Kansas City Coffee

            Kansas City is a town that’s often associated with such fearsome forces as the Royals and the Chiefs and Hallmark Greeting Cards. It's also a bustling metropolis where one can openly purchase my favorite mood-altering substance: coffee.

            My wife and I recently visited our youngest son, who lives in the Paris of the Plains. Among the places he suggested we visit was a joint called The Roasterie. This business specializes in coffee, so of course they have an authentic DC-3 cargo plane bolted to the roof of their cavernous facilities.

           There is a good reason for the aircraft adorning their roofline. And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with a shortage of hangar space at the airport. The Roasterie air roasts their coffee beans and the vintage airplane helps make that point. I think it might have been cheaper to simply stick a sign up there, but what do I know?

            You can smell The Roasterie from a thousand feet. The heavenly aroma of toasting coffee pulled me in; my feet barely touched the ground as I floated along on clouds of freshly-roasted coffee fragrance.

            We soon learned that the people who run The Roasterie take the topic of coffee very seriously. Java is all they think about.

            We took the free tour of their facility. Scores of bulky burlap bags bulging with beans were stacked on immense industrial racks. We were shown some raw coffee beans, which were a sickly pale green. Poor little guys! They needed a vacation in some place that’s nice and warm so they can get some color in their cheeks! And then be lovingly ground into small particles and soaked in hot water.

            Our tour guide spoke rapidly and enthusiastically. I suspect this was because the coffee vapors in The Roasterie are so strong, she couldn’t help but absorb massive amounts of caffeine. By the end of the tour, I too was feeling a contact buzz.

            After the tour came the best part, namely, coffee tasting. We were told that in order for the roasted beans to be properly tasted, they must first be properly ground. I was shocked to learn that “between your molars” isn’t considered an acceptable grinding method!

            I was further appalled to discover that after more than half a century of being a java junkie, I have been brewing my joe wrong!

            Our tour guide lady gave an educational coffee making demonstration. The first thing she did was dump a measure of freshly ground coffee into a smallish cup. She then added hot water; we were told that the ideal temperature is just a smidge below boiling. This seemed similar to cowboy coffee, or egg coffee minus the egg.

            We were informed that the proper method was to let the coffee steep for exactly four minutes. Who can wait that long? I need my caffeine NOW!

            Our guide then demonstrated the method that professional coffee tasters employ when sampling coffee. Using a teaspoon, she scooped off the foam and grounds that were floating on the surface. She then took a spoonful of the luscious auburn liquid, placed it to her lips and slurped it in a very noisy and decidedly unladylike manner. We were told that this how one aerates the coffee and whooshes it across the palate.

            This was a stunning revelation. As a child, I was told that it’s impolite to slurp. All those years of slurping shame have been for naught!       

            The tasting process is called “cupping” and the coffee tasters at The Roasterie might “cup” 20 to 30 coffees per day. Talk about a dream job! We weren’t introduced to any of the tasters, though. My theory is that their super-elevated caffeine levels cause them to move so fast that light can’t keep up.

            Following the tour and the tasting, we repaired to the bar area where friendly baristas offered more free samples. For me, this was like turning a kid loose in a toy store and telling him he could try one of each. Gimmie!

            They also had coffee making devices for sale. Some looked as if they had been designed by Rube Goldberg while others were as simple as “hot water goes in here, coffee comes out there.”

            We finally bid adieu to The Roasterie, but only after purchasing several pounds of souvenir beans. When we got back to the car, I noticed something.

            “Whoa!” I said to my wife. “My clothes and my skin reek of coffee! I won’t have to shower for a week!”

            “Fine,” she replied, “You can just go up onto the roof and sleep in that airplane.”        

           

           

 

           

Last-minute Christmas

            It’s nearly Christmas, which means that it’s almost time for me to begin thinking about considering the possibility of starting Christmas shopping.

            I am a diehard, last-possible-minute Christmas shopper. It isn’t time to begin looking for gifts until the mall security guards are locking the doors on Christmas Eve.

            My wife, on the other hand, is an über Christmas shopper. She has been known to purchase gifts decades in advance. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she has stockpiled Christmas presents for possible future grandchildren that aren’t even yet a twinkle in an eye.

            It’s not as if I don’t like Christmas shopping. I just don’t particularly enjoy the parts that involve driving to the store, dealing with the crowds, searching for the perfect items, paying for said items and then driving back home. Other than that, Christmas shopping is OK.

