Yes, it's been a loooooong time

A quick update...

1. My husband's health is much, much better. Despite the surgeon's ominous prediction that there would be no return of pituitary function, he now has almost full function. The endocrine system is doing great, except for a slightly sluggish thyroid. This is a huge answer to prayer, and I am thankful for all of you who prayed for us.

2. Life has been busy. At times it has been both sad and stressful. I wrote, months ago, about "deep waters". While the waters are not quite as deep as they were, and we're not spending as much time in them, they're not exactly shallow yet either.

3. We are part of a wonderful fellowship of believers. I can't begin to describe what a blessing they has been. Did I mention that these people are wonderful?

4. Life has not been all stress and work. We've carved out time for fun and relaxation too, and made some hilarious family memories...and a few are even captured on video.

5. Coffee is good. Still. Always. That is yet again proof that the natural order of the universe is still intact.

6. I saved the best for last: Offspring #3 (aka, "the strapping young man") is ENGAGED!! But it gets even better. He's not just engaged to anyone; he's engaged to a terrific young woman that people can't seem to say enough good things about. We love her! Is that cool or what?

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Long overdue update

Yes, it's been a long time since I've posted. Here's just a little of what's been going on:

1. I still drink coffee.

2. We've been going through some...er...interesting times in our family.

3. Jesus truly is Lord...and a faithful Friend like no other. He keeps His promise to never leave us nor forsake us.

4. My marriage is all the more precious to me during some current rough times, especially as my husband has had a season of ill health.

5. I still teach martial arts.

6. Mothering doesn't become easier when the children leave home. It's different, less hands on, but sometimes more heartbreaking.

7. Twitter can take up a lot of time, but it's also a great way to follow current events, trends, etc.

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The coffee cup

Here's the promised story, abbreviated and somewhat boring, about the coffee cup graphic in my blog title.

Sometimes, when I dream the seemingly impossible for long enough, I add details to the dream that can range from meaningful to downright silly. "Someday, if I ever have a bunch of kids, I'll get a big white van and we'll go off on adventures together..." "Someday, if I ever live in a two story house, I'll get one of those nifty basket thingies for the bottom of the stairs..."

And so it was with the dreams of "our own dojo". We dreamed a lot together about how we would teach and what sorts of extra classes we would offer and how we would organize the curriculum. But there were some silly things that attached themselves, ever so slightly, to what I was dreaming, insignificant things really...things I never dared mention because they were so trivial.

But then, after five years of teaching at our church, and after moving three times until we finally settled into our current wonderful location, we turned not just the big dreams into reality --- a reality even better than the dreams --- but we also turned some of the silly, trivial semi-dreams into reality as well.

And one of those was coffee in the dojo. We don't just have a coffee maker, a clone of the Bunn single serve coffee maker I have at home, but we also have an esspresso maker. And you know what? I can't imagine a dojo without one. At least not my dojo.

So I have my little rituals. Often I reward myself for my 6:00 a.m. private workout or my 6:00 a.m. women's fitness class with a nice cappuccino afterwards. That's also my drink of choice during belt tests; as I joke, the testing panel should be comfortable and enjoying themselves while the students aren't.

So one morning, I found myself taking pictures of my delicious cappuccino on the "sensei bench" next to my black belt. (There was a particular purpose I had in mind for this picture, but this story is already long and tedious enough.)

Yesterday, as I was looking for images for my blog header, it seemed that this particular picture, edited a bit, was exactly right. If you look closely, you can see a bit of my black belt in the shadows to the right of the cup.

This post, along with my entire blog, is copyrighted. Please read and honor the copyright notice at the bottom of the sidebar. Thank you.

Kerckhoff Rats

Don't worry; this story isn't about rats. It's really about friendship and about how coming to faith in Christ impacts relationships...and it's about grace. Even though I wrote it some years back, I felt a sudden urge to share it with my readers. Grab a cup of coffee...let me know what you think.

Kerckhoff Rats

Kerckhoff Rats, Drew called us. The phrase sometimes still pops into my mind unexpectedly, and suddenly it's as if I catch a glimpse of us then. The memories vary. Sometimes it's Kweku drumming his fingers on the table and bobbing his head to the music, urging me, "See, you can do this, too---you can dance!" Or maybe it's Drew reading some ancient German tome and chuckling to himself the way other college boys did while reading comic books. Or maybe it's the way Mindy would walk in...it seemed almost choreographed. "She never stops dancing," Kweku would say.

