreign country, please help me send money; because they at least are upfront about their sale – they’re like the sleazy car salesmen of the internet. But why for goodness sake would you comment about anything you don’t know the whole story on, twist the message around to whatever convoluted point you want to make, basically drop a word bomb then casually slink away back under your rock to strike out again at something later.
Don’t get me wrong, I have read some of the most heartfelt comments under the articles, people who genuinely care about the story and the people in it. I have seen debates back and forth from the readers arguing both sides of the message and thought they were brave and informed on both sides of the matter – something that I applaud and think is so very wonderful about the digital age. And I know there are people out there that tell me to not read the comments and then I won’t be upset, but that’s just turning a blind eye to the matter in general.
So where does that leave me? Well in the same spot I was before I started writing this morning, this afternoon I’ll be back out to check the news and weather, I’ll scroll to the bottom of the page to catch the first few comments and will either be astounded at the stupidity and cruelness of the world at large, or renewed in hope by the love and support poured out in some ones words. Free speech and our right to it abounds in the digital age, but as my grandmother always said, if you don’t have something nice to say, at least sound smart while you’re saying it.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Grief healing?
Next week marks the 2nd anniversary of my father’s death. It’s truly amazing how time can move so slowly with some things and so very fast with others all culminating over the same time frame. This year I’m trying very hard not to think about all of the hurt that still creeps in on family events, or the sudden realization of loss when trying to do some mundane task. I want to try and work through some of this and be in a happy place as I think about him. My dad could be a mean SOB when I was growing up, I’m the product of 2 failed marriages and one happy one, I have 2 older step-sisters that had either moved out before my parents got together or lived with their mother, so by the time I came into the picture my dad wasn’t really up to raising another snotty kid or teenager. For a time it made things very hard for my mother and I, but when I moved out on my own and starting having children things slowly changed between my father and I. Sunday dinner – a mainstay at my mothers house for many years, found me in the kitchen talking with my dad and learning about some technique for cooking our meal. He would show me how to use a certain knife, or explain why it’s so very important not to use soap on your cast iron. He would offer out new ideas and food to expand my idea of what home cooking and really good cooking could be. Some mornings I would stop by on my way to work unexpectedly and he would get up from his crossword puzzle to make me a breakfast he deemed fit for me, instead of the coffee and snack bar I had shoveled down before I left my own house. It’s funny they always had eggs, cheese and some sort of bread to make an omelet and toast no matter what was going on with them in their daily lives. Many have told me I have my twisted and dark sense of humor from him, both of us found Fargo to be a hugely funny movie. And one of the best compliments I’ve ever received came from my dad a few years ago after cooking a birthday dinner for my mother. “You know Sarah, I really don’t like coming to your house to eat, it seems I’m eating the same food I cook at home”. A culinary feat for me since I had worked hard, from the time I got my first set of pots and pans, to mimic the taste and texture of some of my dads favorite recipes. In the kitchen of my parent’s house, I learned about many things over the years, joy, heartbreak, politics, humor, I told my parents I was pregnant for the first time, sitting across the counter while my dad made dinner, and years later that I was getting divorced – with tears of anger and regret. For any of you that knew my dad, you’ll know that I can’t really repeat any of the things he said to me during those encounters, but I’ll let you smile and lovingly remember on your own, how truly colorful he could be. But, I’ll tell you the truth today, not one of my very fondest memories of my dad are anywhere else but in the kitchen, no matter how good or bad things were in our lives, no matter how much he liked or disliked you at any given moment you knew that once he got in front of that stove and started crafting together a meal you would be entertained, taught something new and above all loved through what he was cooking for you. I only hope that, as my girls get older they will learn that from our kitchen as well, so that the legacy of Grandpa Chuck can continue for many generations to come.
Charles Ray Koscinsky
1937-2010
Charles Ray Koscinsky
1937-2010
Thursday, April 12, 2012
It never fails
I realize in my life that I might create a little drama of my own from time to time, and if you ask one of my dear friends at work he’ll tell you I’m a drama queen, but, what I have discovered in my life recently is that I may not be the creator of all of my drama, unfortunately someone close to me – be it husband, ex, mother, children or dogs, and if it’s close enough you get sucked in like a vortex of emotion and bad acting. In addition to that, when the drama does come on, it’s not a trickle from a stream; it doesn’t come up and ask, “Hey, is this a good time for me to tweak your world for a bit?” No, it hits you like a bad storm – wave after wave of mind numbing information and emotion that you must process and react to instantly and, with as much tact and grace as you possibly can.
