coffee http://domesticat.net/taxonomy/term/365/atom/feed 2007-11-19T02:37:27+00:00 Dear reader... http://domesticat.net/2007/07/dear-reader 2007-07-26T19:07:13+00:00 2007-12-23T02:00:31+00:00 domesticat In lieu of the entry I'm actually taking time to write and edit and revise and actually think about, I present linkfood.

'In Teh Beginning' (lolcats meets inexplicable meets ... uh, you'll see)

From Colter: 'How To Get Your Love On' on relationships:

]]> In lieu of the entry I'm actually taking time to write and edit and revise and actually think about, I present linkfood.

'In Teh Beginning' (lolcats meets inexplicable meets ... uh, you'll see)

From Colter: 'How To Get Your Love On' on relationships:

"See, at a certain point, all the variants become so astounding, so dizzying, so universal, that you finally realize (yes, for the 1,000th time) there is no rule. There is no pattern. The exceptions are the rule. There is no approach that, overall, seems to work for most people most of the time. There's not even a hint of a possibility of a whisper of a rule and anyone who deigns to tell you differently, be it a church or a parent or a relationship guru, is, to put it gently, astoundingly full of crap."

....and:

'Library director resigns to head to New Orleans'

Speaking of inexplicable, if anyone can explain to me why so many coffee drinkers persist in continually drinking a beverage they don't even like, I'd love to hear a good explanation. Yes, yes, I know their excuse is the need for caffeine, but why not get your morning kick from a beverage you actually like?

P.S. - Send half-and-half. I'm out.

Love,

Amy
(who is debating whether she should give this entry a title or just use that odd conglomeration of free tags as the title)

]]> From the hotel: stark raving mad http://domesticat.net/2000/12/hotel-stark-raving-mad 2000-12-27T15:01:16+00:00 2007-11-19T02:35:35+00:00 domesticat Damn that stupid coffee. Not only did I stay up until two a.m., I slept through breakfast. I am really starting to lose my temper here, and being hungry doesn't help. But I did have fun watching contestants get manipulated on The Price Is Right. Great. So I wandered downstairs and raided the vending machine—again. They're out of Pop-Tarts and all of the good chips. It's me and Mr. Goodbar dining together again. When I get out of this sterile carcass of a hotel room I'm going to have a real honest-to-God meal with minimally-processed food. I'm craving vegetables.

]]> Damn that stupid coffee. Not only did I stay up until two a.m., I slept through breakfast. I am really starting to lose my temper here, and being hungry doesn't help. But I did have fun watching contestants get manipulated on The Price Is Right. Great. So I wandered downstairs and raided the vending machine—again. They're out of Pop-Tarts and all of the good chips. It's me and Mr. Goodbar dining together again. When I get out of this sterile carcass of a hotel room I'm going to have a real honest-to-God meal with minimally-processed food. I'm craving vegetables. Something healthy. I guess a diet of Pop-Tarts and chips and water will do that to you.

I'm trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to stand another day of this. I can't figure out what is more maddening—watching traffic move around the airport, knowing there's no flight for me to take to get out of here, or watching traffic move along I-440. Just because the roads are improving here doesn't mean that the roads are improving way back out in the backwoods, where Jeff and the rest of my family are.

My consolation is that yes, while I'm going stark raving mad here, I would be absolutely losing my mind at my parents' house. Jeff says they don't have power. They're running off of the generator, and my sister and nephew are there. I guess a quiet, sterile hotel room with crappy food is better than a smoky house with a screaming four-year-old.

Neither option is pleasing. I want to go home. Kat says the kitties miss us terribly. I think it's mutual.

]]> From the hotel: cabin fever http://domesticat.net/2000/12/hotel-cabin-fever 2000-12-27T06:40:01+00:00 2007-11-19T02:36:05+00:00 domesticat I don't want to go downstairs. I want something to drink besides water, though. I just finished watching an episode of "The Operation" about hair transplant surgery, and I really need something else to think about. So I've fired up the mini coffeemaker provided with this room, and made a tiny little pot of coffee. I poured myself a cup of the stuff, and dumped eight packets of sugar and three packets of creamer into it.

]]> I don't want to go downstairs. I want something to drink besides water, though. I just finished watching an episode of "The Operation" about hair transplant surgery, and I really need something else to think about. So I've fired up the mini coffeemaker provided with this room, and made a tiny little pot of coffee. I poured myself a cup of the stuff, and dumped eight packets of sugar and three packets of creamer into it.

Then I realized that I didn't want the coffee to be that hot, so I got a bucket of ice from the ice machine and stuck the coffee cup in the middle of the ice. That was over an hour ago. Once it was cooled, I drank it. And then I remembered why I don't ingest very much caffeine. It has a very strong effect on me.

When I open the drapes, I can see activity at the airport. Dammit. So close and yet so far. I'm scheduled for a Thursday night flight, routing me through Houston. What a crappy frigging route, but there's nothing else available. There's a bit of traffic starting to move on I-440 now. I'm getting really damn sick of looking at these broken trees. I can't decide what's more of a wasteland—the emptiness of the television, the sterility of this hotel room, or the frozen land outside.

