C is for Coffee

My son asked as I poured the cup that I am drinking..."how can you drink that? It stinks......" Gulg glug glug.... Easily but, I can remember a young me thinking....yuck that reeks like mud pies. Creamy dirt was how my daughter described it or Burnt cupcakes said my other food critic. I started because I wanted to be more adult (I didn't go the cigarette route I was a bit of a chicken and wanted to live if my parents found out.) Now I am just addicted. Hi, my name is Deb and it has been 3 hours since my last cup of Dixie Donuts coffee. One professional with whom I had sought advice, told me it was my drug of choice. She also told me that for at least nine months I would have to do without if I wanted decaf offspring. Visions of trembling uncoordinated fetus's kicking for the next cup of joe was more than I can bear. It was a long dry....gestation period.
I work nights. All night, 4 nights a week, all dark, all the time. I know my coffee. I can drink any sludge that comes my way. Truck stop coffee at 3:00 am? Yes, please. So when I come across something sublime It should be shouted about. This isn't a "runs on" coffee or the chain that is selling lifestyles and blues music. Don't get me wrong I like those other coffees but......I am voting with my dollars. I go to Dixie Donuts. I had heard from a friend (thanks Dawn) that I should try Dixie for their donuts. Dawn is knowledgeable in all things tasty and if she says try it I do. (I should add a disclaimer.....I only buy coffee occasionally because I am saving my pennies for a rainy day.) The first time I stopped at Dixie Donuts I didn't understand. I had no concept of how they could stay in business with so much competition and keep the hours they do. They are not open on Sundays so plan accordingly. Those Dixie people are crafty. They keep several containers of doughnut hole samples right next to the register. I thought that was evil of them until I took one. They are just trying to help me. Yeah liberate my thinking towards doughnut stereotypes. But I digress, we are talking of coffee. Go to Dixie's try the coffee you wont be disappointed. If you dont like your coffee unflavored try the pumpkin spice cappuccino. Although, my brother teases me that I dont need flavoring in my coffee because it is well....coffee flavored. Then when you see how wonderful they are tell your friends. Join the facebook fan site. But mostly spend your pennies there because they deserve it.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Norwich-CT/Dixie-Donuts-LLC/207925767852?ref=ts

The Heeling

It is funny how winter clothing covers a variety of sins that in the summer I would never allow to happen to my body. Not to sound like a skin lotion commercial but I realized last week while laughing with friends that the skin on my heels was roughly the consistency of a cheese greater and perhaps that was why there was a hole in the heal of my favorite pair of socks.......my tired and weary feet were in need of a coat of polish and a pedi-egg (also useful for grating parmigiana cheese) I confessed my shame to another friend (I am dry/and cracked and not just my humor)and she had a solution. She sold Mary Kay at one time and handed me a cute little purse with magic lotion in it. I didn't have a cow to exchange for these beans but i know magic when I see it. The only thing missing from the package exchange was the voice of the Big G vibrating around us saying "USE THIS AND YOU WILL BE HEALED.....In you HEELS......Oh ME! just start the car....she is a weirdo....No this was your idea I wanted to take a trip to the Red Sea"
I rushed home and locked the doors. This reeked of something clandestine and mildly well.....Ah Dirty........
Lobster Hot water (check)
portable DVD player and episodes of LOST (Check)
Lotions from at least 25 different hotels (check)
Girly Soap (check)
fruity shampoo (check)
loofah (check)
Heel scraper (check)
fluids to keep hydrated (check) hey this was major reconstruction work.
Razor (check)
finger nail clippers (check)
cotton gloves or old socks (check)
an hour with no interruptions (check)
A few restful minutes later I emerge scrubbed, shaved, squeaky pruned and caught up with Disk 3 season 5.
Now for the magic. This stuff is simply called MARY KAY EXTRA EMOLLIENT NIGHT CREAM put on your feet or hands at night or for me before my mid-afternoon sleep with a pair of cotton gloves and or cotton socks and the results is startling. I suddenly see what could be tantalizing about all those beauty serums. I am not saying I agree with the girl who uses botox to keep those little wrinkles at bay when she is 24. But Damn as a printmaker I can't remember the last time I didn't look like my hands were put through a meat grinder then rubbed with black grease. So thank you Big G and Mary Kay.

Music and "the way we are tied in"

My husband has been working on a Ipod for my daughter. It was at one point mine so we needed to dump all of the music we deemed inappropriate. A musical house cleaning starting with all the toilet lyrics and bathroom humor. To keep with the house analogy we were pondering to put in all new drapes when I started to really look at the titles and think about what the music really meant to me. How a title can evoke so much. I had carried the past with me in my pocket and now I was passing the Harry Potter (torch) and adding the much requested Taylor Swift. Somewhere in there The songs that were with me when I painted my best or cried when I was afraid. The Cure Disintegration, Music that will cause physical response with just thinking the first beat. Marc Cohen True Companion should have been played at my wedding but Elvis's Blue Hawaii was played instead and forever makes me laugh when I hear it. I have been wasted tired and cranked Dave Matthews 7 and got the job done. Listened to the city of Angels sound track and heard Paula Cole sing Feelin' Love and felt powerful and sexy......driven to fast to Foo Fighters One Down and Another One to Go, but not something I want to pass to my eight year old. Looking over at the discarded music I felt nostalgic and grateful that I am able to censer my own messy and rather "Adult" skewed music. My first born has plenty of time to grow her own life sound track without help from me and I am sure it will be as richly textured as she is. But, I think there should be a few classic's on there besides Yellow Submarine. Just a nudge I swear........

Why I LOVE New Years Day

Not including the 5 lbs. I gained during my holiday induced eating fest. I love sitting back on New Years Day and looking over the past week and even past years and thinking that today is the start of a fresh clean slate. The gifts have been opened and the chips have fell where they may. The feeling doesn't last long so I try to savor it like a good chocolate rolling it around in my brain and hoping that the ball created from all that rolling collects only the good things I want to keep with me for the next year. The mess that is left after last years mistakes and self induced stupidity can be swept up in little brain baggies and dropped by the side of the road. I am clean and the room of my brain is ready to start again. The year can then again unfold in front of me in endless possibilities. Flipped open with a swift, floomp like a table cloth, clean snow white and ready to form into whatever I want to create. Now if I could just get this feeling of power and creativity to last longer than the span of a cup of coffee I could bottle it and keep it with me when I need it. Coffee, That's the ticket.