We certainly were there a lot, to the point that people could expect to find us at our usual table at the usual times, drinking our usual. Mine was almost always the whipped cream topped Cappuccino Royale, while Kweku and Drew preferred the strongest and blackest of coffees ("Make it like me," Kweku would say) and Mindy's choice was herbal tea. We had met there in the coffee house on campus. We were an odd assortment of unlikely friends, but we had become campus fixtures.

There was a certain ritual to much of what we did and how we interacted with each other as well as with our favorite campus haunt. Soon the Kerckhoff employees became part of that ritual. When Kweku would enter the coffee house, for example, one of them would inevitably put on a Stevie Wonder album. For Mindy, it would be Joni Mitchell. I would get a questioning look, to which I ritually replied, "I dunno. Ask Drew." Drew had eclectic tastes which varied according to mood.

Once in awhile someone would wonder why the album playing would be cut off mid-song and replaced with another. Sometimes there were even protests, which would be met with the simple response, as if it explained everything, "Kweku is here." Oh. Whatever...

It got so that the other regulars would know not to sit at "our table" in the afternoons. If someone wasn't familiar with the unwritten reserved status of our table, an employee would let them know. "That's Kweku's table. You'll have to get up when he or his friends get here." We even called it Kweku's table. It was by the window and offered the best view of the inside of the coffee house as well as a panorama of that part of the campus. It was also right in the line of sight of the door, so we could spot and flag down friends.

Some of my other friends would find me there and would end up puzzled. Were we two couples? And, if so, who was with whom? It struck the four of us as funny. Early on, Mindy had drawn me aside and warned, "Don't get involved with Kweku. He loves us both now, but he turns on every woman he becomes romantically involved with." Sometimes we met those women. Kweku never introduced us. We hated the way he treated them. To us, he was...well, he was Kweku.

Drew was a dreamer. At times Mindy and I felt motherly towards him, as if he still needed tending. To a certain extent, he did. There was a brief time when Drew and I looked at each other differently, as if we'd just had our eyes opened. We even went out on a pseudo-date and kissed good night at the end. It became awkward and we pretended as if the whole thing hadn't happened. We never dared mention it to Mindy or Kweku but always suspected that they knew and were secretly amused.

Mostly, when we weren't reading or studying, we talked. Endlessly long philosophical discussions...or almost mindless chatter. After a year, we could finish each other's stories. I would look at Kweku, fling out my arms like he did, and say in his excited, beckoning voice, "Come with me to Ghana---in the springtime!" His imitation of me was almost as good. None of us were ever graceful enough to imitate Mindy. And Drew---simply burying our noses in some dusty Germanic book no one had ever heard about was imitation enough.

Finals. I don't think I would have survived without my three friends. We would spend evenings in the coffee house, downing double espressos and encouraging each other to keep on studying. Kweku and Mindy had a lighter load academically, so they would often help drill me on something I found difficult. I'll never forget the time Kweku was struggling with a paper that simply wouldn't get written. Suddenly he leaned back in his chair, flung his fist up in the air, and yelled, "Stevie! I need Stevie! Somebody play 'Saturn'!"

The song started. It was Kweku's favorite. He always sang along with it, usually so quietly that we could barely hear him. But that night he sang. Soon all of us joined him, full voice, hands drumming the table, completely swept away. When the song was over, the few other students in the coffee house applauded. One girl jumped up and cheered and screamed as if Kweku really was Stevie Wonder. Kweku leaned over to me, pulled my head towards him, and kissed me on the forehead. He whispered in my ear, "That song is really about Ghana, you know. You were beautiful. Come with me...I'll show you...Ghana in the springtime. It will make you dance. That's what the song is about. It's about Ghana." He kissed my forehead one last time and then we all returned to our books.

Kweku got an "A" on his paper. I passed all my finals. We kept on meeting at Kerckhoff, studying and reading and talking.

Then it all changed.

It was after the spring quarter break. Mindy walked into the coffee house and we, all three of us, stopped and almost stared. She was different. We knew that instantly, yet I couldn't put my finger on what it was that was different. Kweku whispered, "It's a different dance."

