My Morning Was Just Fine, How about Yours?
On Thursdays I work at ten o’clock am, which means—if I want eight hours of sleep, which, when don’t I?—I need to get to bed by one o’clock am. No problem.
Except I couldn’t sleep last night. Like, I tossed and turned and turned and tossed and, the sleep, IT DID NOT COME. Every hour I took breaks to check Twitter, blip songs, and ping the entire online world with updates on how awake and unhappy I was. And then I went back to tossing and turning. Until FOUR IN THE FREAKING MORNING OMG.
At nine this morning my alarm (i.e., my iPhone) went off. I apparently slept through seven minutes of that racket without twitching, although it did invade the dream I was having and eventually woke me up.
I somehow got up, got dressed, and got to the bus stop. Took the bus a few blocks. Got off, stopped in at Beans & Brews for a mochaccino and a scone to go, walked the four blocks to work.
There are a few things you need to know about Beans & Brews.
- Beans & Brews is a local Starbucks-like franchise coffeeshop chain, with seventeen locations, all in Salt Lake and Utah counties.
- Beans & Brews coffee is served boiling hot.
- Beans & Brews cardboard sleeves are the thinnest I have ever seen. Far too thin to protect your hand from the heat radiating from the boiling liquid. Like, PRAYER would be more effective than a Beans & Brews cardboard coffee cup sleeve.
- Beans & Brews coffee cup lids have tiny little sipping holes that are apparently specially designed for maximum ballistic efficiency. Beans & Brews lid + boiling Beans & Brews coffee + a normal walking pace = searing gobs of coffee and foam in your face, on your clothes and all over your belongings. Guaranteed!
- Beans & Brews pastry bags are so fragile that if you happen to drop your pastry while, say, juggling an iPhone, sunglasses and a lava-hot, foam-spitting cup of coffee, when you bend down to pick up the bag the paper will neatly split in two, depositing your scone on the filthy pavement.
Needless to say, I was not in a good mood when I finally made it to work. My hands and face were dotted with red boiling-coffee welts, my bag was covered in tan mochaccino foam, my scone (and its traitorous paper bag) was in a garbage can at the entrance to a municipal building, and I was so, so, SO TIRED. Also, fifteen minutes late. And I hate being late.
But the worst was when I got into work and discovered that, surprise! I wasn’t scheduled to come in this morning at all. Suck on THAT, me!
Since I did manage to suck down the majority of the boiling mochaccino, I’m blogging instead of going back to bed. I got enough of the fruitless tossing and turning last night/early this morning, thank you very much. Still not sure why I couldn’t sleep last night—I didn’t take any allergy medication, and the only coffee I had yesterday was a latte at lunch. It must have been the caffeine from the handfuls of bittersweet chocolate I ate yesterday evening, which wouldn’t usually have been a problem, but apparently I need to make a new rule: no chocolate after 3pm. God. My life, it is so hard.
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May 14th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Wow, rough morning.
I’ve spent my day hydrating a (probably) viral sore throat, although suspiciously I got it exactly two days after sitting next to a woman at Outrage, who had just been nursing a patient with strep, which my doctor claims I don’t have. (Hmmm.)
Right now, I’m watching unwatched Netflix films — the kind that sit for two months at home, because you can’t remember what possessed you to add them in the first place, but you feel obligated to watch just to rate them and add them to Netflix’s omniscient predictor.
They’re an ersatz for doing real work as I wait for the ducks to line up on my latest programming contract.
Also, they’re keeping me occupied while I wait for my cute but straight teammate for an upcoming Hunt to bring me Goya Sangria soda and Coricidin later tonight.
May 16th, 2009 at 6:38 am
I know you like the music, so I wonder if you have been following things Eurovision (and no cheap remarks about “but I like MUSIC” !)
Here’s the music video for the UK entry (UK, France, Germany, Spain & Russia do not have to actually PERFORM until the final tonight). It was written by Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber and there was a contest (of course) to see who would sing it. Jade Ewen won:
[YouTube link]
But here’s MY favourite — from Norway:
[YouTube link]
Still, it’s hard not to root for Jade. . .BUT whichever country WINS must host NEXT YEAR’S contest & with the current economic situation, no one has any money. It has cost Moscow upwards of £30 million to put on this year’s!
And here’s the song that won last year & brought them to this:
[YouTube link]
Good thing Putin has gotten rid of all the gays in Russia. (^-^)
May 16th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
I hope your throat is getting better, Craig. From what I understand, viral pharyngitis is a lot more common than strep, and the strep test is pretty reliable. But who knows?
Steve, I really wish we got Eurovision here in the U.S. It’s a hilarious spectacle. I have to say that I did not care for ALW’s song at all (surprise)—the Norwegian fiddle-player+dancers was much more to my taste. :D
May 16th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Alexander Rybak has won Eurovision for Norway, so I guess people in Oslo better start saving their Kroner to host next year’s contest.
Here’s his performance from the semi-final:
[YouTube link]
The one from the final hasn’t been posted online yet. I probably won’t get a chance to watch it until Sunday night anyway.
Here’s another sweet song sung by Rybak, doing even more unexpected things with his violin. (What would Stradivarius say?)
[YouTube link]
No dancers, though. . .
September 1st, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Yi!
I never much shopped the Beans n’Brews… but I found out on this last trip that they felt they were “too good” for this great barista that works at Coffee Garden so…? *shrug*
Ben Rip´s last blog ..AltF4LJDrama: @buzzbishop Hey! I already said that this morning. ;-) I can’t wait to order one later.
September 5th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
“Too good” for a Coffee Garden barista? Considering how much better Coffee Garden is than Beans & Brews, that’s pretty much blasphemy.