Case in point – This last week was supposed to slow down for us a little bit, we had finished off March Madness with a bang, no more Jr. NBA for the younger child and no more high school games for the older one. I was truly excited about this because it was going to give me my Friday nights and Saturday’s back – I for some reason volunteered to run the Snack Bar for all of the home games, it started off innocent enough just for the Volleyball season that somehow moved into basketball, and then for both the women and men’s teams, then for the elementary kids on Saturday as well. I digress. For some reason my husband and I decided it was the right time to put our puppy into obedience training, not really for obedience but for the social skills they get from playing with other well mannered dogs and the only date available that was convenient for the both of us was….you guessed it Saturday. In the middle of all of that the younger daughter loves softball, and for reasons unknown to anyone that doesn’t love softball that means we have to be at games on Tuesday’s, Thursday’s and of course Saturday’s, sometimes all 3 in one week too. Her first game was supposed to be when? Of course this last Saturday, But that’s not really where the chaos begins, this is just a little taste of what it’s like to have too many things up in the air all the time and only one adult that remembers all of the families schedules mostly in her brain but sometimes does have the forethought to put on paper or a Yahoo shared calendar. The chaos started on Monday when my loving husband called accusingly asking why the teenage was still in bed, I being a responsible parent thought desperately as to why the kid might be home at 1:30 on a Monday afternoon for the life of me couldn’t think of ANY GOOD reason, on top of that I leave so much earlier than the kids do that I couldn’t even tell him if she had gotten up to go to school or had just stayed home completely. Come to find out, there were parent/teacher conferences and she had half days all week before spring break, Monday night school meeting, Tuesday night School meeting, Wednesday I’m sure there was something but I completely shut down Wednesday evenings, just to have one evening of downtime. Thursday I couldn’t quite get up the energy to actually physically go to work so I stayed in my jammies and took conference calls from home all day, until (queue scary music) my grandmother calls to inform me that we will be moving Easter dinner to my house because my aunt who recently had hip surgery had some sort of infection and would need to go back into the hospital to get it cleared up. Then when my husband gets home from work he tells me Tara – our older dog had a hard time getting up this morning and limped around for a little bit before he left for work. By the time the evening was over, the dog couldn’t walk, my aunt couldn’t walk and I was feeling rather helpless on all fronts. Friday morning starts out with a trip to the hospital for my aunt and off the Vet for us. Updates for both parties happened around the same time, Auntie is fine, just a superficial infection at the incision she won’t need to have the hip replaced again (not that I knew that was on the table until someone had mentioned it after the fact), the dog seems to have pulled a muscle or slipped a disc in her back and needs to be on “bed rest” for the next week, along with taking an anti-inflammatory. I thought about this after the fact – how do you put a dog on bed rest? It’s not like they realize that what they’re doing is what’s hurting them, they just know they’re hurt. Saturday rolls around and the dog is worse, mostly our fault, I figured since we didn’t take any walks or go to the dog park we were doing ok – another trip to the Vet and they stress that we’re going to need to keep her crated as much as possible for the next week and absolutely no playing with the puppy! By this time we’re exhausted, I have to get my house clean for 35 people the next morning and I’m thinking good God it never fails. Just once I would like to have a weekend that didn’t revolve around trying to catch up from things that didn’t get cared for over the week, or trying to find new ways to resolve some random problem. To make a long story longer, we did mange to get the house cleaned, My Aunt made it home from the hospital in time to celebrate Easter with us personally and after a week the dog is starting to move a little smoother. As I’m easing into the end of the week I’m hoping that maybe this weekend will be just a little bit slower, I’m not really expecting it but would love to be surprised by it.