She sat down with us. We waited expectantly. Joni Mitchell started singing. None of us spoke.

"Uh, you guys..." Mindy began.

The conversation that followed was tortured. It made no sense. It stunned me. When Mindy left after three long hours, I turned to Drew and said, "Is this a dream? A nightmare? Or did Mindy just tell us that she's become some sort of religious fanatic?"

Kweku said, "I used to be Catholic, you know." We stared at him. He shrugged and got up. "I'm going to talk to Mindy and get to the bottom of this."

Drew and I watched him gather up his books. Neither of us knew what to say.

It got worse.

Mindy avoided us for over a week. Kweku still saw her but could tell us little. Then there was the horrible day that she dropped the bombshell.

"I'm not going to dance anymore," she announced.

"Not dance?" Kweku looked stunned. "Everyone dances. How can you not dance? You always dance. Even when you walk, you dance. You live to dance."

Mindy sighed. "I talked to my pastor. He doesn't think studying dance is right for me any more. It's so..." she was clearly searching for a word, but eventually gave up.

"I danced when I was a Catholic," Kweku said.

Drew frowned. "It seems like this whole religious thing is changing you too fast and too much. How can you just give up everything you've worked for?"

I asked the question we were all afraid to ask. "So what does this mean? What will you study instead? Or will you...study anything?"

"I'm leaving," Mindy said softly, wistfully. "I'm going back to Chicago. My pastor knows a good church there and they've even found an apartment for me, with a Christian roommate."

We were stunned into silence. It was as if Mindy's body had been taken over by aliens. A week later, we said good bye. I never heard from her again.

So this was Christianity, I would sometimes think bitterly, a destroyer of friendships.

Drew was next. Our dreamer admitted one day that he had been reading the Bible and had started attending church. He then confessed that he had thrown out his dope and his collection of bongs, as well as half his books.

"So," asked Kweku, "are you going to drop out also?"

"Oh, no," said Drew. "I'm just going to change my emphasis. There are all these German theologians I can read. I think I'll do my thesis on Luther."

Our philosophical discussions certainly changed after that.

So did Drew.

He was still dreamy and preoccupied, but there was a new intensity to him. At the same time, he seemed softer, gentler. But there was also a subtle but growing tension between Kweku and him. One afternoon, things got heated. I arrived in the middle of a serious conversation.

"I was once Catholic, you know," Kweku said.

"And now you're a good little Buddhist," I said lightly, trying to diffuse the intensity.

Kweku stroked my arm with his fingers. "And you swung from the trees in your last life, my little monkey-arms. If you came with me to Ghana, you'd see that when I'm back there, I worship my tribal gods. All this really doesn't matter as much as Drew says it does."

"But it does," replied Drew. "You're talking about religion, as if it's interchangeable, as if truth doesn't matter."

"Sure it matters," I said. "It's all the same. Living a good life. What Jesus said about the golden rule. That's basic to all religions. Which rules you follow to get there may vary, but the bottom line is doing the right thing and how you treat other people."

Drew said softly, "It's not about rules. Other religions might be, but Christianity isn't."

"Oh, man," argued Kweku, "it's all about rules. Christianity has more rules than anything else. That's what I couldn't take---all the rules. All the constant confession stuff and penance."

"Listen," said Drew, "I've been reading Martin Luther. I used to think this was all about rules too. But it's not. It's about relationship. It's about knowing God. It's about this incredible thing called grace that I'm just beginning to understand." He bent down, pulled a book out of his book bag, and put it on the table.

It was a Bible. A big black leather Bible, right on Kweku's table in Kerckhoff! Kweku and I stared. I almost recoiled from it. Drew lightly, gently, touched his fingertips to the leather cover. He said, in his gentle, dreamy voice, "I used to think this was a rule book. But it's more than that. It's the story of God and what He did for me."

Kweku was clearly disgusted. "So, you going to preach for us now? Drew, I really don't want to hear this religious garbage any more. I don't like what it did to Mindy and I don't like what it's doing to you. Either you go or I go. I don't want to see you right now or talk to you."

