I Would Rather Go Camping Than....

I know, I know, it's been a WHILE since I last wrote. Life's been happening. Work, friends, relationships, trips, etc etc. But I knew after I went camping last weekend that I needed to get back in business. Here's the thing, I love camping. I've been going camping since before I was born - yep. Then, my family used to go every year, usually two times, and at least for sure on the 4th of July with my cousins... gosh do I miss those days. The waking up early in the morning to go fishing, the pancakes on the griddle, the lazy canoeing and the fresh donuts from the camp's store. Oh those donuts were unlike any I've ever had any where else - pure heaven. I loved the crickets' symphony at night, maybe not so much the loud toads who'd wake us up early early in the morning. But those were some pretty great days, even if it rained and our campsite was a muddy mess and my siblings and cousins and I would be forced to play monopoly under a picnic table tent for hours.

Last weekend I went on one of my first camping trips in several years and to a spot I had never camped at before. I'm used to camping in "wooded" areas, but this place put us right on the beach. Not used to the sandy mess that happens when it rains (my tent still has sand in it)... or using port-o-potties. The places I'm used to camping at usually have some form of actual toilet, you just have to walk a few minutes to the building and not be afraid of possible mosquito waiting for you. And a longer walk meant there were showers. A port-o-potty with no hand sanitizer and no showers, that a little too rustic for me but, and here's the but, I can handle it. Some people were not so inclined but oh well. Anyway, after realizing how much I missed the experience (I mean who does not NOT love s'mores over an open flame?), I came up with a list of things I would rather NOT do over going camping... these are pretty much things I dislike anyway.  

I'd Rather Go Camping Than....
1.) Go to Vegas
2.) Go to Atlantic City
3.) Go shoe shopping
4.) Get a manicure or pedicure
5.) Go to NYC for a night out
6.) Watch TLC, the Bachelorette, the Simpsons, Family Guy, MTV- basically any reality TV
7.) Go to Cancun
8.) Go on a cruise
9.) Go clubbing
10.) Read Harry Potter or 50 Shades of Grey
11.) See a psychic
12.) Work or live in NYC or Boston or Los Angeles, especially LA.
13.) Go to a fancy restaurant
14.) Walk around a mall
15.) Play mini golf*
16.) Go to a comedy club
17.) See a Broadway show
18.) See Britney Spears in concert
19.) Go to Disneyland, Disneyworld, Orlando, Miami, and basically the majority of Florida that caters to tourists.
20.) Stand in Times Square
21.) Walk down Newbury Street
22.) Walk into or shop or stand near Sephora
23.) Go to any form of resort in the Caribbean, I'd rather get away from all those people.  

*I do complain a lot about this item, partially because I am highly competitive and am horrendous at mini golf. However, if my arm was twisted enough, and may promised donuts or something, I might agree to play, but only 1 round.

Alpine Lake Campground, Corinth, NY 

Photo by moi, around Summer of 2005.

Social Media Maven or bust...

I know, I know, it's been a while since I posted. It's this time of year really - sunshine, warm weather, family parties every few weeks, trips up and down the Northeast, visiting relatives and friends, oh and work. All these things have hindered my ability and availability to post. Plus this has been sitting in my drafts for a bit. Oops...

Anyway.

Namely the past three weeks have been a bit crazier. For work, two weeks ago, I had to go to 3 conferences, one taping session for 2 video classes, one networking "party," a small business breakfast, a visit to a high school to ask for intern help (or rather if there'd be an interest for students to intern at my company), interviewing intern candidates and a breakfast business meeting with potential clients. I'm pretty sure I forgot something in there but you get the point.

I have to say, as tiring as all day conferences are, I really enjoyed all three for their extremely informative programs, unique topics and take aways (whether the connections made or new information learned.) The first was the RLTM NY'11, run by The Realtime Report, formerly TWTRCON. Next up was the surprising one, CAT - Creativity and Technology Conference, I didn't know what it entailed until it started, but wow- is all I have to say. While it attracted a slightly more tech-y crowd, the things will be coming in terms of technology... just you wait. Plastic printing printers. Interactive e-books. Random using car horns as a giant piano. If you like technology furthering creativity, you best check them out. My pathetic attempts at even covering what the event entailed do not capture it. Anyway, my non-tech brain was emotionally exhausted after that, partially because I feel like what I saw there means we'll soon be living in a Star Trek/ Star Wars world. Finally, the New York Times Small Business Summit, where I learned I might actually be interested in "Living Social" promos. Also heard about the backstory and evolving ideas of foursquare- which was started to get people OUT and ABOUT. I like this.