            Finding an item that’s suitable for conveying the kindly feelings that accompany Christmas has always been a problem. This would often lead to panic decisions and gifts such as booklets of S & H Green Stamps and Mason jars full of mismatched buttons. Nothing says “Happy Yuletide!” like a festive ball of lint that has been lovingly and recently – it’s still warm! – collected from the clothes dryer screen.

            Let’s face it: it’s hard to know what to buy for some people. Back when I was a kid, the fallback gift for a man was a pocket square. Uncles all across this great land of ours probably have dresser drawers full of pocket squares.

            When I was growing up, the default Christmas gift for me seemed to be socks. It was always disappointing to pick up a promising-looking box and realize, based on its mass and lack of interesting rattles, that it contained socks. My heart had been set on a jet pack! Besides, what message does the gift of socks send other than “Your feet reek!”

            Aletta, a neighbor lady, gave me a model car kit for Christmas when I was about eight. My guess is that assembling the model was supposed to give me insight into the automotive manufacturing business – minus the labor and supply chain problems, of course. 

            Ideally, the box containing the model car would be opened carefully. Its instruction sheet would be gently removed, studied in great detail and scrupulously followed. This is pretty much the opposite of what I did.

            Excited at the prospect of owning my first car, I ripped the box open, sending tiny plastic car parts skittering across the floor. I tossed the instruction sheet aside, figuring that directions are for sissies. I still use this approach when traveling.

            I was eager to get started and began to randomly glue car parts together. I soon learned a couple of things regarding model car assembly.

            First was that there were some very good reasons for having an instruction sheet. It turns out that there is a very specific order that needs to be followed when assembling a model car. For instance, the engine and transmission should be installed before the hood and fenders, not after.

            Second was that model glue is surprisingly strong. Say that you have to remove the hood and fenders to allow the installation of an engine. The fenders are likely to snap before their glue joints give.

            I also learned that model glue has an atomic attraction to my skin. And my clothes. And my hair. There is no way on God’s green earth to remove model glue from hair, so a guy has no choice other than to cut it out. This is more difficult than it sounds, especially when you don’t have access to a mirror.

            The final step was applying the car’s decals which were released from a special sheet of paper by soaking it in water. This caused the decals to become so slimy and fragile that they would rip if you so much as breathed on them. You need the hands of a neurosurgeon when applying model car decals.

            After nearly an hour of intense effort, my model car was finally done. It listed to one side and was riddled with random splotches of glue and hair. The fenders were crooked and the decals looked like wads of wet tissue that had been thrown at the car and left to dry. None of the wheels turned except for the steering wheel, which kept falling off.

            Even so, I was proud of my miniature roadster. I was racking my brains for a way to properly thank Aletta for her thoughtful present when I stumbled upon the perfect gift: a nice new pair of socks.                                             

 

           

             

           

           

 

           

                                   

             

The Gut Bug

            An uninvited and unwelcome guest came to our house recently. His stay was short – only about 48 hours – but his visit left us emotionally and physically drained.

            I am speaking about that nasty intestinal bug that has been making the rounds lately.

            My wife was the first to sense his presence.

            “I don’t feel so well,” she said to me one morning. “I’m kind of urpy and my tummy is rumbling like Mount Vesuvius shortly before its epic eruption in 79 AD, a historical fact that one can look up on Wikipedia and use at times such as this.”

            As Chief Medical Officer of our household, it was my duty to diagnose the patient. This consisted entirely of taking her temperature via the proven scientific method of placing a hand on her forehead.

            “You don’t have a fever,” I said. “It’s probably just something you ate. I told you we should have thrown out that potato salad! When we bought it, the Colonel was still just a private!”

            “I’m going to lie down,” was her only reply. The fact that she didn’t point out that it was me who had insisted on keeping the leftovers told me that she wasn’t kidding about feeling ill.

            I was performing important journalistic research – watching old Bugs Bunny cartoons on the internet – when I heard some strange sounds emanating from the bathroom. My wife seemed to be calling for someone named Bork.

            “You OK?” I asked when she staggered out of the loo.

            “What do you think?” she replied. “My gut feels like it’s been worked over by Mike Tyson! I yakked so much, I saw a taco that I ate in 1973!”         

            My wife is prone to exaggeration and hyperbole, so I patted her on the head and told her to go back to bed. I was certain that the picture wasn’t nearly as bleak as she had painted it and that she merely had some minor stomach issues.

            Throughout the day she made several more verbal visits to the lavatory. In between times I would offer her 7-Up and soda crackers, but that only caused her to blanch and bolt for the bathroom.

            I found this deeply troubling, mainly because I was worried that I might also be stricken. But I decided that getting sick wasn’t an option. I simply would not allow it! Using nothing but the sheer force of will, I would avoid the dreaded fate of driving the porcelain bus.

            And it worked – for a while. By the next morning, I had the distinct feeling that a mighty maelstrom was brewing in my digestive regions. As the thunderheads of nausea gathered and boiled, I vowed that I wouldn’t let the gut bug win.

            My wife had by then pretty much recovered. She checked in on me at midmorning. “How are you doing?” she asked.

            “It feels as if an EF5 tornado, which, according to Wikipedia, can have winds in excess of 200 MPH, is churning its way through my innards!”

            “You always exaggerate everything! It’s probably just a minor stomach thing.”

            I languished in anguish for half a day. There were times when I thought that my determination might successfully beat back the enemy, but this was swiftly followed by the sense that the invaders were about to breach my defenses.

            Just when I was beginning to believe that hostilities might end with an uneasy ceasefire, a tsunami of profound emotions swept over me. The kind of profound emotions that, as a rule, causes a person to sprint for the bathroom.

            Once there, I was faced with an extremely pressing dilemma: which end should I hold over the toilet first? What followed is probably not what they had in mind when they minted the word “multitasking.”

            Afterwards, I was engulfed by a deep feeling of relief. I crawled back under the covers, glad that the storm was over. But it wasn’t over.

            Several additional urgent bathroom visits took place over the course of the day. My wife tried to help by offering 7-Up and soda crackers. Of what use would such things be to a man who, in the professional opinion of our family’s Chief Medical Officer, was clearly dying?

            At some indiscernible point, some invisible corner was turned. Less than a day after they had materialized, most of the symptoms had disappeared.

            We knew that our unwelcome houseguest had left when we could sit upright and watch TV without feeling woozy. We sipped weak tea and nibbled on saltines, both of us murmuring that this was a feast fit for the gods.                   

Sparkles The Adventure Cat vs Evil Cat Food-stealing Squirrel!

Acts of Kindness

            This is the season wherein our thoughts turn toward performing acts of kindness for others. A prime example of such a thing might include sending a bolt of cloth to Lady Gaga so that she doesn’t have to traipse around in a dress that’s made of luncheon meats.

            Speaking of vittles and bad taste, this is also the time of year when many suffer due to issues regarding food. For many of us, this discomfort comes from consuming excessive amounts of chow, but there is also the distress that involves lutefisk.

            Once upon a time, I heard that lutefisk should only be consumed during the months that contain the letter “r”. Many lutefisk lovers would contend that this rule should be expanded to include the months that contain a, e, i, o and u.

            This may be difficult to believe, but there are some who would turn up their noses at a lye-soaked, fish-based, food-like substance that has been dried outdoors where seabirds fly over. A few have even gone so far as to say that they detest this delicacy, so – let’s be brutally honest here – they are nothing less than Lutefisk Haters.

            Lutefisk Haters have such an intense aversion to the stuff that they gag at the mere thought of being in an area where lutefisk may have been served at any time in the past or might possibly be consumed sometime in the future. I know this is so because my wife is such a person.

            Given the depth of emotions regarding this issue, it’s amazing that we are still married. Few things warm my heart more than a traditional lutefisk supper on Christmas Eve. But my wife can’t stand lutefisk, so we compromise by not having lutefisk.

            I might make a few discrete inquiries of some people who are “in the know” and learn of a church basement lutefisk supper that I can attend “on the sly.” But I think my wife knows what I am up to during these “business seminars” because she insists that I burn my clothes as soon as I get home.        

            Another source of misery that rears its discordant head at this time of year is choir practice.

            As a kid, I was forced to be part of numerous Christmas choirs. Note that I didn’t say “sing in.” I don’t mean to brag, but I’m pretty sure that I invented the art of lip-synching.

            As soon as Thanksgiving was over, choir practice would begin. Back then, federal law mandated that kids be in at least two Christmas choirs, one for the school Christmas concert and a similar event for Sunday School. You would think that after all that choir practice I would sing like an angel, but no.

            It’s not like our choir directors didn’t try. Quite the opposite. She – our directors were always female – would gesture vigorously as she cajoled us with such instructions as, “Open your mouths!” and “SING!” and “I can’t hear ANY of you boys!”  

            There was a good reason she couldn’t hear any of the boys: none of us were singing. Boys who actually sang often became the object of derision. Their still-developing and fragile sense of manliness might be called into question; the term “sissy” might be trotted out. 

            The choir didn’t suffer due to my chronic nonparticipation. I had experimented with singing in the privacy of our dairy barn and was appalled by the results. The noises that issued from my throat startled me and caused me to think that perhaps someone was choking a toad. The cow that I was milking agreed, making her opinion known by lifting her tail and releasing a burst of methane.

            And our choir directors always seemed to have such high ambitions for us! This was the cause of much suffering on both sides of the baton.

            I blame the recording industry. My theory is that our choir directors had listened to recordings of professional musicians singing Gregorian chants and thought, “By golly, there’s no reason why our choir, which is made up of musically inexperienced farm kids, can’t sound exactly like that!”

            To hear a good example of this, go to YouTube and type in “Chanticleer” followed by something such as “Shenandoah” or “Stille Nacht.”

            See what I mean? There is no way a normal human kid choir could produce that type of harmonizing! Their poor choir director must have gestured her arm off.

            Compared to the members of Chanticleer, I have a negative level of musical ability. So the way I see it, my not singing was nothing less than a selfless act of kindness.       

Storing Stuff

            “Where is that thingamajig?” I called out to my wife as I pawed though the junk drawer.

            “What thingamajig?” she called back.

            “You know. The one that I have to use to adjust the legs on the washing machine.”

            “I think it’s in the junk drawer.”

            “That’s where I’ve been looking and I am not seeing any thingamajig!”

            “Not that junk drawer! The one over on the right!”

            “Never mind! I found it in the bottom junk drawer!”

            So goes another exciting Saturday night at the Nelson farm. I find this troubling on several levels. For one, I was actually looking for a doohickey and misspoke when I said “thingamajig.” But I didn’t want to tell my wife – good ol’ what’s-her-name – lest she think that I’m growing forgetful. 

            Second of all, how many junk drawers do we have? Are they multiplying? Will we be digging for something someday and discover that our junk drawers have junk drawers?

            And most importantly, where do you draw the line between someone who is wisely conserving their resources and an overly-passionate hoarder who gets a syndrome named after them? 

            My wife and I have developed a storage system for our stuff that we call “pilot.” That is, we pile it here and we pile it there until we grow tired of re-piling the stuff and throw it out. Then we go buy new stuff.

            The same system can be seen in the way we use our refrigerator. The fridge is basically just a place where we store leftover food until it’s time to give it to the dog.

            “Where’s that last slice of pizza?” I may ask my wife after scanning and rescanning the contents of the refrigerator until I have stood in front of its open doors long enough for icicles to form on my buttons.

            “I tossed that out to the dog a long time ago,” she might reply.

            “What?! That pizza was still good!”

            “You’ve got to be kidding! It was made during the Eisenhower Administration! It had more life forms on it than the floor of a boy’s high school locker room!”

            We have all been in homes which are kept so impeccably clean that you suspect its owners chase after individual dust motes so as to capture them before they can land on anything. The sort of home that would make Martha Stewart look like a pitiful slob.

            And we have also visited homes that are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Homes that don’t have floors or walls, only paths between the soaring stacks of stuff. You don’t dare sneeze lest you set off an avalanche and have to be rescued by a St. Bernard that has been specially trained to sniff out people who have been buried by junk. Knowing my luck, the dog would have consumed the contents of his brandy cask by the time he found me.

            Our home is somewhere between these extremes. Because we are in the Holiday season and might have guests, a flurry of cleaning and rearranging and chucking out has been taking place recently.

            “What are these keys for?” asked my wife during one of our housecleaning forays.

            “Good grebe! Those are for the ‘74 Pinto that we traded off 30-some years ago! That tinny little car was probably taken straight to the recycler and turned into Spam cans.”

            “So should we throw out these keys or not?”

            “I dunno. Let’s put them in the ‘maybe’ pile.”

            The shop/ garden shed is my exclusive domain, so my wife has nothing to do with how and where the tools are stored. Which means that things are pretty messy out there.

            To the untrained eye, my shop might look as if it had just been hit by a small indoor tornado. But I know exactly where everything is. Kind of. To within 30 feet or so.

            Last summer I told my wife that I was going to mow the lawn and thus needed the checkbook.

            “Why would you need the checkbook to mow the lawn?”

            “Because. The mower’s grommet confabulator needs adjustment and it takes a special tool to do that. So I’m going to run to town and buy one.”

            “But I thought you already had a confabulator doodad.”

            “I do. Technically. OK, I admit it! I can’t find the dumb thing! It’s out there in the shop somewhere but it’s decided to hide from me! It’ll be a lot quicker if I just go buy a new one.”

            “Well, you’ll have to help me find the checkbook first. I think it’s somewhere here in one of these junk drawers.”