I was a bit shocked. Drew quietly gathered up his stuff and left. Kweku and I sat together, saying nothing. Finally I got up to leave and Kweku walked out with me. We still weren't talking. We walked sort of aimlessly across campus. It was late afternoon and there weren't many students around. Kweku touched my arm and I turned towards him. He said, "Let's dump Drew. Let's...just you and me...let's run away to Ghana together." This time he wasn't smiling. It wasn't his usual happy invitation. He pulled me towards him, buried his face in my neck, and whispered, "Come back to my apartment with me. We both want it."

Mindy's warning came to my mind. I remembered meeting some of Kweku's girlfriends. I didn't want to become one, didn't want him to treat me like that, didn't want our friendship to end that way. I gently pushed him away and said, "No. Not us."

"Then go back to Drew," he said. There was no anger in his voice. He said it pleasantly, as if he thought it was a good idea. He looked at me for a long time and then finally spoke again. "I won't come back. You can have my table. I can't be around Drew anymore. He's a fanatic. He's gone over the edge. We have nothing left to say to each other. Either come with me or go with him."

We said good bye.

It was a long, lonely walk back across campus.

Weeks went by before I could bring myself to go back to Kerckhoff in the afternoon. Drew was sitting at Kweku's table with a skinny, frizzy-haired girl. "Hey," he said, pulling a chair out for me, "this is Lindy. Lindy, this is Trisha."

Lindy looked familiar and then I remembered seeing her at the campus theater with some guy I assumed to be her boyfriend. They had made an odd couple, her so skinny and short, and the guy tall and fat.

We greeted each other as I sat down. Drew said, "Lindy and I met at a campus Bible study that her pastor is leading."

"You should come," Lindy urged me. "Joe is an excellent teacher."

"Uh, no thanks. I'm really not into that stuff. Sounds boring, if you want to know."

"Not the way Joe teaches!" Lindy exclaimed. She and Drew both laughed as if at a private joke. "Drew and I were just talking about the book of Galatians," Lindy told me. "He's been reading Luther's commentary---in German! I am so impressed! It's really rather amazing to hear how Drew explains Luther's perspective on the whole thing. It's sorta different than the way I'd always looked at it before."

This conversation obviously wasn't for me. As soon as I could do so politely, I left.

It was over, I realized. The Kerckhoff rats were no more. Mindy had left. Kweku didn't want to be around, and I couldn't blame him. Drew was so heavily into this God stuff that I didn't want to be around him either. I decided then and there that I would have nothing to do with religion. It destroyed friendships. It changed people, and not for the better. It ruined things. It took a good and beautiful thing and completely destroyed it.

* * *

I graduated from college, got married, and had a beautiful baby girl. After a long and torturous labor, I held her in my arms, kissed her incredibly gorgeous fuzzy head, and surprised myself by saying in awe, "It's true. There really is a God. How could anyone have a baby and not think so."

My husband laughed. We both laughed about it later and joked about how birth was a cosmic spiritual experience. "Wow," I would laugh, "I almost thought I saw God."

Alyssa was amazing. One day in the produce section of the grocery store of all places, I held her in my arms and almost started to cry. A woman with a whole bunch of children came over to me, rested her hand on my shoulder, and said softly, "There's a saying I really like, about how amazing it is that 'they so fresh from God' would love us."

I sniffled, feeling silly.

She said, "Loving my babies has helped me realize how much more amazing God's love is for us. That's what grace is all about, you know."

That was it. We went back to shopping, but I kept seeing Drew, with his big huge Bible, saying, "I've been reading Martin Luther. I used to think this was all about rules too. But it's not. It's about relationship. It's about knowing God. It's about this incredible thing called grace that I'm just beginning to understand." I wondered what ever had happened to Drew and what he was doing now. I wondered about all this grace stuff.

Then something happened to my husband. He went off with a friend of his from work for a weekend fishing trip. He came back talking just like Drew, except for the stuff about reading Luther in German. I kept trying to make him mad, kept making fun of his new beliefs. He would treat all my sarcastic questions as if they were serious and would find out answers for them.

And now...now I don't know. I look at Alyssa and know that only God could make such a perfect and beautiful little being. I look at the change in my husband and realize that this God stuff isn't just about destroying relationships. He hasn't left me. He loves me more than he ever did.

But then there's the other stuff. I don't want all the rules and regulations. I remember girls in college who couldn't wear certain clothes because they were "worldly". Kids who wouldn't listen to music I liked. It seemed like a dull and serious and lifeless sort of thing they were doing.