However the most important thing I learned was probably something very basic. At RLTM someone informed me of the amazing powers of bitly.com. For my company, knowing about these wondrous options makes me wonder, how DID I not know about this sooner!?

Bitly is a URL shortener website. With the capability to see who has tweeted the link. How many clicks the link has had. What time the link was clicked on AND which countries the viewers are from. The only way you know of if someone has tweeted about the link (say, article or video, etc) is if they use your link. So if someone changes the link to a google shortener, then it no longer can track it. I'm personally really excited about seeing which times are more productive for posting a link and which countries we're reaching.

I could probably keep writing about the things I heard or experienced, or even the different people I met. Not to metion, Poken could be a whole separate blog post - digital business cards that can swap another person's data (like handing a business card over) if you put two Pokens together. But I'll leave that funny little gadget to another day.

Hope you enjoyed hearing about my networking / social media learning forays. Now it's back to work!

That, is what a Poken looks like.

Maybe It's Just Me, but Isn't It Obvious? Vol 1.

The past few weeks, I've had several encounters whether in real life, watching TV or reading the paper, where I've wondered is people were incapable of using common sense any more. You know, like really simple things that should just be known as wise, good decisions, etc.

I think I may have to start blogging when ever I encounter anything that causes me to wonder about the survival of common sense in this day and age. Here are a few I remember. I'm sure I'll add more soon.

Things that make common sense to me:

1. You should always have your lights on when driving at night on the highway. Especially when you have a dark car.
Personally, I think it should be a law that everyone always drive with their lights on. Seriously. This makes whole a lot of sense to me- who do you see first? The car with the lights or the car without? Day AND night.

2. Trains and buses should have seat belts.
Cars and planes have them. School buses (cough) have them. Why not regular trains and buses too? And even with commuter buses which might have them, who wears them? No one. Yet why "buckle up" because "it's the law" when the law doesn't apply to larger vehicles where people always get more jostled around during accidents? And who really enforces the use of seat belts on school buses? I don't know, maybe it's just me...?

3. Everything in moderation. This includes diet, exercise, and spending.
Diet - If you eat unhealthy, then your body is likely to reflect that. Doesn't it make sense to cut down on the processed stuff and hello, drink more water. Yes I know some people have health issues, but I also know that most Americans do not eat right. Whether it is the correct portion size, fresh food or water water water instead of sodas (gross) and fake juices... the solutions seem pretty simple to me. Eat wisely. Indulging isn't bad. It's the over indulging every day that is the issue.
Exercise - I admit I've only recently begun taking walks in the mornings and I just located my hand weights after they had been moved during the winter holidays. I admit the last real gym class I attended was in high school and the last real time I was "getting up and moving" was when I was involved in musicals in college and had to do minimal dance numbers as a cast member. I know I need to get moving. I know I need to get active. What I am talking about are the people, especially kids these days, who never go outside. Who'd rather go on the computer when they should be on that school softball team or watching TV instead of playing hoops in the driveway. I used to work as a nanny a few years ago, and it was hard work some days to get the kids outside! Dora the Explorer was on! There was some silly computer game they wanted go on instead. What happened to riding your bikes or playing hide and go seek??
Spending - I know a family that recently had to move and in the process, had to sell almost everything. This is partially because the wife had a habit of buying way too much junk and bought way too many things they didn't need. Now all of a sudden they were stuck trying to sell everything they could to make some money and so they wouldn't have to drag all that stuff with them... moving can get VERY expensive and just believe me, they had trouble getting rid of a TON of things instead of renting a larger truck or whatever to cart everything with them. I don't know everything about the couple, but I do know that if they didn't have all that extra stuff they needed to get rid of, they wouldn't have had such heart ache and issues with the whole moving process. So to close, having to much or doing to much of anything (even like overeating fruit) can be a bad thing. Moderation people. That's all I'm trying to say.

