Black Gold
Living. It funny how now that I'm retired, just how much time is spent, just living? Those daily tasks that used to pass without conscious effort, take on an importance that is out of line with the way I had lived, while gainfully employed. When I was working, it would bother me with how many obstacles my company would place seemingly & simply to delay me from actually doing my job. Morning meetings, team meetings, quarterly recaps & annual communication sessions. The meetings you attend to get buy-in on the things you are trying (or have been ordered) to do. The ones you attend to protect your turf or your ass. The annual benefit election cycle. Quarterly reviews with your manager. Annual reviews with your manager. Vacation planning. Logging sick days. Logging training days. Logging vacation days. Budget planning. Reviewing corporate Email. Goal setting. Oh how corporations love goal setting.
Note to my readers: At this point on a sunny Saturday morning, I got into a total rant about goal setting in modern North American corporations and ended up writing 500 words on the subject. I simply cut the whole thing out and saved it for another day. OK, back to the matter at hand.
Living. These days, none of those things stand in my way. On January 1st, I log my vacation days. 365 of them, contiguous! I am nearly always training for something, and when I get a man-cold, SWMBO gets on the VIA and goes to Ottawa. So nothing is standing in my way, except for completing those daily tasks that used to be knocked off unnoticed. I have three or four examples but today, I would like to talk about coffee.
I blame Jerry Pournelle who had a coffee czar as a character in The Mote in God's Eye and a couple of old work mates. CS and MN had a French Press and had elevated their coffee breaks to another level. It had a mad scientist vibe with glowing glassware and cries from the little animals in cages? Different blends, different brands, almost a wine tasting sort of environment for 20 minutes late every morning. I once called out a more expensive brand that I was trying and looked at me like I was slow. That shit is made by Folgers? Chastened, I slunk home and read the fine print. Nevertheless, they got me thinking?
Let's get SWMBO out of the way first. She has Tim Horton's face (the actual Maple Leafs defensemen) tattooed on her ass. No really. Between 9 and 12, she has two cups of home brewed Tim Horton's coffee. This coffee is judged vastly inferior (not her exact wording, I can assure you, ask my sister) to the store bought version. For the fifteen years she has lived with me, she goes pretty much every day, just after lunch. Extra large, two cream, three sugar. They have a special drive-through lane for her at Speedvale / Stevenson location. That's all you need to know. If you are coming to my place, bring one.
My coffee history is much more complicated. I started drinking it at twelve after a couple of fainting episodes while singing in a semi-professional choir. Dr. Borland did not believe in prescribing pills if he could help it. "Two cups of black coffee before every show". It worked! So black with sugar, became my mantra. I had never cared cared what kind as long as it was hot and wet. When Tim's came out with dark roast and prompted me with every interaction, I used to say, "You guys can't give that shit away!" Now, that's all I drink. Sort of a double double, but with sweetener. SWMBO infected me.
I read somewhere that Guelph has the third best water in Canada and it is the largest city in Canada with a 100% ground sourced water supply.. I know they won some international award in 2019 for it. Having said that, it is also just about the hardest water in Canada. Home water softeners are not optional. You need a good one unless you want to watch actual rusted iron and hunks of nickel coming out of your shower head. Because it is so hard, the city tries to strike a balance between it smelling (and tasting) like your Grade 7 swimming pool or a sulphur stinking fumarole boiling out of the ass end of a volcano. Some days they succeed. It's good clean water, but for coffee, no way. So we have a reverse osmosis system. I got it for my salt-water aquariums as it takes the PPM from 20 to zero. It also removes that chunky aftertaste. So it takes about two hours to drip an 18 litre jug full. Now, since I don't like humping 18 litre jugs up the stairs, I siphon it into old vinegar bottles. Once those are upstairs, I pour it into a large measuring cup because my Braun was designed by some demented German who decided you should stand on a step ladder to see the internal fill level markers of Braun coffee makers. I make a pot of dark roast for myself at about five each morning. Then, at eight or nine, when her majesty arises from her beauty slumber (which is working), round two begins. I transfer whatever is left of mine to an enamelled pot on the stove. Then I make half a pot of Tim Horton's for her. Once happily ensconced on her throne with her second cup of coffee, cigarettes, remote, dogs and knitting ... that is my signal to commence my morning nap. Approximately ninety minutes later, I am dressed, sitting on the front porch, garden tools at the ready. A neighbour I know walks by and shouts, "How's your day going?" I give my head a shake. "Well, I made coffee!"
