Tiny Treats

"There was coffee. Life would go on."

These lines are from William Gibson's brilliant short story "The Winter Market," and pretty much sum up my and Gary's take on mornings. (We use the quotation all the time; it's one of our tag lines.) So imagine our distress this morning when our industrial-strength coffee maker died. We have an emergency-backup French press, so we survived, although we consider the coffee quality inferior. Tonight we went shopping for a new coffee maker, though.

We got a Krups at Bed, Bath & Beyond. It was pretty pricy, but this is an essential home item, so it's worth the investment. Then we went next door to World Market, because Gary was thinking about getting more Adirondack chairs for our deck.

"Honey," I said, "we have enough chairs." In fact, we have chairs stacked in the garage we don't even use regularly. We used them for Dad's memorial service last July; we'll use them again for our Worldcon dinner party this coming August. We need them when we need them, but we just don't entertain that much.

So we didn't get any more chairs. Gary got a $29 side table, though, because he couldn't stand the idea of going into Memorial Day Weekend without any deck furniture to assemble.

Meanwhile, I browsed around the store. I love World Market because it has some of everything, and also brings back happy memories. In 2001, I spent Christmas with my father in Mississippi. He'd had quadruple bypass about a month beforehand, and he really needed me there. It was very much a turning point for the better in our relationship. Before I went down, I asked if he wanted anything from Reno for Christmas, and he said, "A baby elephant." So I went to World Market and got a bunch of elephant stuff: elephant ornaments, an elephant mug, an elephant wall hook, an elephant picture frame, and so forth. That shopping expedition was really fun -- one of my best Christmas memories -- and since then, the elephant items at World Market have always cheered me up.

I needed cheering up today. I'm fed up with the book (although I'm doggedly plowing through it), completely stuck on -- and panicking about -- the homily I have to write for Sunday, being pecked to death by small pieces of paperwork from a blizzard of sources, and basically out of sorts. I worked out on the elliptical for forty minutes before dinner, which helped quite a bit, but I was still cranky.

So I wandered through World Market, smiling at elephant soap dishes and paperweights and wall hangings and mosaics. I didn't buy any elephant things, though. There's just too much stuff in the house (including the elephant gifts I gave Dad that Christmas, and inherited after he died), and anyway, we'd just gotten the expensive coffee maker. I decided I could get a few very small items if they'd get used up, rather than sitting and gathering dust. So I bought two dark chocolate caramels with sea salt (a decadent little treat Gary and I shared in the car on the way home), a small box of fruit-shaped marzipan (because I love marzipan and my mother always gave me some for Christmas), a small tube of jasmine-scented hand lotion for my purse, and a slightly larger bottle of orange-scented body lotion to use after I shower.

Now my hands smell good, and I've eaten a little chocolate, and I have the marzipan stored away as a future treat. So I'm feeling better.

And there will be coffee tomorrow morning. Life will go on.

Getting Somewhere

I'm now almost finished with my essay on using Tolkien to teach trauma theory (for the MLA's volume on "Approaches to Teaching Tolkien"). It's due Thursday, and at the beginning of the week I had nothing, but now I have a solid piece. Gary actually loves it and would like it to be longer; I'd like it to be longer, too, but the editor imposed a very strict length limit.

This project taught me a) that I really do know a heckuva lot about Tolkien, although I'm certainly not a Foremost Authority, and b) that I'm very good at editing to length. Also, I enjoyed working on it. It was fun.

I just sent the essay out to students I quoted to make sure they're okay with it. (Since they sent their comments specifically for this project, I hope they will be.) My remaining task is to find the edition of LotR I'm required to use and get correct page numbers, but I should be able to find it at a bookstore or in the UNR library.

After that's done, I really need to haul on cleaning and preparations for the party next week. Fran arrives Monday; my sister and nephew, and Dad's Mississippi friends, arrive Tuesday. My study's even more of a disaster than it was a week ago, since it's now strewn with Tolkien material. Yikes!