Case in point – This last week was supposed to slow down for us a little bit, we had finished off March Madness with a bang, no more Jr. NBA for the younger child and no more high school games for the older one. I was truly excited about this because it was going to give me my Friday nights and Saturday’s back – I for some reason volunteered to run the Snack Bar for all of the home games, it started off innocent enough just for the Volleyball season that somehow moved into basketball, and then for both the women and men’s teams, then for the elementary kids on Saturday as well. I digress. For some reason my husband and I decided it was the right time to put our puppy into obedience training, not really for obedience but for the social skills they get from playing with other well mannered dogs and the only date available that was convenient for the both of us was….you guessed it Saturday. In the middle of all of that the younger daughter loves softball, and for reasons unknown to anyone that doesn’t love softball that means we have to be at games on Tuesday’s, Thursday’s and of course Saturday’s, sometimes all 3 in one week too. Her first game was supposed to be when? Of course this last Saturday, But that’s not really where the chaos begins, this is just a little taste of what it’s like to have too many things up in the air all the time and only one adult that remembers all of the families schedules mostly in her brain but sometimes does have the forethought to put on paper or a Yahoo shared calendar. The chaos started on Monday when my loving husband called accusingly asking why the teenage was still in bed, I being a responsible parent thought desperately as to why the kid might be home at 1:30 on a Monday afternoon for the life of me couldn’t think of ANY GOOD reason, on top of that I leave so much earlier than the kids do that I couldn’t even tell him if she had gotten up to go to school or had just stayed home completely. Come to find out, there were parent/teacher conferences and she had half days all week before spring break, Monday night school meeting, Tuesday night School meeting, Wednesday I’m sure there was something but I completely shut down Wednesday evenings, just to have one evening of downtime. Thursday I couldn’t quite get up the energy to actually physically go to work so I stayed in my jammies and took conference calls from home all day, until (queue scary music) my grandmother calls to inform me that we will be moving Easter dinner to my house because my aunt who recently had hip surgery had some sort of infection and would need to go back into the hospital to get it cleared up. Then when my husband gets home from work he tells me Tara – our older dog had a hard time getting up this morning and limped around for a little bit before he left for work. By the time the evening was over, the dog couldn’t walk, my aunt couldn’t walk and I was feeling rather helpless on all fronts. Friday morning starts out with a trip to the hospital for my aunt and off the Vet for us. Updates for both parties happened around the same time, Auntie is fine, just a superficial infection at the incision she won’t need to have the hip replaced again (not that I knew that was on the table until someone had mentioned it after the fact), the dog seems to have pulled a muscle or slipped a disc in her back and needs to be on “bed rest” for the next week, along with taking an anti-inflammatory. I thought about this after the fact – how do you put a dog on bed rest? It’s not like they realize that what they’re doing is what’s hurting them, they just know they’re hurt. Saturday rolls around and the dog is worse, mostly our fault, I figured since we didn’t take any walks or go to the dog park we were doing ok – another trip to the Vet and they stress that we’re going to need to keep her crated as much as possible for the next week and absolutely no playing with the puppy! By this time we’re exhausted, I have to get my house clean for 35 people the next morning and I’m thinking good God it never fails. Just once I would like to have a weekend that didn’t revolve around trying to catch up from things that didn’t get cared for over the week, or trying to find new ways to resolve some random problem. To make a long story longer, we did mange to get the house cleaned, My Aunt made it home from the hospital in time to celebrate Easter with us personally and after a week the dog is starting to move a little smoother. As I’m easing into the end of the week I’m hoping that maybe this weekend will be just a little bit slower, I’m not really expecting it but would love to be surprised by it.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Quick pick
This last week my husband and I did something we rarely do, we bought a few quick picks, . I even went so far as to join a pool at work with 4 of my dear friends (although one only joined because if we did win he didn't want to be the one left out). I managed to make it to a store that didn't have one of the huge lines, and asked how we would go about getting quick picks, after a few looks of disbelief they pointed me to the front counter, I walked out with $25 for the pool and $10 for myself. When I came back into the office we made our copies talked very seriously about who would keep the tickets and where was the best place to store them, then we moved to the more important parts of conversation...What we would do if we won, I found out a few things about my friends that I didn't know that day and even more about my husband while we were driving out to dinner that night:
- everyone knows what they would do with a little bit of the money but not what they would do with the rest of their lives
- There's always a bit of money that goes to family and Charity - you know taking care of your parents and putting money away for kids college funds
- one of my more practical friends mentioned that we would need to probably get security for our children because once you claim your winnings it's on public record and you can't keep the whack jobs away after that
- 600 million dollars is a lot of money
- My husband and I have very different ideas about what we would do if we had lots of money
- I think he may be greedier than I am (and I do say this with as much love as I can after a statement like that)
- We all have different ideas about how much is enough money
We talked about what we would do first - Get a lawyer, then a financial planner. But then what? I figured we'd need to stay working for at least a little while because I'm sure Saturday morning they weren't going to start writing checks and you'd still have to wait until the bank opened on Monday morning to deposit it - I'm sure those large cardboard checks you see on TV do not fit into an ATM machine. On top of that the bank is going to want to put a hold on the money for a few days/weeks so they can earn some interest off of it before it actually goes into an account that belongs to you, and if your like me you don't have enough money to live on for a few weeks if your not working, while your waiting around for a check to clear. And again then what? I guess that's a question that only those that have won could answer, for most of us working Joe's we'll never truly know and for me that's OK, because even though I know we don't make enough to do all the things we want and sometimes even need to in our normal lives, I'm not sure that having all of that money would really fix any of the bigger problems we have and, more than likely they would just add on to what we already deal with. Of course I say this also because we didn't win the big money - Just $2, and it's easier to take the lofty high road in a situation like this so that your less than middle class existence seems better that it is, but just to make sure I know where I stand in the world, God or Karma made sure to remind me that we were due up for our every 6 month plumbing fiasco in our back bathroom and I finish writing this I prepare to put on gloves and grab a wrench to stand shoulder to should with my husband and continue to fight the good fight.