I guess I should try to sleep. Catch breakfast downstairs—make sure to eat a lot of it so that maybe I can skip the ordeal of trying to climb to the next hotel up for lunch tomorrow. My left side hurts from where I fell on it.

]]> From the hotel: strange, glacial beauty http://domesticat.net/2000/12/hotel-strange-glacial-beauty 2000-12-27T04:49:17+00:00 2007-11-19T02:36:32+00:00 domesticat More television. During one of my restless moments, I opened the curtains to look outside. It was the first time I'd looked outside since twilight fell. I forget the eerie beauty that comes with ice storms. My window has icicles that vary between six and eight inches long. The asphalt parking lot twinkles in the light; there is at least an inch of ice there. I cannot even imagine what the roads must be like.

]]> More television. During one of my restless moments, I opened the curtains to look outside. It was the first time I'd looked outside since twilight fell. I forget the eerie beauty that comes with ice storms. My window has icicles that vary between six and eight inches long. The asphalt parking lot twinkles in the light; there is at least an inch of ice there. I cannot even imagine what the roads must be like.

But strangest and most beautiful are the trees. The young pines will probably snap soon. They have gone from touching their toes to curled up in almost-fetal positions. But there are two older trees, shaped like redbuds, that are the most beautiful of all. Their habit of growing a profusion of slender branches as opposed to a few small branches gives them more acreage to collect ice.

The end result is a tree of spun glass, glowing in the lamplight. It is the ultimate irony of ice storms: the very thing that is so deadly is also incredibly beautiful.

]]> From the hotel: can I please leave this room? http://domesticat.net/2000/12/hotel-can-i-please-leave-room 2000-12-27T02:26:45+00:00 2007-11-19T02:36:58+00:00 domesticat I've had another flight canceled out from under me today. The airport is still shut down. I've been rescheduled on another airline on Thursday evening.Cabin fever is starting to set in. I had to go out to the other hotel for lunch today. My hotel is midway up on a hill, and does not have a restaurant. The next hotel over…er, well…UP…had a restaurant. Normally, going from one hotel to the other would take maybe twenty seconds. Today it took twenty minutes.

]]> I've had another flight canceled out from under me today. The airport is still shut down. I've been rescheduled on another airline on Thursday evening.Cabin fever is starting to set in. I had to go out to the other hotel for lunch today. My hotel is midway up on a hill, and does not have a restaurant. The next hotel over…er, well…UP…had a restaurant. Normally, going from one hotel to the other would take maybe twenty seconds. Today it took twenty minutes.

I slid across the parking lot, then wrapped my arms around the guardrail to bodily haul myself up the stairs. Mental note #1: how do hockey players deal with this all the time? Mental note #2: why didn't the hotel salt or sand these stairs and the parking lot?

The lunch was good. Well, decent, anyway. To avoid the crush of iced-in families in the main part of the restaurant, I sat at the bar. The young man who plopped down next to me explained, in the chatty way that people sitting in restaurant bars have, that he was a newlywed waiting for a flight out so that he and his new wife could go on their honeymoon. She showed up a few minutes later, and we all chatted as we ate.

I made sure to order enough food so that I wouldn't have to go out again for dinner. I boxed up the extra food and then went back outside…where I promptly fell down.

I ended up sliding across most of the top parking lot on my ass. Seriously. It was easier than trying to walk/slide/skate down. Once faced with the stairs again, I wrapped my arms around the stair rails and gingerly lowered myself down a step at a time, praying for mercy and unbroken bones until I reached the bottom parking lot. I got myself back to my room, cursing my now freezing and wet ass, and promptly changed into my pajamas so that my jeans could dry.

I took a nap, played computer games, called some friends, damned the phone bill I knew would be coming, and did my best not to go stir-crazy. Judging from Andy and Dan's laughter at me, I think I'm failing in that wish.

Brr. I think I need to turn the heat on again. It's getting chilly in here.

Sigh. There is something about the impersonal blankness of a hotel room that, when you're forced to stay in it for days at a time, eats into your soul. I find myself wishing for touches of comfort—pictures and art on the walls, cats twining around my feet or snuggling in my lap. A phone that occasionally rings, with friends on the other end of the line. A kitchen with real food—not candy and chips and other crap that I'm getting from the vending machine.

I want to be able to leave this room and go places without endangering my health or my life. I think I would make a very lousy Canadian.

]]> From the hotel: geek, stranded http://domesticat.net/2000/12/hotel-geek-stranded 2000-12-26T03:17:55+00:00 2007-11-19T02:37:27+00:00 domesticat Well, that answers that question. The Little Rock Airport is, effectively, shut down. No flights will be entering or leaving. I will be here another day. So I've done what every stranded geek would do: get a long shower, watch a couple of sappy movies, and fired up the laptop and started writing.

Looks like I'm getting an enforced vacation. Looks like I'm going to have plenty of time to write tomorrow.

]]> Well, that answers that question. The Little Rock Airport is, effectively, shut down. No flights will be entering or leaving. I will be here another day. So I've done what every stranded geek would do: get a long shower, watch a couple of sappy movies, and fired up the laptop and started writing.

Looks like I'm getting an enforced vacation. Looks like I'm going to have plenty of time to write tomorrow.

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