A Love Letter

A love letter:

Coffee, you haunt my mornings.  Your tantalizing scent beckons me from the endless coffee shops in this city of Espresso, tickling my nostrils to awake a deep yearning to feel you warming the mug in my hands, pleasing my taste buds with your robust flavors.  I want to savor your aftertaste on my tongue long after you’ve entered me to penetrate my digestive tract with your caffeinated powers.  Oh, Coffee.

Coffee, my coffee: you are not unlike a lover who has been called away from me for business in Hungary or Cairo.  I want to be with you so badly, but I can’t.  Okay, technically I can, but I won’t.  Because I’m a masochist?  Maybe, but it’s more than that.  I need to prove to myself that I can be as happy and fulfilled without you as I am with you, and that, in the future, I can enjoy your company without such attachment.  It isn’t healthy to crave something as badly as I crave you, Coffee. 

Coffee, all the yogis say you’re no good for me, but they don’t understand what a special relationship you and I have.  To pass the time until we’re reunited, I’ve been seeing Rooibos Tea, who is quite nice.  But as much as I enjoy Rooibos’s company, nothing compares to you.  Without you, the world seems a little foggier, sleepier, blander.  I walk through my days a pale imitation of myself when I’m with you; I’ve little of my usual pep and vibrancy.  Poor Rooibos probably thinks I’m a total square but you know better, Coffee.

Good god, Coffee, you really have a hold on me.  It’s closing in on four weeks since I quit you, but you know as well as I do that I haven’t *really* quit you.  I may have put some physical distance between us, but I can’t stop thinking about you.  Every morning, I call your name, I swear, I do.  I’m counting the days until we are reunited, when I can again touch my lips to you, and drink you in.  Oh, Coffee, my Coffee.

*                      *                      *

I don’t really have anything more to say about how my month of not consuming caffeine is going.  On the plus side, I’m sleeping great.  Not that I was sleeping poorly before I gave up caffeine…  While I miss chocolate too, at least I’m allowing myself to eat non-chocolate sweets, which goes a long way to quelling the chocolate cravings.  Especially if the non-chocolate sweet is ice cream.  Seriously, who wants M&Ms when there is homemade spicy Thai peanut ice cream in the freezer? 

 

So spicy, yet so cold at the same time!

Since it is already the 23rd of June, I am busy planning for the next month of Operation Consumption Liberation.  My OCL July challenge is to reduce my consumption of electricity and water.  Eeek.  I’ve been attempting to track my typical water and electricity usage at home so I have a baseline to work with, but I admit, with travel and house guests this month, my tracking has been pretty crappy. 

The more I think about my power consumption, I realize how much I have to learn in this department.  For example, there's the potato question.

Purple potatoes are funny!

Which cooking method uses more power: baking a potato in the oven @ 400 F for 45 minutes or baking a potato in the microwave for 6-8 minutes?  At first, I thought it must be the oven because it operates for about an hour including the preheat time.  But then I thought about the way a microwave zaps a potato, that surge of power into that little box when I hit the [Start] button…maybe the microwave uses a lot more power per minute than the oven.  Maybe it comes down to watts and amps—what are those things really?  I have no clue!!!!  If you do, feel free to enlighten me. 

Anyway, that challenge is coming up next week.  Stay tuned and happy summer!