- everyone knows what they would do with a little bit of the money but not what they would do with the rest of their lives
- There's always a bit of money that goes to family and Charity - you know taking care of your parents and putting money away for kids college funds
- one of my more practical friends mentioned that we would need to probably get security for our children because once you claim your winnings it's on public record and you can't keep the whack jobs away after that
- 600 million dollars is a lot of money
- My husband and I have very different ideas about what we would do if we had lots of money
- I think he may be greedier than I am (and I do say this with as much love as I can after a statement like that)
- We all have different ideas about how much is enough money
We talked about what we would do first - Get a lawyer, then a financial planner. But then what? I figured we'd need to stay working for at least a little while because I'm sure Saturday morning they weren't going to start writing checks and you'd still have to wait until the bank opened on Monday morning to deposit it - I'm sure those large cardboard checks you see on TV do not fit into an ATM machine. On top of that the bank is going to want to put a hold on the money for a few days/weeks so they can earn some interest off of it before it actually goes into an account that belongs to you, and if your like me you don't have enough money to live on for a few weeks if your not working, while your waiting around for a check to clear. And again then what? I guess that's a question that only those that have won could answer, for most of us working Joe's we'll never truly know and for me that's OK, because even though I know we don't make enough to do all the things we want and sometimes even need to in our normal lives, I'm not sure that having all of that money would really fix any of the bigger problems we have and, more than likely they would just add on to what we already deal with. Of course I say this also because we didn't win the big money - Just $2, and it's easier to take the lofty high road in a situation like this so that your less than middle class existence seems better that it is, but just to make sure I know where I stand in the world, God or Karma made sure to remind me that we were due up for our every 6 month plumbing fiasco in our back bathroom and I finish writing this I prepare to put on gloves and grab a wrench to stand shoulder to should with my husband and continue to fight the good fight.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Save the Boobies
I feel sorry for my husband more and more, I don’t think he realized when we got married that he was entering into a world of “Girl Heck”. The oldest has always been strong willed and vocal about the atrocities in her life, but the baby has always been our “Little helper”, she’s the first one to ask if you need anything, if you’re having a bad day she’s the first one to give you a hug and tell you she loves you. Slowly though we’ve started see a little tarnish on her shine, she gets a little moody now and then, and recently she’s started stomping off when someone makes fun of her or if she gets a little embarrassed. Generally I would shake it off as her being a little tired but, as I watched her stomp to her room a few weeks ago I started to do the math.
- Mood swings – check
- BO – check
- Small patches of acne – check
- More time in front of the mirror – check
It hit me suddenly that my “baby” was definitely on her way to becoming a young woman. I mentioned this to my husband, who very promptly cut me off and told me there was no way that our little girl, was anything but a little girl. I tried to explain to him, that being a woman I would know the signs better than he, but that didn’t matter to him at all, as far as he was concerned it was bad enough that he had to go to the store for “womanly things” for 2 girls in the house he had no intention of adding a third for at least 5-10 years. I laughed at his math and told him she would be out of the house and almost 21 in 10 years but that didn’t faze him, she was the baby and if she knew what was good for her she’d stay the baby until he was ready for her to not be. I dropped the subject knowing there would be no changing his mind for now and didn’t think about it for a few days. But as all unfinished business must be attended to at some point, this argument was resolved sooner than my husband would have liked.