Our Optimum Week
Was taken up mostly with reducing Milo's testicle count. While it had been fun to call him "one-ball" for the last few months, he was showing markedly "male" behaviours. Humanity has a simple solution for our livestock and pets when the young boys of any species start acting out? You know, I bet that would work in the juvenile courts? "Young man, this is your fifth time before this court and the c0unt is full, 2 balls and 3 strikes. The very next time you are in here ..."
I contented myself with one run to Shoppers on the Spend $60 for 20K in points deal. As predicted, the flyer was better and we have a whole new spate of long term offers expiring mid-May. Here is your list:
What I'm Reading
No luck in getting any Tennyson anthologies from Sunrise. Robert says he is the second most popular. Bill is No. 1
We Are Watching
It is always interesting to me when a few videos on social media go viral, re-launching interest in a TV show. Suits is the most famous example back during COVID but lately, we have been enjoying Mr. InBetween. The idea for this show started as a 2006 Australian mockumentary movie (The Magician) written, directed and starring Scott Ryan. An unseen cameraman is given access to the daily life of an Aussie mob enforcer driving around Sydney. He offers advise on a variety of subjects and while a little slow moving, there was something there. It took twelve years to bring the concept to the small screen and that series ran for three years. The title is based on a life, living in between a normal existence (ex wife, girlfriend, eight year old daughter) and his violent vocation. Four stars.
Finished Yellowstone - When the star quits (for good reason) halfway through Season Five of the most successful show on television, what to do? Answer: You kill him, offscreen, then quickly wrap up all the loose ends. I will say this; it's good television. Sheridan creates a lovable crime family that will stop at nothing to preserve a dying way of life. Beth: "Daddy, you have the last farm in the valley. Successful cattle operations are owned by Brazilians and raise million of pounds of beef every year in stockyards! Your neighbours are all bankrupt or billionaire hobby farmers". Five stars.
...and finally
If you like giant rat-like creatures from Indonesia, that eat ripe coffee beans, then the civit is for you. The questions that begs explanation is "how did the first guy find out what I am about to tell you?" These sorts of stories launch me into flights of fancy. I think this one goes like this:
A coffee loving Indonesian man named Wahadi is walking quietly through the jungle near his home and comes across a civit taking a giant crap on a banana leaf. Now under the heading of "give a monkey a gun" he gets a stick and starts poking through it praying that none of his female relatives wanders by and catches him. Civit turds can best be described as variegated. Another description would be mostly liquid? He know from direct observation that civits eat ripe coffee beans so it is not a leap of faith to think that the beans he is finding all through this still steaming treasure, are coffee beans after the soft red skin and meat has been digested away. Now, this is why men will always be superior to women in those leaps of intuition that drive the species forward! He goes around the jungle liberating coffee beans from all the turds he can find. He takes them home, dries them, runs them through his Baratza conical burr grinder and runs a cup of the most wonderful coffee the world has ever tasted out of his La Marzocco expresso machine. Of course, Indonesians speaks a bastardized (with Dutch) form of Javanese. Coffee_civit translates to kopi_lawak. It is the most expensive coffee on earth. It can go for up for two grand a pound. If that is too rich for your blood, Bourbon Pointu is only $110 per pound, comes from Madagascar and relies on bat spit. So, if you are going by Tim Horton's for SWMBO, pick me up one of those. Two cream, two sweetener. Thanks!
Mitch & Maddie
