240 COFFEE!

I realized recently that it had been a good while since I did a post related to one of my favorite things in the whole world — COFFEE!  That being the case, I decided that it was high time that I correct this failing immediately.  So, here we go.

I don’t remember when I first started drinking coffee, but it has been a significant pleasure of mine for a long time, which is probably why I like this image which I found somewhere.

My fondness for coffee may well also explain why one of my favorite lines in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman (one of my favorite plays) is Willy’s line: "Wonderful coffee, a meal in itself.”

Now, it HAS been said that, at least in the “old” days, theatre people ran on caffeine and nicotine, and I would be hard-pressed to argue with that very much.  I think the nicotine has (thankfully) largely gone the way of bad things, at least in my case, as it should have a long time ago, but I believe that there are still very few (functioning) greenrooms or tech offices which can’t provide coffee pretty much on a moment’s notice.  And, that’s not a BAD thing, as Steven Younkins of Q2Q comics demonstrated with this strip about Morty, his stage manager character, coming to a rehearsal (probably a TECH rehearsal) well provided for (and for good reason):

I should hasten to point out that theatre people do NOT seem to be the only ones who rely on coffee for a “pick-me-up” during the day.  I think that explains THIS cup I saw on a store shelf somewhere, which struck me as a strong statement of truth for almost anytime when a ready supply of the “dream drink” isn’t immediately available.

I will confess, however, that coffee drinkers CAN be funny in their preferences regarding coffee.  I had an uncle who swore he could tell if the beans had been roasted more than a week before, required that they be ground IMMEDIATELY prior to having the FILTERED water run through them to make his coffee, etc.  Personally, I’m not THAT fussy, but I will confess to preferring my own blend of flavored coffees to what is available in the stores, although I will drink pretty much whatever coffee is available when the desire hits me (which is frequent).  Still, like the Wizard of ID, I do have my PREFERRED method of preparing my coffee, although mine is less complicated than the Wiz’s.

On the other hand, while I have been known to have and do use K-cups or pods for the convenience factor (which I discovered in a doctor’s office in Asheville many years ago), I’m afraid that the number of options available in cup or pod form has gotten a bit out of hand, especially when one considers the huge number of brands and flavors available in the attempt to satisfy EVERYONE’s choice of options.  Hence, I am quite sympathetic with the feeling expressed in this Foxtrot strip from a while back.

Yes, coffee IS one of those things about which people frequently have strong preferences.  After all, it can vary in the blend of the coffee beans themselves (different types of coffee do taste a bit different); roasting time and heat (Starbucks always tastes just a bit burned to me, although some people insist that that’s what coffee is supposed to taste like); the amount of ground coffee used per cup; sweetened, or not; cream(er) or not; etc.  Dustin made the variation in coffee strength quite obvious last spring in THIS strip, for example.

Given the range of options available, however, coffee strength is only one of the possible considerations affecting individual choices.  This is particularly true when one chooses to try to get their “fix” from one of the “name-brand” coffee shops, where the number of options available is ridiculously high.  This has, apparently, become a research topic leading to the following results:

 While I do NOT condone violence, even against the people being studied in the research indicated above, I DO understand it.  After all, there is SO much in the current world over which we have relatively little control that it isn’t hard to understand that something as personal as coffee preferences are viewed as important by many people.  Hence, I was amused when I saw the following sign.

I confess that I was particularly amused by the use of a cat on the poster above since I definitely identify myself as a “cat person” in addition to being a “coffee person.”  Of course, the fact that the cat pictured is black, which reminds me of our late cat, George, doesn’t make it less attractive, in my opinion.

I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with something else.  In the meantime, grab a cup of coffee, put your feet up, and take things a bit easier for a few days.  It will be good for you.

🖖🏼 LLAP,

Dr. B

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”  
                                                                                                   — Nelson Mandela

“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic; capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.”                                                                        ― Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows