Coffee

So, I didn't drink much more coffee than what you could find in the frosted sweet treats of Gloria Jean's kiosk in the food court.  Until I went to school.  By that time, I had hung out with all my coffee drinking friends and become accustomed to making an OCCASIONAL coffee treat.  I didn't like the bitterness of coffee, so i would kill that part with a LOT of cream and sugar. I like to say "I enjoy having coffee with my cream and sugar".  I am sure it gets old to some people.

Anyhow, when I started going to school... and working an eight hour day... and having to drive for an hour between home and work, an hour and a half between work and school and then about 20-30 from school to home... just in time to scarf some dinner and try to sleep for a few hours before running off to work again.

Coffee at work was free.  It was a courtesy and there was plenty of it and the stuff that goes in.  True, my cream was substituted with non-dairy creamer, but it did it's job.  I drank coffee like that for almost three years.  Having some at school when I could afford it, making it at home, having lots at my friend's houses, even my saturday job was coffee filled.  I really enjoyed it.

Until the caffeine problems hit.  Or at least I thought it was the caffeine.

Well, in truth the caffeine is a big part of it.  I would get stomach pains and other indications, and I would cease and desist on all coffee/soda intake for a month.  After that month for the better part of a couple years of doing this, I would go right back on the coffee.

During all this time, I would reduce slightly the amount of cream and sugar, it was getting very fattening.  I couldn't use sugar substitute, that gave me an instant headache.... worse if I accidentally got aspartame.  But still it was a lot of cream and sugar.

One day I had a problem, enhanced by coffee I found out later.  I felt bad, like if I stopped I would never move again on this earth.  It was freezing out in January and I couldn't move like I wanted to move and I told my mom and dad that I wanted to go to the emergency room.  There I continued my pacing all around the waiting room, trying to keep moving, drinking tons of water, I was frightened and I didn't know what was happening.  Eventually, I was able to sit still for a while.

After talking with a doctor-type person, the conclusion was anxiety.  I was to take these pills and stay away from caffeine as much as possible.  No more coffee... or so I thought.

Decaffeinated!  Ah, my saviour!  So I took my pills and drank lots of water and started drinking decaf... with lots of cream and sugar.

After a while, even decaf was giving me problems.  I supposed it was coffee in general, so I stopped filling up on decaf, unless it was a gourmet place like Caribou Coffee (http://www.cariboucoffee.com) or some other place.

So sadly, I gave up on my coffee.  I am still getting my Gevalia (http://www.gevalia.com) shipments of decaf, it is gourmet after all.  However, my passion has been squashed and I am just depressed when I see all my coffee waiting for me to make and drink it.

But the story isn't over!  I recently found I had been overdosing myself on sugar and carbohydrates, which I am sure the reader finds shocking, I'm sure.  So I begin the program known as the South Beach program, also called diet, but it isn't a diet.  I don't go on diets, I change my eating patterns.  The first two weeks is sugar and carb free, but decaf tea and decaf coffee are acceptable.

Desperate to get away from water and milk, I turned to that tea and coffee on more time.  The tea with all its anti-oxidents really bothers me and I will wait until I can add sugar to it again. However, the coffee is very good to me.

Adding a small amount of Splenda Brand Sweetener doesn't bother me. Milk makes an acceptible substitute for the cream.  The creamer had corn syrup solids, so I won't use that.  So with a minimal amount of cream and sweetness, I have started drinking coffee again!  What a surprise it is to drink the stuff without all the sugar and cream.  Give it to me a few years back and I would've made a face and left the drink behind.  Now, it is a friend.

Except when the cafe closes and I can't get the milk.  So now I find myself drinking small cups without cream whatsoever... and finishing them.  Perhaps one day in the near future, I will be able to drink the coffee without anything in it.  What a day that will be.

My friends would love it.

The Asteroid formerly known as a Planet

134340 is the asteroid formerly known as Pluto.  Isn't it enough that they had to embarrass the poor dwarf planet by reducing its status in the solar system?  Did they really have to grind the fact into the ground by giving it a NUMBER?

Pluto has been a planet my entire life, and the entire lives of many individuals and now they are saying, Whoops, made a mistake, it isn't really a planet in our solar system, it is really a planet from somewhere else and is just and erratic asteroid the just happens to have a defined path around Sol.

Yeah, I know, there are tons of asteroids out there and they are on a specific path around the sun as well.  But I enjoyed seeing the one path creating a flaw -- a bit of randomness in to the rather methodical plod and pretty path of the other eight planets on their solar paths when I looked at models of the solar system.

From now on, the pictures and models of the solar system will look Unfinished to me... and just a little too perfect. Or will they still teach Pluto as a planet?  I am curious to see what will happen.