And so if you think I should make this a regular post, based off your comments I will make updates to this topic, otherwise, I just had to get these things off my chest. The car with the no lights incident was really bugging me. I mean really, doesn't it seem pretty stupid to drive at night with the lights off? On a highway!? And if you've had a moment where you thought, "man isn't that common sense?!" feel free to comment about it!

I'm may not be Indiana or Brennan...

Over the years I've changed my mind many a time in regards to what I would do "when I grew up." A singing-trapeze artist, a Sea World employee, a shop keeper, a movie star... there's quite a few that were ex'ed off of the list (for many reasons haha)... especially when I realized as a child that you'd actually have to touch the fish & dolphins & whales to do the job I had wanted to do at Sea World. Go figure that I then realized I had a somewhat irrational dislike of even thinking of touching a fish.

Yet the one job that I can say I (somewhat) regrettably let get away was: an archaeologist. And I don't think it had to do with Indiana Jones, though I did enjoy those movies. It started with a (now very ancient) computer game about Ancient Egypt, Greece & Rome. I don't remember the name. It was basically an educational game that I wasted hours and hours away at. I learned about slaves in Ancient Rome, what the Greeks ate for snacks and how the Egyptians mummified pharaohs. I don't know how many of my peers would have been as entranced with this program as I was, but MAN was it FUN! My absolute favorite part was about Pompeii and besides being able to stare at the casts of the bodies or the artifacts that had been found, I also liked watching a video on the "Bone Lady" or something of that nature. It was basically a short video about a woman who dug up bones at Pompeii or an other town that Vesuvius visited and embraced, virtually hiding it away for centuries. Basically anything Pompeii related captivated me and this Bone Lady was awesome!

Part of me really did want to grow up and become an archaeologist or anthropologist. I even applied to several colleges for those degree programs. Long story short, I ended up at a college that had neither a archaeology nor an anthropology program (though I was able to take a anthropology course) and graduated with an American History and Mediated Communications double major and a minor in French. I know, doesn't really make sense. Except that I realized somewhere between high school and college it was probably for the best, as I have an "aunt" (close family friend) who works in those fields and for most of her adult life, and all of mine, she's lived a nomad's life. Yes she has a "homebase" but she's away many months out of the year and due to the different environments she's lived in, she's had different illnesses and ailments that don't really appeal to me. While doing work in the Valley of the Kings would be amazing, I would rather not breathe in dust that could damage my lungs or give me an air-borne disease. I just found out that she's even had a brush with tuberculosis. Thank you, but, no thank you to the fields archaeology and anthropology.

Or maybe, I don't have to go too far to have a chance to dig something up!

I live in a somewhat wooded area, or a least, part of the property entails "woods." The back of my property is marked by an old stonewall and there's more in walls in the woods. This includes an area that I believe was once a road or path. My neighborhood also boasts an old graveyard, in a somewhat random secluded spot, since about 2 minutes down the road there's an old church.


For privacy reasons, I'm only showing one of the graves of one of the babies in the graveyard.

From what I know, there wasn't a heck of a lot around there before my neighborhood was developed, twentysomething years ago.

As kids, my siblings and sometimes even my cousins and I would enjoy playing in the woods, playing on the rock walls, or just "exploring" our territory. This usually would just result in messy muddy children with ticks brought home as unwanted presents. Yet one day, this changed, when someone spotted something on the ground. Excited, we started to "sweep" the area near a wall because we were quickly pulling out pieces of glass and pottery. Someone found a rusted old metal bucket.
This bucket is exactly like the one we found, yet this one I just found at the graveyard.

While now I realize kids digging around the backyard to find glass pieces doesn't really sound safe, let me just tell you, it kept us busy and outside. And I don't recall any serious injuries.