I reluctantly canceled my hospital shift today to give myself more breathing room. I hope I can make efficient use of the time!

Last night, Chaplain Stephen from Oregon called to tell me that the box had arrived safely and that all the paperwork was in order. I asked tentatively if there might be a chance of getting video or photographs of the ceremony; I expected a flat-out "no," but instead he said, "I'll work on that. What were your Dad's favorite flowers?"

After thinking a minute, I said, "Probably red carnations. Red was his favorite color, and he loved anything that was cheerful and inexpensive."

"We have a lot of generous merchants in this community," Stephen said, so I imagine he has florist friends.

Again, he's really going above and beyond, and I'm very touched.

On a comical note, I had a small kitchen mishap yesterday. I use soy milk in my coffee, and soy milk comes in one of those rectangular cardboard boxes with a pouring spout. So I reached sleepily into the fridge, grabbed a box from the shelf where the soy milk lives, poured it . . . and realized that I'd just poured chicken broth into my coffee.

Chicken broth also comes in a rectangular cardboard box with a pouring spout. When I told Gary what had happened, he said, "Now we're even. Remember that time I cooked the dumplings in soy milk instead of chicken broth, because I grabbed the wrong box?"

I drank the coffee, although it was a little strange. As I told my sister, "This gives the phrase 'tastes like chicken' entirely new meaning."

This morning I made sure the box I was holding contained soy milk. Today's coffee tastes much better than yesterday's. Fancy that!

Honolulu Here We Come!

I just booked our Spring Break trip to Honolulu. We'll be staying for eight nights in an oceanview room at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort and Spa. The hotel's right across the street from a nice swimming beach. Oooh, la la! Even with the oceanview upgrade, the package came in siginifcantly under our flight-and-hotel budget for the trip, although of course food will be an extra expense. Eating in Hawai'i is a pricy proposition. We shouldn't need a car, though, since the hotel's in the middle of everything. If we do need a car, we can rent one for the day, since there's a rental desk right there.

Our basic plan, though, is to sleep in every morning, drink coffee for several hours on our lanai overlooking the water, and then amble down to the beach for a nice swim. I'm sure we'll get some snorkeling, hiking and shopping in while we're there, too, but those aren't the top priorities.

Ahhhhhh! I can feel that island air already!

Dream Come True

For the past week or so, I've been having academic anxiety dreams every night. They're always the kind where I have to teach but can't find my classroom, and as I wander a maze of halls and stairways, I know that if I ever do find the room, the students will all have left. They fall into the general category of "can't get there from here" dreams, and have much in common with, say, dreams where I'm rushing to catch a plane flight but can't seem to get to the gate.

This morning, I had to be at a master's oral defense in the nursing program at 9 a.m. I'm not a morning person, and sure enough, I overslept, leaving myself only time for a quick shower before I had to race out of the house. I hadn't had coffee or breakfast, and hadn't even fed the cats. I wasn't sure if I'd have time to buy coffee on campus, but it was my only option.

I knew that our street was being refinished tomorrow, but all the sawhorses had gone up today. A lot of the street was closed. I wound around sawhorses, cones, construction equipment, and other cars, and managed to get to school only a few minutes later than I would have otherwise. So far, so good.

But my parking garage is at the north end of campus, and the nursing building is on the south end, at least half a mile away. When I got out of the car and looked at my watch, it was suddenly later than I'd thought. Whoops! No time to buy coffee!

Then I decided to take a shortcut through a part of campus I don't know very well. What was I thinking?

Sure enough, I found my way blocked by construction. It was now 8:55. I could see the nursing building, but couldn't get there: the sidewalk was sealed off by chainlink fences. I ducked into the building behind me to try to find an exit past the construction site, and instead wound up wandering through unfamiliar hallways which eventually led me back to the door I'd just come in. I went back outside, walked a little farther, and went into another door, from which -- at last! -- I found an exit that was past the construction. Yay!