It happened after dinner on a rather benign evening while we were watching TV, the oldest had shoveled her food as fast as she could and had promptly retreated to her cave to do whatever Emo-teenagers do, with their radio’s blaring and their fingers moving faster than can be seen, texting her friends. The baby sat on the floor in front of me, half watching the show but more interested with a spot on her shirt. My husband as usual was sitting next to me, half watching the show and searching for things on the internet with his I-phone. Our of the corner of my eye I caught the child pulling her shirt tight behind her and shaking her head back and forth, then she would let loose and pull he shirt open to look down the neck, after a few times of watching her I asked what she was doing. She startled not realizing anyone was watching her, blushed, smiled sweetly said “nothing” and went back to pulling her shirt tight. As I watched her for a few more minutes it dawned on me that she had little boobs! And as far as I could remember until that moment she had never had them before, it was like she left for school flat as a washboard and came home with super bouncing balls hidden under her shirt. After my husband sent her off to the shower I confronted him with this new evidence, he stared at me silently for a few minutes and then said softly “You’re lying”. “If you don’t believe me, go look at her in the shower”. He got up quickly and sped to the bathroom, threw open the door and yanked back the curtain. I heard a small scream from the child and something mumbled from my husband. The shower curtain was closed and the bathroom door was quietly shut. Then I heard footsteps coming back to the room. My husband stood in front of me for a few seconds staring blankly at the wall behind my head. I waited patiently for him to gather his thoughts; he finally sighed and turned to walk out of the room. “Where are you going?”
“Too the garage, our daughter has boobs!”
- Mood swings – check
- BO – check
- Small patches of acne – check
- More time in front of the mirror – check
It hit me suddenly that my “baby” was definitely on her way to becoming a young woman. I mentioned this to my husband, who very promptly cut me off and told me there was no way that our little girl, was anything but a little girl. I tried to explain to him, that being a woman I would know the signs better than he, but that didn’t matter to him at all, as far as he was concerned it was bad enough that he had to go to the store for “womanly things” for 2 girls in the house he had no intention of adding a third for at least 5-10 years. I laughed at his math and told him she would be out of the house and almost 21 in 10 years but that didn’t faze him, she was the baby and if she knew what was good for her she’d stay the baby until he was ready for her to not be. I dropped the subject knowing there would be no changing his mind for now and didn’t think about it for a few days. But as all unfinished business must be attended to at some point, this argument was resolved sooner than my husband would have liked.
It happened after dinner on a rather benign evening while we were watching TV, the oldest had shoveled her food as fast as she could and had promptly retreated to her cave to do whatever Emo-teenagers do, with their radio’s blaring and their fingers moving faster than can be seen, texting her friends. The baby sat on the floor in front of me, half watching the show but more interested with a spot on her shirt. My husband as usual was sitting next to me, half watching the show and searching for things on the internet with his I-phone. Our of the corner of my eye I caught the child pulling her shirt tight behind her and shaking her head back and forth, then she would let loose and pull he shirt open to look down the neck, after a few times of watching her I asked what she was doing. She startled not realizing anyone was watching her, blushed, smiled sweetly said “nothing” and went back to pulling her shirt tight. As I watched her for a few more minutes it dawned on me that she had little boobs! And as far as I could remember until that moment she had never had them before, it was like she left for school flat as a washboard and came home with super bouncing balls hidden under her shirt. After my husband sent her off to the shower I confronted him with this new evidence, he stared at me silently for a few minutes and then said softly “You’re lying”. “If you don’t believe me, go look at her in the shower”. He got up quickly and sped to the bathroom, threw open the door and yanked back the curtain. I heard a small scream from the child and something mumbled from my husband. The shower curtain was closed and the bathroom door was quietly shut. Then I heard footsteps coming back to the room. My husband stood in front of me for a few seconds staring blankly at the wall behind my head. I waited patiently for him to gather his thoughts; he finally sighed and turned to walk out of the room. “Where are you going?”
“Too the garage, our daughter has boobs!”
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Coffee Snob
I recently realized I have moved into a different level of snobdom. I love coffee, and with that I love good coffee. I buy my coffee whole bean – not some prepackaged stuff you get at the grocery store, and certainly not something you pay less than $10 for 60oz.