Over the years, my siblings and I would find a few things here and there, sometimes enough with the help of a parent, to glue some pieces together. I was usually the ringleader and the most excited, for after all, this meant there had been people living here before us! I mean the graveyard did signal something definitely happened around here. And what my parents/neighbors/someone told us about the tree near our deck, definitely meant people had lived around here. This particular tree had remains of a hunter's post, apparently, where they could climb up to get a better shot of I'm sure the deer that would wander through the area. While the tree stood, it fascinated me. Still does make me wonder but sadly it had to be cut down several years ago due to age and disease.

Can you spot the tree stump?

As I grew up, I had less time to spend digging in the backyard for my version of "hidden treasure" but I knew there had to be more out there. I just didn't have any idea it would be so close, or literally almost in plain sight.

A few weeks ago I decided to get out of my house and walk around by the back rock wall. (Well really I tried to dig up a rock I thought was a grave stone by one of our larger trees but it didn't work so well with the roots growing all over so I went for a walk). First I spotted a brick, encased in a tree. Weird. But cool.



Then, I was quickly rewarded when flashes of sunlight reflected off pieces of glass that had come to the surface due to years of rain and weather. I couldn't believe what I was finding, and as I walked along, I realized there was one spot where I was finding quite a few things. A hotspot, if you may. On the left side of a tree, I was definitely finding a lot more than usual.



Shards of glass. Clear. Then Amber. I found pieces that looked like a part of a jar, due to the ridges. I found pottery that looked like it was part of tea cup's plate. Sadly due to the evil rocks that wouldn't come up easily due to the hotspot being around the left side of an old tree AND the sun was going down... I had to stop sooner than I wanted. (especially since the tree had grown up and over one very big rock)



The next day I went out again in the afternoon and did a little more digging with a few more good finds of ceramic and glass. I even found the bottom of a "Gulden's Mustard" glass bottle.

Yet it wouldn't be until the next weekend when I would hit the lottery.

I decided to hit up the right-hand side of the tree for this adventure. The only problem was there was a huge rock slab leaning near the tree and I wasn't strong enough to pull it away. I wanted to clear away the leaves and little rocks to get an easier place to sit and work next to the tree.



WELL LO AND BEHOLD! I literally looked down to where in between the big slab and another evil rock, there was something definitely resting. I got my hands around it, barely pulled and up came an intact bottle!! I turned it around in amazement, it was made of pretty thick glass and I didn't want to drop it. I turned it over to see if there was by any chance words on it. THERE WAS! "Blue Label Ketchup" ... hum, mustard jar, ketchup bottle, hints of a tea cup and its dish... sounds like a picnic to me!




But instead of telling you about every thing that I found, I'll just let the photos that I took speak for themselves. I also just happened to meet a woman a few weeks ago who works at the local historical society (I was there for a video I was shooting for work). So I definitely have more than few questions to ask her! Plus if anyone knows of an amazing glass glue or the easiest way to get decades of dirt off of glass and pottery without damaging them, especially the ceramics, that would be great. Because it's not as easy as it sounds. I will be getting out some old tooth brushes soon to continue cleaning the dirt off, since letting a few items soaked in water didn't really help, and using q-tips was kind of wastefully stupid.

Anyway, enjoy my finds! I certainly do!

Due to research, this piece of china came from Edwin M. Knowles China Company from West Virginia and was made in 1926, I believe the 2-1 means February 1st, but I could be wrong.

Due to research, I am pretty sure this Clorox bottle is from the 1930s.

I have more photos, let me know if you're interested in seeing what else I found.

This ain't slice and bake material sugar...

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It all started with a video interview I was editing. (I edit videos for the YouTube channels "ExpertsnAuthors" and "FlipReport".)

The video was about a small business owner who had started a "bakery" with the help of a third party kitchen. Basically she is able to rent a kitchen space to bake her pastries and then she sells them in upscale hotels or markets, etc. She was showing off her products during an event at the kitchen space where other small business in the food business were showing off their products as well.

Boy, was my mouth watering... this was fun to work on. I got to look at the all food she had out at the event and then again when I went on her website to pull more images for the video. Her stuff looks amazing. You can check out the interview with Las Delicias Patisserie to see what I mean.)

During the interview she mentioned she makes "Kouign Amann", which is "a sweet and bready Breton butter cake." Breton meaning from Britanny in France. I couldn't get the name or the picture out of my head so I googled it... especially since I love baking and was hankering for something sweet but filling to snack on.