But then I realized that I'd overshot the nursing building, and had to go backwards and up some stairs, and when I was inside I had trouble finding the room and had to ask my way.

I arrived sweaty and breathless, convinced that I was late. Luckily, the student had been having some trouble with her AV equipment, so I was actually there on time. Even more luckily, she'd brought in large cups of Starbucks coffee for everyone on the committee. Yes! And I thoroughly enjoyed the two hours we spent discussing her project, so the race was worth it.

I'm happy to report that this nightmare is much scarier when you're asleep than when you're awake. But I still hope to avoid it in the future!

Up in Tahoe

So today, after a very late start (partly because of the book offer), I drove up to South Lake Tahoe for our diocesan convention. The convention really starts tomorrow morning, but I wanted to get here tonight, since I'm not a morning person and business begins at 9 a.m.

The hotel offers "mountainview" rooms or "lakeview" rooms; the second are more expensive. So I booked the first, but was delighted to find that I can see a sliver of the lake anyway.

In other respects, though, the room's bizarre. I'm used to accomodations for business travelers, which this clearly isn't. Not only isn't there a coffee maker in the room -- a startling depature from the norm, although room coffee is always too weak for me anyway -- but there are only two outlets in the main room. They're across the room from the bed and almost the entire length of the room from a very small table, too heavy to move, which offers the only working surface.

The most immediate problem this poses is how to plug in the CPAP. I called housekeeping and they brought me an extension cord, which will work. I'd hoped they'd point out outlets I'd missed, but no such luck. So at night I'll recharge my computer from a bathroom outlet and use the two outlets in the room to run the CPAP and recharge my BlackBerry. Oy!

Also, the lighting's pretty lousy, and the chairs are uncomfortable. Yeah, I know. Hotel management doesn't want me in my room. They want me downstairs, giving all my money to the casino. Sorry, guys. I'm already shelling out enough of my money for internet access, at an exorbitant $12/day. For the sake of efficiency -- since I have stacks of grading to do when I'm not at the convention -- I decided to have a continental breakfast delivered to my room each morning, so I can have my coffee in the room while getting work done and won't have to shower and dress to run downstairs for java. That's $11/day, too, although the good news is that there's a Starbucks on-premises and room service will deliver from there, so I'll get real coffee, stuff strong enough to deserve the name.

This is all terribly decadent, but I have to have internet to keep on top of applications for the search committee I'm on, and I have to have coffee to feel like a human being, and it's nice to feel like a human being without having to leave the room. And hey, we may still have some zombiebucks available, plus I just sold a novel, although I won't see any of that advance for quite a while (payment used to be half on signing and half on delivery, but now it's half on delivery and half on publication).

The good news is that, since casinos never want you to leave their walls, there are always lots of places to eat, ranging from the expensive to the reasonably reasonable. I had dinner -- a tasty sandwich and fresh salad -- at the Hard Rock Cafe downstairs. Hotel restaurants usually take forever, but the service was very speedy, and my waitress was great. She seemed genuinely touched when I told her I'd tip in cash instead of on my credit card, so she wouldn't be taxed on the tip. "That's above and beyond the call of duty," she told me. But being a casino waitress has to one of the tougher jobs around, and I never understand how service workers in Tahoe can afford the rents, so if I can save her a buck or two in taxes, great.

And so to bed. I hope that Starbucks comes on time!

Berkeley

The weather was gorgeous today, and despite lots of roadwork on I-80, I got to Berkeley in time for plenty of shopping. As it turned out, I only bought things at two stores: a necklace at the ACCI Gallery, and five pieces of clothing (four of them 70% off) at Bryn Walker, whose stuff I adore. Her clothing's loose, stylish and comfortable.

