Fair to Middling

Let me first start out with today's scoreboard: Blog-1, Constant Inner Monologue-way more annoying. I guess yesterday's blog while initially having the effect of silencing some of my mind babbling ended up creating a sort of thought vacuum into which was sucked a bevy of blog related self talk. After the cathartic cleanse of writing came the furious torrent of "ick why did I write that" and its various related ideas. Truthfully, I am not a fan of putting myself out there. Everytime I do, whatever the situation - book clubs, bible studies, English and philosophy classes, mom's groups, drinking groups, parties - I end up wishing I had never opened my mouth. Keep it secret, keep it safe. The realization that I misspelled more than a couple of words hits me. I am so pissed. I don't misspell words, I MOCK people who misspell words. I certainly don't PUBLISH something ONLINE for people to READ with misspelled words in it. (Hey didn't that program have spell check? How did they not catch those????) Oh, don't you worry, deary, no one's going to be reading your stupid blog. Why are you even writing a blog? Do you think someone cares. UGH and then the idea that some idiots are going to read the blog and have their idiotic comments to make assails me. Now, this is too much! By the way, thanks to all of you who did read and comment for not being THAT person.

Oh right. But I am just writing this as an exercise to "Let it all out, Get it all out." So all of the rest of it shouldn't matter. Because it does matter, I give it a paragraph and get IT out too.

Done.

Now, I'll move on to the real topic du jour. The perfect cup of coffee at home. For me, a cup or three of strong, but not bitter, hazelnut coffeemate sweetened, starbucks extra bold roast is a delight I have been looking forward to my whole pregnancy. It serves so many functions: wakes me up with its jolt of caffeine, warms me up (oh and HOW I have been having such troubles with being fu-ree-zing since I had Liam...in the hospital we had separate thermostats in each room. The first night I asked my nurse to turn it up. I had no idea how hot she had turned it until they wheeled me down the hall to go home two days later and a brisk Nor'easter blew across my face. I asked the orderly who was wheeling me to the elevator, "do they keep it pretty cold out here?" I could almost see her quizzical face as she answered, "nope, it's about 72 throughout the ward.") and is a pretty good laxative-and those ladies out there who have gone through childbirth know how important that is!

Nine months ago, I would have told you that I make a pretty mean pot of coffee. Somehow, in the attempts I've made over the last week or so I have missed the mark, big time. Too bitter, followed by too weak, then bitter and weak (really? is that a possible flavor combination with coffee?). How could things be going so wrong? I have a pretty decent Cuisinart coffee maker, not top of the line, but it'll do. I have the French Roast from Starbucks, and it is fresh thanks to a Starbucks run by Meghan last Wednesday. I even have a Starbucks coffee grinder...although that MAY be under a recall, and now that I think about it, I should probably look into that. So, what's going wrong?

I have given it a lot of thought. You'd probably be surprised by the space this line of thought takes up in my brain. I have even googled it. I google everything. I found out the bitterness comes from grinding the beans too small for the method of brewing you are using. I am using a traditional drip machine, so you need a good medium grind. 9.5 seconds of grinding should do the trick. I found through trial and error that you MUST strictly obey the suggested 2 tbsp of coffee per 1 six oz cup of water ratio. You must carefully measure and level out the tablespoons, and you must accurately measure out the water, to the ounce.

Finally this morning, after 5 or 6 failed days of attempts (yes, I drank that gross coffee, because bitter, weak or not, nothing is worse than wasting coffee) I made a delicious pot of coffee. Only to be thwarted in my drinking of it by running out of coffeemate after my first cup. Two more perfectly delicious cups of coffee sit, neglected, in my coffeepot as I write. Oh Murphy's Law. Eh, I probably only needed one cup.

Hey maybe I should readjust the scoreboard...Blog - 2, CIM - fair to middling.