I blame my mother, she started going to a local coffee vendor when she was a teenager, and it didn’t matter where we lived she would trek herself and anyone else that was with her up to Berkeley so we could get her coffee. As I grew up we didn’t have a coffee maker in the house we had cone filters and press pots and for a very short while a vacuum pot to make her precious brew. She would make it so strong I swear it would put hair on your chest and sober you up from a 3 day bender. When she would grind the beans in the morning the aroma would fill the house with the air of some far off land and when the hot water hit the fresh grounds you could almost imagine people outside being able to smell her brew.
As a teenage growing up in the Berkeley/Albany area we would sit at little coffee shops for hours and discuss very important teenage things, I remember thinking how “adult” we were sitting in the back patio smoking and drinking our coffee, heavily laden with sugar and cream. But at that time I didn’t really get it, even when I moved into my first apartment I bought myself a coffee pot and grabbed some ground stuff from the store just in case someone visiting would ask for a cup. I didn’t really get into drinking “good” or better coffee until I started spending more time at my mom’s house. We would have these large family gatherings and after the meal we would sit around and drink coffee and snack on whatever lovely goodie my mother had whipped up and visit. So I started to follow the crowd and would have a cup just to be like everyone else, in the process I realized that quite a few of our family and friends liked higher end coffees and different ones from my mom, and as they shared their favorites during our visits I was opened up to a vast variety of flavors and textures – I know strange right but there really is a texture to coffee.
So now here I am a full fledged adult with 2 kids a husband, a car payment, mortgage and a job that I’ve been at for longer than 5 seconds. I get up bleary eyed after far too little sleep and trudge my way to the kitchen to get my water boiling – yes I still have the coffee pot but that’s only for when I have more than 5 people over at a time. While I’m waiting for my water to boil, I grind my beans that of course have been sitting on the counter in an air tight container, with my very new Burr grinder – it is way better than the cheaper blade one I had been using for too many years. I pull out my oxygen cleansed paper filter – bleached puts a funny flavor in the coffee, add 2 heaping tablespoons to the mix and pour. On the weekends when I do this ritual everyone in the house knows not to talk to me until I’ve gotten at least halfway through the first cup and on the really bad not until I’ve started the 2nd.
Recently though I’ve had to add another cup in the afternoon or I won’t make it past 7pm before I fall asleep on my couch and since most school and family related functions don’t usually start until then I figure I should attempt to be at least awake for them if not actually coherent. I used to have the cup when I would get home from work but I’ve moved into an office farther away and have had to resort to buying from the cart downstairs or trekking over to my favorite coffee provider. After being her for 5 months I realized the toll on my pocketbook was not good and while I love my coffee provider, sometimes what they’re brewing isn’t one of my favorite blends or regions. I did try for a little while bringing my own in with a thermos but by the end of the day, you have lukewarm and slightly bitter coffee from “resting” too much. I thought about microwaving the water or the coffee once it was here but it really just didn’t taste the same, I tried drinking it when I got home but was up way to late and would just be that much more tired the next morning. So I decided I would just have to make my own at work, I bought a little electric tea kettle, an extra filter and cups, I ground up enough beans to get me through a week and then double bagged them to keep them as fresh as I possibly can and dragged everything into the office yesterday. Promptly at 3pm I got up from my desk headed into our “break room” - it has a sink with only cold water, a microwave, and 2 vending machines. I wiggled my arm and plug around the giant microwave and waited for the water to boil. A few people came in and out while I was waiting and gave me very strange looks – I’ve decided they were thinking about how smart I was for what I was doing, as opposed to how very strange it was to see a woman literally brewing a cup of coffee in a business office was. After preparing my coffee I dropped everything off at my desk and headed out to the patio to enjoy the view with my very hot very good smelling very tasty cup of coffee and my afternoon smoke – yes I smoke don’t judge. I sat in the wooden char and looked out over the lake, favorite coffee provider logoed cup in hand, watching the ducks swim and the leaves that blew by just like in the Pocahontas movie and thought, “Yes I think I may have reached a new level in my coffee snobbiness”, although at that moment I didn’t care because there’s nothing like a good cup of coffee and a nice view to make the afternoon better.
I blame my mother, she started going to a local coffee vendor when she was a teenager, and it didn’t matter where we lived she would trek herself and anyone else that was with her up to Berkeley so we could get her coffee. As I grew up we didn’t have a coffee maker in the house we had cone filters and press pots and for a very short while a vacuum pot to make her precious brew. She would make it so strong I swear it would put hair on your chest and sober you up from a 3 day bender. When she would grind the beans in the morning the aroma would fill the house with the air of some far off land and when the hot water hit the fresh grounds you could almost imagine people outside being able to smell her brew.