Let me just say that when you google this pastry, not many people have heard of it in the US or they're just too scared to make it, due to the many hours needed. I read a few recipes and a few blog posts before settling on this handy article from OregonLive.com - Rise and shine: Kouign aman achieves pastry perfection. I liked it especially because it included a recipe that had the measurements in cups & tbps and that used dry yeast. Most other recipes I saw called for a yeast I have never heard of. So no, no thank you, this recipe is perfect. And so of course, I could not resist waiting too long before I printed out the recipe and made sure I had all the ingredients. You can use it to follow along with my photo log if you'd like.

Day 1
To start off, you proof the yeast, mix some flour, melted butter and salt together, mix up the yeast with the flour mixture to make a dough and then cover it with plastic. Let rise for an hour.

Before


After


Once the dough has risen, you have to punch it -YES - and wrap it in plastic and then put in the fridge for a few hours. When you take it out, it looks like this heavenly ball of dough.


Meanwhile, I had to cut up a lot of butter into squares and put in it the fridge as well to chill. After 2 hours I believe, I took both out. The dough needed to be rolled out to some crazy square measurement. Then the butter squares are placed in the middle.

Then I folded the dough over the butter so it is entirely covered.

Next, following certain measurements again, I had to roll the dough out, I think 24inches long by 8inches wide.

Not easy when the butter inside is chilled but definitely doable.

Next, I was again stumped for a few moments with the recipe but finally figured out what folding the dough "like you would a business letter" meant.


This is a 3-repetition process, so I had to wrap the dough in plastic again for 20 minutes. Take it out, repeat rolling to crazy measurements. Fold it up. Put it back in the fridge. Chill for an hour. Take out. Roll out to crazy measurements again. Fold up again. Put back in fridge to chill overnight. Phew!

End of day 1.

Day 2

Today I took out the dough and rolled it out to 24inches long by 12 inches wide. Then I started to cut up it up using a pizza cutter into 4inch by 4 inch squares.


Next, on a baking pan** that preferably has either parchment paper or a silicone mat, it's time to shape the squares. For each square, take the four corners, and bring to the center and press firmly together and then down. Repeat 17 more times for the remaining squares.

**Here is where amateurs at this recipe falter. You must, if you are considering making this, make sure your almost-ready-to-bake squares are in a baking pan with sides. The sugar you need to sprinkle over each square will melt in the oven into a fast moving sticky mess and cascade off a flat pan down onto your oven's bottom and start to burn, causing your oven to smoke and house to smoke over too. FUN! I learned fast while bakingthe first batch and quickly put the second batch into the proper pan. Now I still need to clean the oven.

Once all the squares have been shaped properly into the "kouign amann" format, sprinkle each square with a teaspoon of sugar. Cover with plastic.



Let rise for about 30 - 40 minutes... So close yet so far!!



Once the squares have risen, or really, 40 minutes later, set oven to 425 degrees.

When the oven was ready to go, I only put one batch in at a time, which ended up being fine, though I would like to try it again by putting them all in at the same time. Don't know how that could change baking times.

Almost to there!

Bake these lovely items for 30-35 minutes, but make sure to rotate the pan at the 15 minute mark to ensure equal baking.

Finally, once finished baking, let cool on wire racks... if you can resist for long.

So while I learned a valuable lesson about sugar melting properties... I can totally say that all the hours and labor (rolling it out this morning was quite the process) I highly recommend this delicious yet basically never heard-of pastry, especially for coffee lovers. These are PERFECT for either breakfast or that afternoon coffee break treat.

We're talking... but are we really?

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I've been thinking of writing about this for a while, though I will confess I have talked about it with a few friends multiple times. It's something that bothers me about technology.

And yes, I'm going to quote "You've Got Mail" again to make a point, this will happen a few times in this blog.

Kathleen Kelly: People are always saying that change is a good thing. But all they're really saying is that something you didn't want to happen at all... has happened.

What I'm talking about is how people communicate. Or how they really don't any more. When's the last time an old friend of yours called you up out of the blue, just to chat? I honestly say that there is only one person off the top of my head that calls me regularly and I call her for the distinct purpose of hearing her voice and ... oh my goodness... chatting. Unbelievable! Why doesn't she just gchat me? Text me?

