With Cream or Without?

Yum, I can smell it.

Dave, the coffee roaster, thought the Sumatra blend matched the coffee I had been drinking at home, and the cup he served me was smooth. I drank it black which I would never do otherwise—just think, I thought, how this will be with cream.

So, I bought five pounds of whole beans they had roasted that morning.

That’s how they sell their coffee, in five-pound batches, roasted according to order the morning the customer plans to pick it up.

My Chiropractor told me Eclipse coffee was the best, so I decided to check it out. 

The coffee warehouse was a cool out of the way place where Dave was fun, where burlap bags of coffee were stacked higher than my head, and where they write out an invoice, keep a carbon copy, and that’s their bookkeeping system. They do not take credit cards, the only means of payment I had in my purse.

Dave said, “Take the coffee and just drop off a check.”

Don’t you love it?!

I had planned to sell coffee on a website. The trouble is since I can’t say “It’s the best,” I’m not selling it. I still like Peets Home Blend whole beans I grind at home better, and now I’m stuck with a five-pound bag of coffee in my refrigerator.

I wish I had tried The Tsunami Blend as it sounds more to my liking.

There are many stories regarding the origin of the drink we call coffee. One involved a Moroccan Sufi mystic. While traveling in Ethiopia, he noticed birds with unusual vitality. He decided to try eating the berries they were eating, and experienced the same vitality.

Another story was a man named, Omar, who was known for curing the sick. He was, however, exiled to a cave in the desert. (A great thanks for being a healer.)

Poor Omar was starving and decided to chew some berries he found on nearby shrubbery. Whoa, they were bitter. He roasted the beans to improve their flavor, but they were hard, so he boiled the beans in water to soften them. The boiling of the beans produced a fragrant brown liquid that he drank, and that liquid sustained him for days.

When stories reached his home village of this “miracle drug,” the elders asked Omar to return home where he was sainted.

Fickle people.

Were you looking up coffee on the Internet when you found this site?

Did you want to know about coffee, or did I push it on you?

I am wondering what people search for, if they are precise in their search, or do they go stumbling in search for something that sparks their attention?

Both I guess. Jon Morrow, on #ProBlogger, says to search Google, find what people want, and write about that.

See why I’m not a pro blogger.

Last night I noticed a bag of magazines in the truck. My daughter said she got them from a client, and that she wanted to make a Vision Board from the pictures, quotes and such, she could find in that stash of publications. 

A Vision Board is a collage of items you want, wish you had, or are just fun to contemplate. It is a meditation of sorts, an affirmation to keep your mind focused, and to program your subconscious mind to go for its dream.

Daughter  said, “I can search the Internet, find what I want and print it out, but it’s more fun to search the magazines.”

I agreed. We are hunters/gathers by nature. It’s fun to search and discover things we never dreamed we wanted, oh, or finding those coffee berries we didn’t know existed.

P.S. A fun find:

I had been using the numbers 747 as in a fast Boeing jet but found on the Internet that 747 is an angel number meaning I’m on the right track.

Yea!

http://www.plottwist747.com

Fred and George

When Mr. Rogers (of the TV show, “Won't You Be My Neighbor?” was a young boy, and frightened, his mother would tell him, “Look for the helpers.”

We need to be that, the helpers, the holders of good.

I times of struggle and despair such as now with the Supreme court nominee, and sexual allegations, it makes me question if people have their heads screwed on straight. Most of us remember the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill fiasco and fear it happening again. Thomas was nominated for the Supreme Court. Hill adamantly declared that Thomas had sexually harassed her; however, he was seated anyway.

The good-old-boys club.

It makes my feminist blood boil.

Women have fought so hard for their rights, for equal pay, freedom from harassment, reproduction rights, for God's sake for the right to vote, and to worship with the men—but let's not go there. Yet there is an element in our society that would be happy to take much of that away.

Don't men who force themselves on women, the one who would happily rape her then call her a slut, the ones that would force her to have an unwanted child while giving her less pay for equal service, have a wife, mother, sister, or girlfriend maybe even a teacher they love, respect or admire?

Yes, I know, it's power.

Long ago I heard a teacher say it was necessary for the power structure to separate men and women, for together they are indomitable.

And then there are men like Mr. Rogers, who care, who support, and who champion the cause for good. There are many Mr. Rogers in our neighborhood, maybe not as low-key as him, but good men who love women, children, their fellow man, and all life.

As you have probably surmised I did see the film, Won't You Be My Neighbor.  

When AARP offered free tickets for a showing of the Rogers' documentary at a local theater and called it “Movies for grown-ups.” I became curious all over again.

(See the film and you will understand why it is being pressed to adults.) My husband and I didn't make the free Thursday show, but Friday we invited daughter number one, and twelve-year-old grandson to watch it with us when we rented the film on Netflix.

I believe Mr. Rogers was the real deal. And he wasn't afraid to tackle the issues of the day. After Bobby Kennedy was killed, Daniel, the puppet asks. “What does assassination mean?”

When, in the 60's, it was unlawful for people of color to swim in a public swimming pool, Mr. Rogers sat in his backyard (on his show) with his bare feet soaking in a tub, and he invited Officer Clemmons, the show's black policeman, to join him. “

The water is so relaxing.” Rogers said, “Care to join me?” And so Francois Clemmons ripped off his socks, and we see two sets of feet in the water, a black set, and a white set.

Long ago, when I watched “Won't You Be My Neighbor,” with my kids, I didn't know the poignant strategies Mr. Rogers implemented. I saw it as a low-key, simple children's show.

PBS gave Mr. Rogers the daunting task of addressing the falling of the World Trade Center, and although heart-breaking, he directed the issue splendidly.

It's sad to see tender hearts torn asunder by world conditions.

And it's also sad that many people were intolerant of Mr. Rogers' tolerance.

I have been experimenting with what it means to follow the Sacred Path. That doesn't mean we never get mad, lose our temper, or lose heart. Neither does it mean we spend a life in pious contemplation.

It is more like Fred and George.

You know who Fred and George are?

Fred is the little black box, the navigational computer, on a Boeing 747.

George is the computer who takes Fred's directions.

“George, we are five degrees off port, correct.”

“Will do, Thanks, Fred.”

And so it goes, constant corrections.

And although the big jet had been off course 90% of the time, it hits the mark spot on.

Luckily Fred and George aren't people for after a while George would be saying, “For crying out loud Fred, stop correcting me all the time. All I hear is, “Yap, yap, yap.”

 

 More information on http://www.plottwist747.com