As a teenage growing up in the Berkeley/Albany area we would sit at little coffee shops for hours and discuss very important teenage things, I remember thinking how “adult” we were sitting in the back patio smoking and drinking our coffee, heavily laden with sugar and cream. But at that time I didn’t really get it, even when I moved into my first apartment I bought myself a coffee pot and grabbed some ground stuff from the store just in case someone visiting would ask for a cup. I didn’t really get into drinking “good” or better coffee until I started spending more time at my mom’s house. We would have these large family gatherings and after the meal we would sit around and drink coffee and snack on whatever lovely goodie my mother had whipped up and visit. So I started to follow the crowd and would have a cup just to be like everyone else, in the process I realized that quite a few of our family and friends liked higher end coffees and different ones from my mom, and as they shared their favorites during our visits I was opened up to a vast variety of flavors and textures – I know strange right but there really is a texture to coffee.
So now here I am a full fledged adult with 2 kids a husband, a car payment, mortgage and a job that I’ve been at for longer than 5 seconds. I get up bleary eyed after far too little sleep and trudge my way to the kitchen to get my water boiling – yes I still have the coffee pot but that’s only for when I have more than 5 people over at a time. While I’m waiting for my water to boil, I grind my beans that of course have been sitting on the counter in an air tight container, with my very new Burr grinder – it is way better than the cheaper blade one I had been using for too many years. I pull out my oxygen cleansed paper filter – bleached puts a funny flavor in the coffee, add 2 heaping tablespoons to the mix and pour. On the weekends when I do this ritual everyone in the house knows not to talk to me until I’ve gotten at least halfway through the first cup and on the really bad not until I’ve started the 2nd.
Recently though I’ve had to add another cup in the afternoon or I won’t make it past 7pm before I fall asleep on my couch and since most school and family related functions don’t usually start until then I figure I should attempt to be at least awake for them if not actually coherent. I used to have the cup when I would get home from work but I’ve moved into an office farther away and have had to resort to buying from the cart downstairs or trekking over to my favorite coffee provider. After being her for 5 months I realized the toll on my pocketbook was not good and while I love my coffee provider, sometimes what they’re brewing isn’t one of my favorite blends or regions. I did try for a little while bringing my own in with a thermos but by the end of the day, you have lukewarm and slightly bitter coffee from “resting” too much. I thought about microwaving the water or the coffee once it was here but it really just didn’t taste the same, I tried drinking it when I got home but was up way to late and would just be that much more tired the next morning. So I decided I would just have to make my own at work, I bought a little electric tea kettle, an extra filter and cups, I ground up enough beans to get me through a week and then double bagged them to keep them as fresh as I possibly can and dragged everything into the office yesterday. Promptly at 3pm I got up from my desk headed into our “break room” - it has a sink with only cold water, a microwave, and 2 vending machines. I wiggled my arm and plug around the giant microwave and waited for the water to boil. A few people came in and out while I was waiting and gave me very strange looks – I’ve decided they were thinking about how smart I was for what I was doing, as opposed to how very strange it was to see a woman literally brewing a cup of coffee in a business office was. After preparing my coffee I dropped everything off at my desk and headed out to the patio to enjoy the view with my very hot very good smelling very tasty cup of coffee and my afternoon smoke – yes I smoke don’t judge. I sat in the wooden char and looked out over the lake, favorite coffee provider logoed cup in hand, watching the ducks swim and the leaves that blew by just like in the Pocahontas movie and thought, “Yes I think I may have reached a new level in my coffee snobbiness”, although at that moment I didn’t care because there’s nothing like a good cup of coffee and a nice view to make the afternoon better.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Grief
I’ve been slowly working through the grieving process with the death of my father and have come across a few interesting things I didn’t know about myself and others I didn’t realize were as prominent as I had originally thought.
- I actually have a max capacity! I didn’t learn this until recently I’ve known at times I’ve been close but never actually hit that point until a few months ago. My brain and body would just shut down, I would find myself minutes later staring into space and unable to move my limbs.
- There is a bit of time before and after a traumatic event that you actually forget, almost like the pain of childbirth and maybe for the same reasons, I will have conversations with people about things going on right around the time my father passed and I’ll have no recollection of what I did or how I did it.
