The Coffee Guy's blog

Cruising, On a Sunday Afternoon

While there is little more in life than trained dogs and clever ponies, one has to wonder how such issues are handled in the coffeehouses and boardrooms of the nation, nay the universe?  The question of: Who the F@#$ is Alice? of, Where have all the flowers gone? of, How many pennies are in the fountain? of, Oh when will it ever end?

Initially ones thoughts run to the urn; 165 degrees of contemplative thought processes in a vessel.  Now don't go running off at the mouth with me, I KNOW  it has to be brewed at 196 to 204, but the keeping thereof is a sight bit lower.  With Joe in hand, now the cranial part of the mortal protoplasmic carcass you call yourself, can get to work on the answers.

Now your committee or boardroom buddies may not subscribe to imbibe.  This is the point at which you Duck them onto a gurney and start the IV.  After all, there arises nary a scenario when the ole Duck isn’t fashionable.  And this becomes a natural way to transmogrify those Tea Pee drinkers over to the obviality of coffee.  And I use the aforementioned referent for the royal beverage only to reinforce the presence of anthropomorphic urine on the leaves.  Uhhhhhh.........no.  I’ll take a pass thanx!

I say fortitude before fastidiousness.  Well actually I never say fastidiousness is a good attribute in the boardroom.  Been there done that.  The last thing I need is a codger cramming up the commerce with a lot of waste matter secretion beverages conjuring how else we can phrase the question.  They are the bureaucratic equivalent of flatulence.  Gaseous beings with the ability to walk and talk.   Sorry but if Saturn ever got here, it would still be gaseous and you won’t get it to talk.  Once a gas, always a gas.

Just like the Stones stated.  After being raised by a toothless bearded hag, he was drowned and left for dead.  Life is a gas.  It’s a gas, gas, gas.  So this is where we find the answers.  The flowers have actually turned south, and I don't mean to lesser parts of the orb.  Simply given way to the dandelions of the world.  No longer will we stoop by the stoop to odouriferize over the petals. 

Our blackberries are the size of a good man’s thumb, Verbena in a veritable variety of colour, but lowly Portulaca weeds pressing through the Portland.  Summer arrived a coupla’ weeks ago and has been nothing more than looking for my lost shaker of salt, while I sit on my back porch swing.  (stolen?)  Tomate’s are red as the Rosetta stone and much more plentiful, bearing so many as to bend the bushes to the breaking point.  Carrots are still sub-terestrially surging toward China.

The boat is going to be bountiful.  Bobbing in the bay as we circumnavigate the island named after the big smoke.  Out the western gate and back in the eastern passage.  Sounds like we travel the world in a few hours.  The lake is a large fountain with treasures abounding beneath, never to be reclaimed. 

Who and what, all, have, and is beneath the waves.  Certainly not Katrina.  And the royal wave hasn’t graced this point for some time.  Where are the marine goods and services resplendent at every port?  No fish, no trawlers.  No fans, no frolickers.  Our waterfront is a contrived existence of a geographical place where to forms of matter meet.  Oh yes there are boats and such, but true marine life?  Shrimpers?  No rusty old hulks still floating beyond belief.  No smelly nets hanging from yardarms to dry.

I say make like the Cape, and Cod off.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, first of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler.

 

 

Forever Unknown

After an unscheduled hiatus from my regular posts, I find myself in the fancied position of feathering my feasts.  Not that the rotunda of my waist exceeds any expectations already gleaned from past eating exercises, but I find the movemento rapido is not up to standards.

How is this possible with all the heat and triviality postured for us in the Great Apple?  Yeppers, on our recent visit to the city that never sleeps there was a plethora of parading pretenders.  Vanquished by the fear of another aviation inception.  But alas they strive on in subways lacing the island and the other four boroughs.

Yep with all but a week we were unable to visit them all: two left.  Staten Island and Brooklyn.  Although within a mile of Brooklyn on the same named bridge.  Standing in the center roasting in the Atlantic coast heat.  Drawing ourselves back onto the Island and into the area around ground zero.  Wall Street, China Town and Battery park.  Grifters and con artists abound. 

Formal rips as well with a half hour waiting line for tickets we didn’t stand in, purchasers only to find out the real line up for the statue was over 5 hours long.  We waited 10 and boarded the water taxi.  Badda boom.  Onto the water and up the two rivers past the two islands for a tour of all that excites on the waterfronts.

Little Italy, Soho, Greenwich Village, 5^th Avenue, Madison Avenue, Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, Central Park, The Obelisk, The Guggenheim, Times Square often, The Waldorf Astoria, stayed in the Fashion District, City Hall, China town, tall towers, Lexington Ave, the Upper East Side, Strands Book Store with 18 miles of books, Yankee Stadium, new and old, Hell’s Kitchen (I have the shirt), City Field (read Shea Stadium), many many many Subways, Madison Square Gardens, Penn Station, Broadway, Trinity Church, NYSE, the Federal Reserve, The US Federal District Court, Martha Stewart Studios, the Fashion Institute, Grand Central, too many parks to delineate, ate great Cannolis, ate warm street pretzels with mustard, Jacqueline Kennedy Reservoir, concrete canyons of all descriptions, and too many sights to state in the city of the same state name.

I assume at one time you could stroll the sidewalks.  No longer.  Throngs populate both sides of the street everywhere.  No need to wait for the lights with all one way streets.  Look at the traffic, when it stops, walk.  Hurry because they are not stopping for you. You do the hustle and look for the refuge of air conditioning.  Uptown and downtown are no outdoor cafes.  You have to go to Greenwich or Little Italy for them.  Languish with roadside entertainment with every passerby. 

We sidestepped the Double Decker bus tours, MOMA, the Museum of Natural science, the two aforementioned boroughs, Westchester, eating in the park, the Bronx zoo, a show on Broadway, the Chrysler building, Pier 17, The Museum of Indigenous Peoples, the 5 hour waiting line for the Statue tour, LaGuardia, and Rikers island thankfully.

Many coffee chats with co-residers in our fair hotel.  Aussies to Iowans.  Wines were not common in the common.  Beer was cold and the food was all good.  Good thing we left the car at home.  Seems my darling has posted to the Plant Place for faces some pics for those in the link. Come by for a Joe and we can peruse more.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, first of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler.