CERAMIC THINGY = JOY

So - WOW - it's been a really long time.  And I know I often disappear from your radar screen for long periods due to literally - no time.  But these past 5 months have been problematic with JOY fleeting and difficult to catch.  I literally started to "chase it" like my friend Aileen does.  There is a difference you know.  Catching it is living in the present and acknowledging the JOY all around you.  Chasing it - for me - anyway, is going on the hunt,

making it happen because it doesn't seem to easily be around to catch.

Without going into it, let me just say that my husband was finally diagnosed with an auto-immune disease that took months to nail down and those months were not easy.  Much pain and many crises to deal with.  

The most interesting thing to me about this whole ordeal is that after all was said and done, we chose to skip the big, bad drugs to get it under control and went the gluten, dairy, sugar and alcohol free route. That, along with a small bit of steroids and a litany of supplements from the TWELFTH medical professional we saw, has really changed the pain and mobility level of his being.  Quite the "experiment".  Better than that?  He started feeling a bit better within days of putting it all together. We are blessed AND blown away! And he lost 25 pounds and I gained 10 of it.  Grrrrrrrr

But life goes on.  Our family lost Spring due to this rough patch.  But so did everyone else because the weather was just AWFUL.  We kissed summer hello 

and almost immediately kissed it goodbye - it seems. Here it is - 2 days before school begins.  As much as I love September - December the best?  I can't seem to let summer go yet so I plan to keep at my warm weather activities.  Running, hiking, SUPping, kayaking, sunning and dog walking!  It's a short list but a JOYful one!

Speaking of JOY - a few weeks ago, a blogger that I follow posted about coffee.   

 Now - I am a bit picky about my coffee.  

In fact - I will no longer drink it from our coffee maker.  I make two a fresh pot of french press coffee every morning.  I only make it with organic beans and it has to be piping hot.  Now - there are surely many snottier coffee drinkers than I, who only drink their luscious coffee hot and black.  But, I prefer heavy cream in mine and I sense after an experience I had with the barista at Blue Bottle in NYC the other day, I am a coffee loser - but anyway...

Getting back to my fellow blogger Mark, he posted this:

On the subject of food ( and drink), I came across this website yesterday called CoffeeDetective

. I can not express adequately enough the depression I am going through because I have learned that the coffee junkie who runs this site makes about $6000 a month, FOR TALKING ABOUT COFFEE !!!!

Really? I talk about coffee all the time.

It's 6:50 pm as I write this and I am sipping on a cup of Nantucket"s finest.

I've written of coffee and my love for that beautiful bean on this very blog many times.

I've photographed coffee.

On vacation I post photos of coffee.

I have a map of all the coffee houses in New York.

At home I grind my own coffee.

Why--didn't--I--think--about--starting--a--c0ffee--website?

I can talk about coffee till my pulse is at it's upper limit.

So I commented this under that blog post:

Ok I am a coffee snob. What's your best coffee? I find something I like and then it doesn't taste as good so I move on. Sometimes I get a cup after dinner in a restaurant and am blown away by the coffee and then the bar raises and I have yet to reach it. Maybe I need to start "perching" my coffee like my mother did? I'm also trying to do only organic so I get limited yet again! LMK what you love!

Our email exchange after that original comment has changed my life. Who knew there was a more JOYful cup-a-joe??!!!  I am so excited!  Turns out, there's something called a ceramic thingy.  Someone please tell me where this has been all my life?  I got this email from Mark and it was all over:

Totally get the french press, my son in law makes it that way, very good….I use the pour over method. I have a one cup ceramic thingy that fits over my cup, put in the filter ( not a regular thin filter) put in the coffee and “slowly” pour the water over the coffee…..it’s like an event, and let it drip through a little at a time. I would put it up against a french press any day, LOL.

He then proceeded to email me step-by-step instructions (WITH pictures, I might add!) on how to use this "ceramic thingy".  I immediately ran to Amazon and ordered up and then poor Mark - and I quote, "Damn.....I feel pressure. Hope you like it."  

LOL - inDEED!  But no worries.  My feedback after I got my thingy overnighted took all his pressure away because...

Ceramic thingy WINS!!!!!!  That was one awesome cup of coffee!  Mark?  You really have changed my life!  LOL.  Anddddd, you helped me catch some JOY that had been eluding me for quite a long while!  For that alone - I thank you!

As I mentioned earlier - I was in the city on Thursday and had Blue Bottle on my bucket list.  I saw they made "drip" coffee.  Oh!  Is that what it's called?  Welllllll - I ordered my drip coffee and I chatted up the barista as I watched him use the ceramic thingy and guess what?  He guilted me into trying my drip coffee black.  I couldn't believe it!!  

Can you say

?

PS - Mark?  Get this blog post to your son-in-law tout de suite!