The reason is simple. And even me trying to express why won't really capture all that I'm trying to say. But I go. It's as close as we can get (w/o needing a computer and camera for Skype) to hanging out for a few minutes since we don't get to see much of each other in person. Do we text? Yes. Do we gchat? Occassionally. Do we write on each other's FB walls? Yes. But this is not the foundation of us seeing how the other person is and hearing their voice. We genuinely enjoy asking "what's new," "how's work?", "how's school." And I'm count myself lucky for it.

I'm pretty much tired of solely relying on "text" whether a SMS, email or chat, for talking to people. I don't think a normal conversation should be had through text messaging. If you can take the time to type those words to me and press send four detailed texts... why not just press the other "send" and ring me up, save you the finger exercise? I have a guy friend, who when I do talk to him every few months, it is not through electronic messages, and I have to say, it's always refreshing. Especially, to me, when words are really only a small fraction of interpersonal communication- they lack/misrepresent tone and body language.

I recently worked with a guy who was very bothered by the lack of tone in electronic messages, and he could be very amusingly vocal about his feelings on this topic. Emails and text messages frustrated him, because he wasn't sure if the person sending them were being bossy or informative. Demanding or sarcastic. Rude or playful. Think about it. How many times do you misinterpret a message, only to find out later that it was meant to come off in a totally different way? This bothers me! I always knew too, when I'd send him an email for something, that he was probably going to misread my attitude, even though I did my best to sound positive-happy-cheerful-please-do-this-when-you-get-a-moment. At least later we would then be able to talk about it in person and even sometimes bash how complicated communication can be sometimes. I mean, think of how many people in your professional life who you've ever sent an email to yet you have never had either a face-to-face encounter or a long enough working relationship to get a hold of their personality? You're hand hovered over pressing "send" because you worried they might taken the message the wrong way. Why? Fifty percent of emails are misinterpreted.

And I appologize but another "You've Got Mail" quote is required, though sadly, I do suggest that the only way you will really understand why I'm using this is to go and watch it, if you haven't already. The word I'm focusing on is her usage of "Yes".

Kathleen Kelly: I only know him through the, uh... you're not going to believe this...
Joe Fox: Oh, let me guess. Through the Internet?
Kathleen Kelly: Yes.
Joe Fox: Hmm. You've... got mail.
Kathleen Kelly: Yes!
Joe Fox: Some very powerful words.
Kathleen Kelly: Yes...

She says "yes" with three very very different tones. The first one she sounds ashamed "You got me. you figured out my dirty little secret." The second is "That's it! I look forward to those words every time I sign on!" The third is, "I agree absolutely and completely." She's almost in awe someone else feels the same way. But did you get those different tones from just reading it? I don't think so. (I said that in my mind like that kid that that movie ... Idon'tthinkso!)

Here's the thing-

I can be a very sarcastic person, depending on who I'm around. Some people have called me "sassy." Yet I've realized, when chatting online, this part of my personality typically is misinterpreted as me being serious or rude... and this can land me in trouble occasionally... cue "My Stupid Mouth." What was meant to be funny was assessed completely and utterly the wrong way. And then I curse at technology for misrepresenting my actual tone. In regards to body language, even the stupid emoticons do not fully capture facial expressions when you you throw in a message in an attempt to show the person how your face would look if they saw you. In my opinion there are several ways to stick out your tongue at someone - ranging from flirty to obnoxious. Am I right? I definitely know that :D and :) do not capture when I'm being sheepish.

And here is where it gets pathetic.

That is from my latest phone bill. (Yes I pay, yes I don't mind. Yes, I know you most likely think I am crazy for what I just said.) Anyway. SEVEN MINUTES?! That's all??? A whole month and I've only spoken on the phone 7 minutes. And I'm pretty certain that a majority of those were phone calls from or to my family. Which is nice, but not my point.