- With that it seems that you go numb for a bit as well. We have a very close family friend that’s suffering through prostate cancer, I’ve spoken with him, his wife and our family about the matter and where other are very moved by the ordeal I find myself almost blasé about it. It’s not that I don’t care or that I feel the experience isn’t worthy of an emotion, at the moment though I can’t seem to dig down and find it.
- And you become a little selfish, I don’t know how many times recently I’ve looked at my husband and told him “I just can’t”. I probably could muster up the strength to do whatever it is that was asked but I don’t want to.
- I am impatient about the time it takes to grieve, I told my boss a few weeks ago that if someone could give me a timeframe and tell me things would stop hurting so much (not necessarily get better, just stop hurting) it would help. He smiled at me and went back to his typing, we both know each person is different but the unknown horizon really bothers me sometimes.
Most of this is coming to a head because a coworker that had been ill for sometime passed away yesterday. Last year when everything started I felt so horrible for his family and after numerous late night phone calls I would cry on my husbands shoulder, sharing the burden of their fear and pain. Today though I can’t seem to place my feelings, I’ve been sitting at my desk on autopilot running through a few emails and checking on some projects but….I don’t know. I wonder how long autopilot works before things start falling through the cracks, how long can someone be an observer in their own life? Is this really a good or bad thing? I’ve asked many people this question and can’t seem to get a straight answer, a lot say “Give it time” a few stare at you blankly because they have not experienced the same feelings and a small number have told me “get off your butt and do something, it’ll make you feel better” After time, blank stares and running my butt off I can tell you no one really has any better answer than where I started.
But last week I had a few days where I didn’t give my dad anything more than a passing thought and when I realized it I didn’t feel bad about it. I took a deep breath, felt around the wound and realized it hurt less – not better but definitely less. And maybe that’s what the real answer is. There isn’t a date on the calendar that will designate the end of grieving for me, and the loss of someone else won’t sting more or less than the initial shock but maybe after a time I’ll realize that I do feel small things and if I work a little at it, it will move itself into the large ones as well.
- I actually have a max capacity! I didn’t learn this until recently I’ve known at times I’ve been close but never actually hit that point until a few months ago. My brain and body would just shut down, I would find myself minutes later staring into space and unable to move my limbs.
- There is a bit of time before and after a traumatic event that you actually forget, almost like the pain of childbirth and maybe for the same reasons, I will have conversations with people about things going on right around the time my father passed and I’ll have no recollection of what I did or how I did it.
- With that it seems that you go numb for a bit as well. We have a very close family friend that’s suffering through prostate cancer, I’ve spoken with him, his wife and our family about the matter and where other are very moved by the ordeal I find myself almost blasé about it. It’s not that I don’t care or that I feel the experience isn’t worthy of an emotion, at the moment though I can’t seem to dig down and find it.
- And you become a little selfish, I don’t know how many times recently I’ve looked at my husband and told him “I just can’t”. I probably could muster up the strength to do whatever it is that was asked but I don’t want to.
- I am impatient about the time it takes to grieve, I told my boss a few weeks ago that if someone could give me a timeframe and tell me things would stop hurting so much (not necessarily get better, just stop hurting) it would help. He smiled at me and went back to his typing, we both know each person is different but the unknown horizon really bothers me sometimes.
Most of this is coming to a head because a coworker that had been ill for sometime passed away yesterday. Last year when everything started I felt so horrible for his family and after numerous late night phone calls I would cry on my husbands shoulder, sharing the burden of their fear and pain. Today though I can’t seem to place my feelings, I’ve been sitting at my desk on autopilot running through a few emails and checking on some projects but….I don’t know. I wonder how long autopilot works before things start falling through the cracks, how long can someone be an observer in their own life? Is this really a good or bad thing? I’ve asked many people this question and can’t seem to get a straight answer, a lot say “Give it time” a few stare at you blankly because they have not experienced the same feelings and a small number have told me “get off your butt and do something, it’ll make you feel better” After time, blank stares and running my butt off I can tell you no one really has any better answer than where I started.
But last week I had a few days where I didn’t give my dad anything more than a passing thought and when I realized it I didn’t feel bad about it. I took a deep breath, felt around the wound and realized it hurt less – not better but definitely less. And maybe that’s what the real answer is. There isn’t a date on the calendar that will designate the end of grieving for me, and the loss of someone else won’t sting more or less than the initial shock but maybe after a time I’ll realize that I do feel small things and if I work a little at it, it will move itself into the large ones as well.
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