I spent way, way too much money, but all of it came from Dad's cash, so it won't even show up on our credit cards. I'll definitely use the clothing (and yes, Gary, I promise to throw out or donate as many things as I bought). The necklace was a bit of an extravagance, but it's a river rock in a funky cross-like setting -- the silver holding the rock forms a cross pattern -- and I have a thing both for rocks and crosses, so it will get worn, too.

Before I started shopping, I zipped up to Holy Hill to see if I could find my friend A, but I didn't see him in his usual spots. I'll try again tomorrow, if I wake up in time to get up there before I have to hit the road. I hope he's okay.

My hotel room is basic, but comfortable. It has a microwave and small fridge, but, oddly, no coffee maker. Luckily, I brought my own, since I wasn't sure I'd be able to get sufficiently strong coffee at the retreat center in Ben Lomond.

After I'd checked in, I went to the very nice Thai restaurant next door and pigged out on appetizers and a dessert. I always like appetizers better than the main courses, and it's fun to eat a lot of small things.

I haven't, alas, gotten any grading done, and given how tired I am, I suspect I'll crash after I finish this post. Yeah, yeah, I know: I should've graded instead of blogging. As usual. But it will all get done somehow, because it always does.

Tomorrow: redwoods!

Good Coffee, Doing Good

Gary and I have become big fans of Blind Dog Coffee, a local company -- with the by-now-mandatory organic, fair-trade beans -- started by a Reno man who went blind in middle age from the delayed effects of treatment for childhood cancer. He donates a portion of each sale to Angel Kiss, which gives childhood cancer patients and their families "immediate assistance and support for any expense or need related to treatment," regardless of income.

And as if that weren't enough, the coffee's yummy.

Support a family business! Help kids in medical crisis! Get a really good caffeine buzz! What's not to like?

I learned about the company when I sat next to the founder's daughter on a plane flight. As it happened, she's a recent UNR grad who'd done an independent study with my friend Mary, whose office is next to mine, and I saw her again a few weeks later when she stopped by to say hi to Mary (and bring Mary some coffee she'd ordered). Small world!

A Set of Containers

Teapot, Tempest In

The "Politics and Narrative" contretemps continues to generate surprising heat. If you're interested in following this -- and I wouldn't blame anyone who wasn't -- see comments by Duchamp et. al. here and post by Lukin, with another set of comments, here.

Timmi and I have corresponded about this privately. I'm not sure if we've succeeded in understanding one another, but if we haven't, it's not for lack of effort on either side. (Oh, and just for clarification -- since at least one person has been confused about this -- Timmi was the panel moderator, not the audience member who was so upset with me later.)

Sinuses, Emptying Out

Last night around six I suddenly began sneezing my head off, and my eyes narrowed to little itchy slits. It's the worst allergy attack I've had in a while, bad enough that I caved in and took a Claritin before bed, even though allergy meds of all sorts just harden the contents of my sinuses into concrete that's then even more difficult to shake loose later.

Because I was still itchy and sneezy this morning -- and because I slept shockingly late, almost twelve hours -- I decided not to go to the hospital today. I'll go tomorrow if I'm feeling better.

Product, Endorsement Of

Gary and I went shopping at Trader Joe's yesterday. There's a kitchen store next door, and I browsed there while he was in the checkout line. I've been needing a new travel mug, and I saw this one and decided to splurge on it. I need a mug that won't spill while I'm trying to get onto the deck without letting cats out; it's also handy to have a mug the cats can't stick their snoots into to slurp up my ice water. (As you've no doubt already been aware for some time, our cats rule our lives.)

I love the JOEmo. As advertised, it maintains beverage temperature for a long time and is very easy and convenient to open, close, and drink from. And yes, it's leakproof. I've tested it.

My only complaint is that the 14 oz-capacity of this model requires refilling too often. So last night I treated myself to an even bigger splurge and ordered the 22-oz model.

The coffee is the life. Or, as William Gibson puts in in "The Winter Market," "There was coffee. Life would go on."