By all means, I am not asking for every one of my contacts to suddenly rush to their phones and start calling me. But I do miss the days, you know, pre-caller-id... when the phone would ring and someone would yell up, "Al! Phone call!!" And I'd rush to get the handheld (or pull on the cord, if I'm really going back) and then jump on my bed and talk for at least 20 minutes... usually it was for 45minutes to over an hour. Geez! Can you even imagine talking to someone on a phone for that long today? What in the world would we talk about for that long??? Sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get to to "How are you?... What's new?... I've been doing ___."

We're so busy running around these days, not to mention what social media has done to our attention spans, I feel we're loosing touch with everyone who really matters. Maybe I'm being to nostalgic for the old days (give me a phone with a cord like in those 90s sitcoms.) but I hope someone feels the same. I'm looking for more meaningful conversations than a moment on gchat that is already full of effortless LOLs and hahas in replace for actual responses (Not all New Yorkers are like that- in reference to the article). Maybe those days of long conversations are gone with the wind, I'm just hoping we don't loose them completely.

It ain't all about coffee, but man do I love it

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I didn't mean for my first post to actually be about coffee, it just kind of happened that way.

In one of my most favorite movies to quote, "You've Got Mail," Meg Ryan's Kathleen Kelly says to Tom Hanks's Joe Fox "I could never be with someone who has a boat." I'd like to paraphrase that and say, I could never be with someone who didn't like coffee.

In the scheme of things, that seems pretty silly and maybe in someway, better for me. To cross a guy off for not enjoying a (non-alcoholic) beverage is kind of silly. Plus it would equal more coffee for me and less arguments as to who took more than their second helping of java in the mornings.











How could you resist??

And yet, I still have to say, I could never be with someone who didn't like coffee. For me, drinking coffee can be an experience. I own two French-presses, sometimes use a regular coffee pot, have one easy-to-use-pump-your-own milk froth-er, delight in my caramel sauce and vanilla syrup to mix with lattes ... etc. etc. My next coffee-related purchase, I hope, will be one of these: coffee heaven. First experienced it with another coffee-lover and I must say, it has changed how I think about coffee- it's like drinking tea but not as boring. I'm not saying I'm a coffee expert, by no means... I'm just saying that I really, really, really enjoy my morning cup or two of joe.

I wasn't always this way, I hated drinking coffee for many years, though I guess like many people, I got addicted to it in college. I started off with lattes (kind of a problem for me) and within a few years, I was drinking my coffee straight up, no milk- just a little sugar please and thank you. When I studied for a few months in Paris my junior year, getting un café was a special and treasured treat (I was the typical poor student so every single Euro counted). And of course, that experience ruined me... I miss European coffee every day. Even the "accessories" that went with it- un pain au chocolat, par exemple... besides Trader Joes, no one has come close to mimicking the real deal but that's a whole other blog post for another day.

Anyway, I cannot imagine NOT sharing this enjoyment with someone during the weekly morning rush or for the calm lazy weekend brunch. Even just grabbing a cup of coffee for a afternoon treat... how could you not enjoy this? (I will admit, I am not much of a tea person, and grabbing a cup of tea isn't as... romantic(?) to me... unless I guess we were in England... so maybe I'm biased.) It's as second nature to me as taking a shower, brushing my teeth, putting on make-up. Can I survive without it? Yes. I don't actually use coffee for the caffeine rush (though I can't drink it after a certain hour or else I won't fall asleep) ... I drink coffee for the love of it.

Which for some reason, is really really hard for one of my friend's to comprehend. He sees coffee as two things:
1) An evil addiction that enslaves its drinkers to require that daily kick-start or revival or else they will not be able to function (which for some, sadly, is required). The thirst and craving requires you to slowly increase your intake so that Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts rule your very sanity with an iron fist. Must. Get. That. Third. Cup.
2) A trickster - for it smells not as it tastes. We all know what he's talking about- that delicious waft of French Vanilla beans saunters over to you and yet once you taste it, the flavor does not match the scent...this is usually were a novice will cringe and spit out the "disgusting" dark liquid completely disappointed. (I know, I've been there.) It's like drinking whiskey- how many people actually enjoy that first sip?

Okay so he has some good pointers but I'm glad I don't fall into his footsteps. Why would I ever want to miss out on a homemade caramel macchiato?? Qu'est vous pensez?