Coffee and Cobwebs

The new machine getting her first clean-water run through.

First things first ~ coffee.  You all might know how much I love coffee.  If not, let me update you:  I LOVE COFFEE!  I go to bed at night anticipating my first cup of coffee in the morning.  While I drink my first cup of coffee, I anticipate my refill from the K-cup dispenser at work.  When I hit lunchtime, I anticipate my 3pm cup of coffee (in the German tradition... except I try to go without the slice of cake.  But sometimes I give in and eat a cookie).  When I get home around 5pm, I think maybe I should have one more cup before it gets too late to drink another cup that might keep me up all night, restlessly thinking of my morning cup of coffee as I try desperately to drift off to sleep, "I shouldn't have had that last cup!"... so yes, as you can see, I love coffee.

You might wonder what apparatus I use to brew my coffee.  As of late (the last couple of years) I have been using a Melitta single-cup dripper.  I think it makes the most fabulous coffee in the world.  Before that, I was mostly using the French Press to make my coffee, which is also good, but you are left with a chalky mess at the bottom of your cup, and the clean up leaves something to be desired.  Problem with the Melitta ~ I have to wait about 10 minutes to heat the water in the kettle on the stove in order to brew.  That can be a long 10 minutes for a non-morning person like me, who would rather just stay in bed until about 9am.

So a couple of months ago, I started paying attention to the coffee makers at friends' houses, and started noticing a trend of Cuisinart coffee makers.  You even see them on television show episodes if you pay attention.  The Cuisinart dcc-1200 is a classic:  sturdy, sleek chrome finish, and from the online reviews, it brews great coffee.  Best of all, on Amazon dot com, you can find it for half-price and get free shipping.  Better yet, it has a timer that you can set *before you go to bed* and have hot coffee waiting for you in the morning as you stumble out of bed.  The warmer doesn't overly-heat the coffee, so if you lounge in bed for an extra half hour, the coffee doesn't taste burned or "cooked".

Another thing that made me choose the Cuisinart is the name:  I still have my mother's original Cuisinart food processor circa 1985.  Despite the fact that the dogs have "customized" several of the plastic parts, it still works like a charm.  Durability.  You gotta love that.

So, I broke down and bought the coffee maker, and let me tell you (I've had it 2 days) it is a dream.  And let me tell you something else:  I've been drinking *way* too much coffee for the last couple of days.  My body aches all over because I'm likely dehydrated from the amount of coffee I'm ingesting.  I counteract the potential gastro-intestinal side effects (fellow coffee drinkers will know what I mean) by putting two teaspoons of Benefiber in my first cup in the morning.

It's a fact ~ Dogs Love Round Valley.

Now for the cobwebs.  We finally got enough snow over the last couple of days to be able to go skate skiing in Park City.  The dogs were thrilled by this news.  We got up there today (Sunday) and enjoyed the sunshine, blue skies and freshly groomed skate track.  Conditions were not the best, but I expect them to improve after all the skier (and dog) traffic that was up there today (it's pretty soft, but will get packed down nicely in the next couple of days before the next storm rolls through).  Apparently everyone else and their dogs had the same idea I had, so it was not a fast day on world-class conditions, but it was the first skate skiing day of the season.

The first skate day of the season is typically pretty tough, and I use it to skate slowly and find my form again, and get the cobwebs out.  Even though I've been running a lot lately, there's something about that first day skate skiing each season that totally kicks my ass.  And because of the plentitude of coffee I have been ingesting to put myself in a state of forced dehydration, the cobwebs came out of my legs that much slower today.  I had to stop a couple of times on the uphills to tell myself that I was not going to get sick.  Watching the happy dogs romping around quickly diverted my attention away from my own misery.

It was a doggie-social day today, and I saw several people up there that I knew.  It was fantastic.  Honestly, I haven't seen that many people and dogs in Round Valley for months.  Even the busiest weekend days up there in the summertime were not as busy as today.

I can't wait for my next cup of coffee (wait a minute, I'm drinking one right now!) or my next skate with the dogs.  Heaven on both counts.