Coffee Press Offers End to my Coffee Woes - Soon

A Coffee Press

Among all my recent coffee woes, there is some exciting news.  About 2 weeks ago, I found a coffee press in perfect condition in a thrift shop for $2!  I bought it without a second thought.  Coffee presses make amazing coffee, and they're also very easy to use and versatile. For example, you can easily use one to make good tea, and use the press to keep the leaves out of your cup (without violating the integrity of your coffee maker or creating a mess that's hard to clean up.) Also, there's not much that can go wrong with them, unless you have a habit of dropping glass things.

There are only two problems with my coffee habit.  One is that I'm in Mexico (as of Wednesday) and I now have to be content with Nescafe (which is superior Folgers beyond a doubt) for 2 and a half weeks until I get back.  The good thing is that they have regular coffee maker at work, and I bought some good Mexican coffee to use there.  I'm still trying to figure out the right measurement since I'm not used to using a drip pot anymore.

Moka Pot

The other problem is that when I get back, at least half a kilo of Folgers is waiting for me.  Folgers doesn't taste any better in a coffee press.  It also doesn't taste any better in a moka pot (those little stove-top coffee makers that make really strong coffee which many people stove-top espresso machines.)  I tried everything.

When I get back, I'll have to get a bit of good coffee just to enjoy my coffee press - just once.  Then I'll suffer through the Folgers.

Folgers Coffee, Again ...

Early on writing this blog, I wrote a complaint of how one of my favourite morning routines of all times was soured because a well-meaning friend decided to change her locally roasted, delicious Mexican coffee for Folgers; "It's American, and it's from Walmart - it must be good," was the reasoning. (See Coffee, Wonderful Coffee!)

About a week and a half ago, I did the unthinkable and bought a kilo of Folgers coffee.  It was on special for $5 at Walmart!! Even at that price, I hesitated.  However, we were have a large number of guests over (see Baptism of Our Twins), and so someone managed to convince me that it was a good idea, especially at a time of tighter budget constraints.  I now regret the decision; I could have bought a much smaller container of better quality coffee for only a bit more and still had enough.

I am now paying the price.  At the gathering we used about 1/10 of the can.  That leaves us with the rest to use up on our own.

Even my wife, who cannot tell the difference between butter and margarine, between real whipped cream and the edible oil product version or even between real artisan Mexican coffee and Nescafe has said she has trouble getting a whole cup of Folgers coffee down.  (In fact, even way back 6 years ago in Cuernavaca when that friend duped us with Folgers coffee, my wife was in pain trying to finish the cup out of politeness; this friend had made it very strong as well!)

This is a really bad sign when even my wife has trouble getting it down.  She has no taste for quality or "food elitism."

We've realized that if we make it just the right strength and drink it fresh it's doable.  However, if it sits even half an hour, the re-heated product simply won't go down.  We feed it to the plants. (The plants can't complain!)

To make things even worse, this morning I was opening up my green bin (the spacial garbage can for organic waste.)  Normally smells of decomposing fruit waste and meat scraps blend with that of week-old dog droppings.  Today I'm sure that it was the smell of Folgers coffee grounds that came wafting out.  I still can't decide if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

Tolkien's Last Letter, Bilbo Baggins' Birthday & the Hobbit's 75th Anniversary

This is an excerpt from a post on an excellent blog I read fairly regularly (my emphases in bold):

Today is Bilbo Baggins’s Birthday and yesterday was the 75th anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit.
I found an image of the edition that I first read.
I first read The Hobbit when I was in 7th grade.  I have a clear memory of sneaking some pages during a wood-shop class.   The following summer, having read everything else I could get my hands on and longing intensely for The Silmarillion, I wrote to The Professor at the urging of my grandmother (the one who had given me sets of lp records of Shakespeare plays).  The professor wrote back.   I received his letter, an aerogramme, in September 1973, some days after he had died.  In his letter he wrote that he had to be brief because people were waiting for him in the car.  He went to Bournemouth and he died that same day.  I may have the last thing he ever wrote.

Tolkien’s books were one of those pivotal forces which veered me into a life changing path.

...

Could you imagine having the last thing J.R.R Tolkien wrote in his lifetime?  Reading The Hobbit and Tolkien's books was also "one of those pivotal forces which veered me into a life changing path" for me.  I think the beauty of Tolkien's writings impact people on a much greater level then simply fictional entertainment.

But the last thing Tolkien ever wrote ... Wow!

Read the entire post at his blog, Some reflections on a life changing book.

Baptism of Our Twins

This Sunday, our baby twins, who will be 2 months old in 2 days, were baptized!  Here are some pictures:

Grandma getting the babies dressed

The blessing of the water.

The annointing with oil.

The sermon

The baptism itself

Closer view of the baptism

Welcoming of babies into the Church



 After the baptism, the priest gave my wife the blessing for mothers of newborns, known as "churching":

Here's picture of the church's beautiful high altar.  It's a beautiful little church building in the countryside:

Finally, our celebration afterwards. Fortunately, the weather was beautiful, so we enjoyed lunch outside, at our house:

and The Huffington Post is ...

(WARNING: this is somewhat vulgar, but completely true)

"the never-ending ritual of intellectual masturbation that is The Huffington Post"

I'm glad Bad Catholic said it, so I didn't have to.

Lesson from this post: Don't read Huffington Post; everything Bad Catholic says about it is true.  DO read Bad Catholic; it's worth every minute of your time!

(I was going to create a "Huffington Post" label, but I'm sure this is the first and last time I will mention that ... well, you now know what it is.)