I don't normally do holiday themed blogs, but my father just wandered over and told me to write.
This blog's for you, Dad!
My Thanksgiving began with a severely constipated coffee machine. Normally, I drink Folgers because I am not a hipster and I like to save money. Why not purchase one's coffee in a large red plastic bin?
However, my father drinks artisan coffee that was harvested from the steep slopes of some mist covered mountain accessible only by flying monkeys, and then ground right before use in an Italian marble mortar and pestle.
It's then percolated in distilled dew using a French press actually imported from France and then he puts both cream and cream flavored liquor in it, at which point it becomes a desert with caffeine in it.
So anyway, in an attempt to keep his environs as familiar as possible, knowing that the South was going to be traumatic enough for him, I tried to purchase some form of whole bean coffee. This was hard to locate, but I found a bag.
It wasn't great, but it was working until yesterday, when it came out strangely weak. That was not acceptable.
This morning I was determined not to let it happen again. I added even more beans and let it do it's thing while I was cleaning up from the debauchery of the night before- gathering the cocktail glasses still festooned with a limp wedge of lime and bowls of stale potato chips, picking up shoes discarded and left in places where they are sure to be tripped over later- and feeding the dogs.
I made Keith's breakfast of champions and started frying bacon.
The house was becoming clean and the bacon became crisp, but the coffee only got weaker. Irritated, I dumped the coffee water back in the machine, added more beans and set it to go again.
This time around the machine made distressed choking sounds and began to foam at the mouth. Despite this impressive display, the end product could not even be called coffee.
I was perplexed.
Seeing it was inevitable, I postponed my other tasks and began dismantling the coffee machine. Coffee grounds filled it from top to bottom; as I opened it they spilled out onto the counter in waves. Some had formed a kind of cement that required hot water and a small screw driver to loosen.
I'm surprised the poor thing still functions. But it does, and for that I am grateful.
As I write, there is a rustic flower arrangement on the table, Mom in the kitchen, Dad on facebook and a husband watching football.
There is a turkey in the oven, a ham to be glazed, a green bean casserole waiting, potatoes to be mashed, a mango cranberry chutney finished, rolls in the oven, two cream cheese desserts in the fridge and a head of garlic slowly roasting.
I have a cocktail with a wedge of lime and a coffee machine with which I am now much more intimately familiar.
Happy Thanksgiving.
