I have once again become an insufferable snit, living in the throes of research mode. I don’t know how my loving wife puts up with me. I saw it rising to the surface in the aisles of Target yesterday shopping for our cup of Good Morning America. Stumptown, Holler Mountain. On Sale. Huzzah! Even though I chastised my profligate soul for reaching for the bag of beans and throwing it in my handcart, I enjoyed spending the next few hours ruminating over how glorious the next morning’s jolt would be. I watched myself sponge the grime off the French Press, resetting the coffee grinder to 8 cups instead of the 9.5 cups we usually have it set on for a 12 cup Mr. Coffee, our abused daily driver. I stared at the bag in the checkout, missing Powell’s City of Books and hoping that my former city of residence heals from its current moment in the national mindset. 

I woke this morning, not to David Lynch’s calming voice on my phone’s alarm, but to my wife pouring the beans into the coffee grinder. NO! My morning’s cleansing ritual was being hijacked. At least I walked into the kitchen. It could have been much worse, but I have lived with my research mode villainy for a few years now and I knew what was seeping up through the capillaries. 

“Do you want me to do that?”

My wife calmly stepped away from the grinder, threw a knowing glance in my general direction, and allowed her caffeine addiction to stand down, violence avoided through hard-lived experience.

Filtered water into the saucepan. Microwave timer set to 4:15. Get all of the paler bean shards left on the top of the grinder container INTO the press. That is where the flavor lives. Pan off the boil for 15 seconds. Fast pour to saturate the grind. Back on the boil. Off the boil at 3:45. Stir down the bloom with a silicone spoon. Top off the water. Prep the thermos. 

“Do you want a cuppa off the top?”

 Pause. 

“Sure.” 

Good, I haven’t completely ruined her morning ritual with my beastliness. 

Position strainer over cup to prevent stray floaties. She should, at the very least, get the first pour. How bloody considerate.

Pupils dilate. Junkie.

The kaffeeklatsch proceeded. 

“I think I want a mirror to go over our dresser.”

“We have a dresser? I thought we had a chest-of-drawers.”

Oh, god. He’s still here. 

Long pause. 

“Did your mother have a dresser? My grandmother was proud of her’s. She sat at her dresser every morning to do her makeup.”

“You mean she sat at her vanity.”

“She called it her dresser.”

“What’s the difference between a chest-of-drawers, a dresser, and a vanity, and where does the credenza fit into all of this?”

“This is like the time I tried to convince you that the linen closet wasn’t a pantry. Credenzas go in the dining room or the living room because they are meant to hold dishes.”

“Like a china cabinet?”

“I want a mirror to go over our dresser.”

“If it’s a dresser, then the mirror needs to be attached. That’s what a dresser is. Want you want is a mirror to float above our chest-of-drawers.”

It’s going to be a long few days until I can learn all I can about capillary action for the next movement of my current project. 

With any luck, we’ll make it to our 26th wedding anniversary. 

Love you, Coo.