I think of the TV and radio preachers always yelling about stuff. I don't want to be like them. I don't want to be marching on Washington and yelling about putting the Ten Commandments in every classroom. I don't want to be some sort of stupid fanatic who doesn't make sense.

I don't want a religion that makes you walk away from your friends and makes your friends walk away from you.

Drew said it wasn't about rules, but about relationship and this thing called grace. When I think about that, it does something to me. It makes me want to cry with longing. I don't want Mindy's religion, where you can't dance anymore. I want what Drew had, something that made him even more warm and tender and dreamy. I can't forget the way he touched his Bible. I want what my husband has, something that has turned him into the first man who could love me completely for who I am. Can I have one and not the other? Who was right---Mindy or Drew? Is Christianity two different religions?

March 1999

Author's note: An alert reader asked if this story was semi-autobiographical. It was loosely inspired by some people and conversations from my college days; however, I never saw these people come to faith in Christ. Those who knew me back then would no doubt recognize me as Lindy, the skinny frizzy-haired girl from the campus Bible study. Trisha (the narrator) resembles me only slightly...the "monkey arms" for example...and the similar tastes in coffee...

Coffee news

Thanks to Coffee Swirls, I have just learned about



Acting as quickly as I could, I sent off for the blogger's review kit. I'll let you know if I was quick enough to qualify. Stay tuned (hopefully) for a review.

Milestone

My little blog has now passed the 10,000 hits mark since I started counting. Woo-hoo! I stumbled upon another blog recently that celebrated this milestone with a scandalous picture of the authoress in a skimpy outfit.

Don't worry. My only wild revelry at achieving this apparently important goal in blogdom will consist of going downstairs and having another cup of coffee.

The Starbucks dilemma

This all seems rather silly to write in light of the widespread devastation...

Since Sunday, I have been attempting to download some updates to software. Why I initially tried this on my excruciatingly slow dial-up connection, I have no idea. Eventually I gave up and decided to use someone else's high speed wifi. But who should that someone else be?

Usually I would simply head off to Starbucks. But some of my activist children have decided that Starbucks is now a den of iniquity and to be avoided at all costs. Yes, yes, I've read the recent brouhaha all over the blogosphere and have even visited Starbucks' very own website to get the inside story. But can I really boycott every single business whose practices and philosophies run against my convictions? After all, my husband and I already refuse to patronize the Great Satan (aka Wal-Mart) and, if we continued boycotting everyone with questionable morals and business practices, wouldn't we end up having to stay at home and starve?

So I headed off to a nearby town, to the lovely Cafe Diem. They, it was rumored, have free wifi. Even better, they have delicious food and wonderful service. I felt so pampered and well served that I almost didn't care that the wifi signal was too weak and sporadic to do me any good.

That was yesterday. After leaving Cafe Diem, I had no time to venture elsewhere.

Today, I confess, I went to Starbucks. It serves me right, is all I can say. First, the power cord to my laptop would not stay in the outlet. That should have been a sign. Next, I had nothing but trouble trying to sign onto T-Mobile. Then their wifi connection was soooo slooow that I would have done better to stay at home. I gave up and headed to my car, coffee cup in hand.

Once in the car, I wondered...hhhhmmm...have they already printing those "Way I See It" quotes on their cups? As a matter of fact, yes, and mine just so happened to be #43, the words of author Armistead Maupin. It said, and I kid you not:

"My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it for so long. I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don't make that mistake yourself. Life's too damn short."

It figures that I would end up with the very cup that started this whole anti-Starbucks excitement.

So now I am where I should have started out --- at a public library, using their free wifi. All is well. I've learned my lesson.

Why I love where I live

Although I'm not especially fond of shopping, it's much more pleasant when you can enjoy views like these while shopping downtown ♠ and it's a beautiful drive along the coast to get there in the first place.

These were taken on a recent shopping trip. As I snapped pictures, I was also listening to the strains of music wafting through the air from a free concert nearby.

And I had just finished a great cup of coffee.

Best cup of coffee

The absolute best cup of coffee in the world can't be had any more...at least not in this world. You see, it was my Opa who made the best coffee and there is no duplicating it. Trust me, I've tried. I've tried in American and I've tried in Germany, using the same coffee, the same canned milk ♠ and it simply cannot be done.