Weekend Away

We're going to San Francisco this weekend. Tonight, we'll be staying with my college roommate Ellen in the city; she adopted an adorable little boy from Russia a few years ago -- he'll be four in September -- and we haven't seen them for a while, so we're looking forward to it.

As you can see, Harley was a big help with packing. Here he is lying on top of Gary's briefcase, as if to say, "Now make sure you have all your toiletries before you put anything in here!"

Tomorrow, we'll be checking into a hotel in San Mateo and then going to a wedding. Jacob Weisman and Rina Elson (my editor from Tachyon and his beloved) are getting married, and it should be a splendid time. Jill Roberts, the managing editor of Tachyon, will be "Bridesmaid of the Apocalypse." Love it! Lots of other SF folks will be on hand, since this is also the weekend of Westercon, which we aren't attending.

Speaking of SF, a discerning reader gave Shelter five stars on Amazon. Her review nicely balances the one from PW, although I suspect that plenty of opinions will fall in the middle. Thank you, Eleanor Skinner!

Sunday is when things get tricky, because I have to wake up really early to drink coffee. See, I've been feeling unusually tired and having various bits o' mild chest pain; these symptoms could be caused by a million things (GERD, allergies, depression, etc., etc.), but my doctor wants to rule out the most dangerous possibility, so she's sending me for a stress echo on Monday. I had the same test three years ago, when I was mega-freaked-out from CPE and church issues and having the same symptoms, and I was told the results were absolutely normal. (Before somebody asks about thyroid, I had bloodwork in September, and that was absolutely normal too.) I told my doctor that, and she looked at the old stress echo and said, "Well, no. You had some ST segment depression; they decided it didn't mean anything because your exercise tolerance was so good, but there was an abnormality." When I got home from her office, I hit Google and learned that ST segment depression on an ECG can indicate narrowed blood vessels. I still don't think that's what's going on -- I don't have any risk factors for heart disease -- but, anyway, I'm having another stress echo on Monday. Better safe than sorry, and all that.

But the test's at the absolutely ungodly hour of 7:30 a.m., and I can't have any caffeine for twenty-four hours beforehand. And my doctor warned me sternly that they really mean this. And there's no way I can drive home from San Mateo without coffee. So I'll have to get up at 6:00 or something on Sunday to get my two big cups o' coffee in before the cutoff.

I don't know if the San Mateo hotel has wireless, so I may not be able to blog this weekend. But I'll post Monday, if not sooner, with the results of the test.

Have a good weekend, everybody!

Coffeehead

Before I forget, this week's Grand Rounds is up, and I'm happy to be included.

I'm posting this later than I usually would because when I woke up this morning, we had no power. Two large power-company trucks were outside the house, so I knew that the authorities were aware of the problem, but I didn't know how long it would take them to fix it. As it turned out, they fixed it within two hours, but in the meantime, we had a) no web access, and b) no way to make coffee.

This second item is truly serious. I have two large cups of coffee every morning: if I don't get them, I get a splitting migraine. Not fun. So I had Gary manually open our garage door and made an emergency run to the locally-owned coffeeshop a few miles away (I avoid Starbucks unless there's no other option). I bought two large cups of their French Roast, which was almost as strong as ours, and brought it back to the house. To quote a line from William Gibson's "The Winter Market," "There was coffee. Life would go on."

I've now realized that in the event of nuclear holocaust or major natural disaster, what would kill me wouldn't be the radioactive fallout or the plagues from lack of clean water or the roving gangs of desperate citizens. It would be the lack of coffee.

Maybe I should buy some caffeine pills for emergencies.

I have some cute cat pictures to post, but I'll have to do that this evening or tomorrow. Also, there's a new Locus review of Shelter, and I'll probably post that too, or at least parts of it. It's a smart, thoughtful review by Gary K. Wolfe, who understands what I was trying to do with the book, and essentially agrees with me about what works in it and what doesn't. Obviously, he's a person of great discernment!