It's Just Coffee This Morning

The coffee this morning is not what I expected. Oh, it's good and all, but when I opened the jar this AM and sniffed the beans, I got an amazing whiff of strawberries, and in the cup, well, it's pretty much just very good coffee.

This, I suppose, begs the issue of whether coffee is really supposed to taste like strawberries. Most people are used to the burnt bean taste of Starbucks or the generic never changing taste of Folgers or Maxwell House. In Canada, Coffee=Tim Hortons for millions of folks. For discussion purposes we'll assume that people are actually tasting the brown stuff instead of the sugar and dairy or fake dairy substances they put in their cups.

Coffee roasters (the people, not the machines) are like wine snobs. We can talk about the variations in coffee for hours on end and speak lovingly about great crops of one sort of another from years gone by. I regularly bore dozens of people every day yammering on about coffee.

In any case, I'm hoping for strawberries tomorrow, after the beans have another day's rest. That's assuming the elusive taste I was going for didn't make it's appearance at 3 AM, leave at 3:10, and is gone forever.

posted by taming at 06:12 | link | comments |
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Once Upon A Time There Was Almost A Princess

I am a fiddidler. That is, I have a strange compulsion to spend endless hours fixing things that ain't broke. Often the result is worse than when I started, and by the time I am finished, chances are, whatever I have been screwing around with will be well and truly farked.

Poor Howard has had to watch this painful process for years and years. He has seen templates come and go, template toys added and then deleted, and has been nagged repeatedly over IM about some tiny thing that only I care about.

I comfort myself with the knowledge that he, too, is a fiddidler.

It's not all bad. In the world o'blog, I generally end up with a pretty good design, and in coffee world, I ended up being somewhat of an expert in the arcane sub-culture of bread machine/heat gun coffee roasting fools.  Of course, being known for filling my garage with smoke and burning chaff when it is well below zero (in both the US and Canadian ways) is probably not what my parents had in mind when they held their baby girl in their arms for the first time.

They were expecting a princess, you know.

posted by taming at 05:21 | link | comments (2)|
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Warm: It's A Good Thing

About a year ago, I bought a very chic pair of boots. If anything can make a 55 year old short person look vaguely sexy in jeans, it is these boots. Then, yesterday, I bought another pair of boots. These have thick treads that look like they belong on snow tires, various ties and Velcro closures, and are guaranteed to keep tootsies warm to -30C/-22F.

Worn with my Hot Paws gloves, a tuque (AKA wooly winter hat outside of Canada), and a down jacket, I look a bit like the Michelin man, so the tire-like soles are at least thematic.

I bought them because I was taking a turn at the great social work winter tradition of the walk about. Now, the people I generally see are housed, but my agency also does outreach to people living on the streets. Well, not just the streets, but also to the people living rough in the great outdoors.

And the great outdoors this time of year is very, very cold.

It works like this. A couple of worker types leave our warm offices, get into our almost warm cars, and drive to a trail head. We are blessed with a beautiful and extensive trail system here, and walking the trails is a hugely popular activity—just not when it is freezing and the trails are icy and covered with snow.  Once on the trail, you have to keep your eyes peeled for evidence that someone has left the trail itself and established some sort of bush camp.

It's hard to know if we are hoping to find one or not. If workers go out and don't find camps in the usual places, it might mean that folks have come in out of the cold. It also might mean that the camp has moved, and we just haven't found it yet. The hope is that we can find people, offer them help getting some food and a warm place to sleep. All too often, the reality is that all we can do is drop off some supplies and information and wish them well. The fear is that we will walk up to what looks like a bundle of rags under a tarp of some sort and find a dead body.

I didn't actually go out on the trails yesterday. Instead, I spent hours with another worker trying to get someone into detox. That didn't work out either, but we get to try it all again today.

posted by taming at 05:14 | link | comments (3)|
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Marriage in the Morning

posted by taming at 06:23 | link | comments (2)|
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Virtually 2.0

I have a Facebook profile. It's not like I had a choice after our niece started a family reunion group. After all, ignoring such things just isn't nice, and being nice is the Canadian way.

In any case, I have one of those demanding little buggers.

You have to understand, I am not part of the web 2.0 generation. It's not that I am antisocial. It's not that I resist new technology. Heck, it's not even that I am old. I simply do not have either the time or the inclination to keep up with the happenings in the lives of people who want me to be their sorta friends. I also want to tell my family not to poke me, invite me to compare movie ratings, or ask me to play on line scrabble. I am pleased to look at pictures of the kids, but my interest pretty much stops there.

I do use a widget that shares my music listening history. I can't tell you why I do this, but it seems like the 2.0 way and I wanted to make a bit of an effort to appear somewhat in the moment. Of course, once folks realize that I have been listening to Ottmar Liebert any kewl points this may have earned me disappear immediately.

A few weeks ago, someone sent me a poorly drawn picture of a plant as a virtual gift. I later learned that these images cost the sender a buck. I guess I should have explored that part before I deleted the silly thing. Then yesterday, I read an article that explained that 24 million real dollars have been spent on Facebook virtual gifts this year.

Clearly, the ability to send virtual gift pictures to one's friends should not be sullied by profit taking. For this reason, I have reached deep into my hard drive and found a picture that I am positive my friends will enjoy. Before adding it to my Facebook profile, I thought I would offer it up to my blogging friends for their non-commercialized holiday experience.

So, from my family (including our three cats) to my friends and the world at large, here is my virtual gift to the virtual world. My real friends will have to be content with our hopes and wishes for peace, happiness, and health.

I know, I know. This is so 1.0 of me.

posted by taming at 06:42 | link | comments (3)|
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