Some years back, I wrote the following. It's about that cup of coffee, but it's about much more.

It's really silly, I know. Oh, how I know. Silly and childish, to say nothing of impossible. Even when I wish it, I really don't wish it, because I don't want to live in a universe where such things are possible. At least not yet, not now.

But still, I can't help the wishing at times, odd times, when the thought seems to overwhelm me. Just four hours. Just four.

I know how the stairs would feel beneath my feet. My fantasy always starts there, you see, in the staircase, as I'm bolting up the three flights. It's not the way the staircase is now, of course, but the way it used to be then, when I was younger and still given to bolting up stairs. But the mad dash of happy anticipation is part of it, not just to save time, not just to avoid squandering any precious moment of those four hours, but to recapture something. Because that's what this daydream is really all about.

Of course they are waiting for me, front door open, with the echoes of laughter all through the house. I don't imagine the greeting, really. I make it low key, almost nonexistent. It's breakfast that I want. Breakfast and what always followed.

It's waiting for me too, my place already set at the table. Ah, just to taste it again---simple food, really, but was any breakfast ever more glorious? It's all a feast, but it's my eyes and ears that feast the most.

Just to see them again. Just four hours. To hear their voices. To see him pour the coffee. Nothing special. Just everyday breakfast. Just to sit at their table. Just to be with them again.

I want to hear him read God's Word. Oh, to linger over coffee and a long devotional. How could I have ever squirmed impatiently as a child? How could I have not realized that sacred treasure that I was experiencing? How could I have not realized that one day I would weep for the missing of it?

Just four hours.

I want to hear them pray again. Long prayers. Fervent prayers. Prayers like only they prayed. And, if there's time, I want to ask them all the questions I never had the sense or maturity to ask. I want to hold their hands and kiss their cheeks and gaze into their beautiful eyes. And then I'd let them go again.

Just four hours. A lifetime in four hours.

A silly wish, really. Silly and impossible. But that doesn't stop the longing. Doesn't stop the dreaming.

Just four hours. It would be enough to satisfy me...until we're really together for eternity.

-12. March 1999

Deep dark confessions

Jasmine posted a comment to one of my blog entries about coffee:

no sugar? do you drink black? I bow to you. I just can't live without my cream and sweetener, maybe I'll mature one of these days...

The truth of the matter is that I don't drink coffee black. I have done so only a very few times.

I grew up with a mother who put milk in her coffee, so that's how I learned to like it. Years later, my brother turned me on to the pleasures of "half and half". (Half what and half what? I still don't know.) Then, during my weight loss frenzy, when I was eliminating all excess calories from my diet, I switched to nonfat milk in my cereal, in my milk glass and even --- gasp! oh, the horror of it all! dare I even write it?! --- in my coffee.

And that's where I still am today, although once in a while, I sneak some cream in my coffee...or even, decadently, some whipped cream on top.

For my German readers

Gelegentliches Musings is now available. Be forewarned that this is a Google-generated translation and is thus...well, unintionally amusing to say the least. For example, in the translation of the Cool Stuff entry, I am the strong one, not the coffee.

Cool stuff

I've been enjoying my pods from Community Coffee so, as promised, here is my review of sorts.

At first, I have to admit, I was a tad disappointed. The coffee just wasn't as strong as I remembered, when made from either the dark roast or from the café especial. But then again, my first introduction to Community Coffee was when a guy practically saved my life by offering to share some from his thermos, coffee that he'd warned me was so strong that I might never be the same again after tasting it.

Perhaps so.

In order to recapture that taste, I have to throw caution to the wind by altering the setting on my Bunn coffee maker in full defiance of their information about the alleged Gold Standard of coffee-making. And then, if I put the resulting strong drink in a thermos, add some sugar (which I usually don't do), and sip it with my eyes closed, I'm almost back in Louisiana. To get the full effect, I should probably stand in a hot steamy room.

Too much time on your hands?

Or just annoyed with my blog?

Now you can spill coffee on it or nuke it, or send in a plague of snails, or flood it, or send down a rain of meteors or fry eggs on it or...

I discovered this extremely useful link on Coffee Swirls.

Too cool for words

Community Coffe now has pods for the Bunn My Cafe!!!

As soon as mine arrive, I'll let you know what I think.

Between The Rinse And Spin Cycle: A Moment Of Silence, Please

This is a must read: Between The Rinse And Spin Cycle: A Moment Of Silence, Please

Anyone who observes a "very short memorial service" for their espresso maker is my kind of person!

Test

Cafe du Monde

The coffee cup picture post is, obviously, a test

Blogspot is offering a cool new feature called Mobile Blogger, and I just had to try it out. So I sent, from my mobile phone, a picture I used to use as my screen background. Said picture was taken one morning back last Fall, when I was trying out the features of my then new phone --- one I'd gotten despite it being a camera phone. I've not turned into one of those obnoxious camera phone picture snappers, really!

The mug pictured is one of my favorites and was featured in my "Of mugs and tea cups" post.

Invasion of the body snatchers

People are writing me in alarm, wanting to know why my blog is full, of late, with references to pod people...or maybe it's just pods. What are these pods? Are they taking over the world? Have I been taken over?

Here's one answer to the question: What are Coffee Pods?

The "Cool Beans" Dilemma solved

Bunn My Cafe doing its thing
Originally uploaded by Keichu.

Here's my new toy, the Bunn My Cafe. It definitely belongs on my short list of cool stuff.

One of the nifty features is that when you make a cup of coffee, this mysterious and ultra-cool blue beam of light shines down on the cup. Unfortunately, it didn't really show up in my picture.

More about the Bunn pod coffee brewing system below.

See also The Cool Beans Controversy and Momentary Wimpiness

Almost all you could ever hope to know about the Bunn My Cafe here

How do they compare?

Bunn & Senseo
Originally uploaded by Keichu.

I've been happily putting the Bunn coffeemaker through its paces, and here are some of the things I've noticed about how it stacks up against the Senseo:

First of all, the Bunn---with its innovative pod holder design--will hold any size coffee pod, while the Senseo works only with 62mm pods. This was a big selling feature of the Bunn for me.

Another huge selling feature is that the Bunn can make a cup of coffee ranging from approximately 4 ounces to 12 ounces, while the Senseo can make either a 4 oz cup, two 4 ounce cups, or one 8 ounce cup. The variable setting on the Bunn is a great feature. I did notice that the actual amount of coffee made may vary somewhat from the setting, depending on what pod you are using and how much water it absorbs. I did quite a bit of measuring the coffee I made for a few days in order to tinker with the setting.

The "Golden Cup Standard" of the Specialty coffee Association of America indicates that a 10 gram pod (such as those from "Cool Beans") is best for brewing 6 ounces of coffee. I've been enjoying those "golden cups" now that I have my Bunn.

The first thing I noticed while unpacking and setting up the Bunn My Cafe is how much better made it is than the Senseo. It has a number of clever design features. I like not having to remove the water reservoir in order to fill it. I've also enjoyed the special tea setting. (OK, tea purists will probably scoff, but I thought it made a good cuppa tea, and you can use any tea bag.) I really like that the Bunn can be used with any size mug.

Note in the picture that I've shown the largest size mug that I can use in both machines. The mug that I have in the Senseo is rather short; my standard mugs don't fit in it at all. The Bunn holds my tallest latte mug with ease.

When I did my side by side coffee comparison, using the same flavor of Senseo pod (see entry below) I noticed that the Senseo produced far more crema. Some may like this (I do) but others may not care. I also noticed that the Bunn made hotter coffee. Those who like their tongues scalded may not want the Senseo. Coffee flavor was good with both machines.

I liked the pod holder of the Bunn much better, especially because of the ease in getting it in and out of the machine. However, it is really designed for one pod, although one can use different sizes. The Senseo comes with both a one pod holder and a two pod holder.

One thing I miss with the Bunn is that it can't make two cups of coffee at the same time. This isn't a big deal to me, since it heats up the water and makes the coffee faster than the Senseo anyway---plus, I'm rarely making another cup for someone else anyway.

Which to choose?

The Bunn will open up a whole wide world of possibilities as far as coffee pods that you can use. Plus, you can also make tea. It's far better made and seems much more durable. It heats up faster. It's easier to use. You will give up the few little things I mentioned above. However, it's pricier than the Senseo. Whether or not it's worth it is a matter of preference, I suppose.

[Edited to correct ounces to grams. Oops!]