reading coffee grinds

I am not a quick-to-rise fella. I like my sleep time and it takes a very serious or major event to convince me that I need to get out of bed each and every morning. Think of it; Each day, something has to happen that I deem worthy enough of getting out of bed for, otherwise, I don't move. I won't do it. NOW, wrap your head around the fact that this momentous occasion has to occur around the same time each and every day. What are the odds of that happening? (I slept through the day they taught odds in school. I also slept through the days when modern art history, economics, civics, basic hygiene and english were taught - that's a lot of uninterrupted sleep)

There are rare occasions when I can rise from the depths of my slumber for no reason whatsoever. These moments frighten me as I dislike it when my body does things without my brain's permission. These kinds of ill-advised acts are not good for anyone's body, unless getting up unexpectedly coincides with getting out of a burning building that you're sleeping in. Then we chalk up the experience to our body's sixth sense and we feel pretty good about ourselves.

One of the few known tricks for getting me out of a bed and thrusting me deep into conscienceness is to brew coffee. It doesn't matter what coffee brand or what country the beans were grown in, just get that morning mud going. As soon as the aroma hits my sleeping body, the nerves in my body snap to life and the wheels start turning.

Coffee, is good. Coffee is one of my last vices. Actually, it's my only daily vice and sadly I am down to one cup of that vice per day. The fact that I am down to just one cup brings up a rather perplexing situation - I can't justify making a full pot of coffee for just one cup. It's a waste of water, a waste of coffee and I can't do either. What is a brother supposed to do?

I am fighting this, but I know that water is a more serious issue now than it has ever been. If you think I'm kidding, I ask you this: How many of you are drinking your tap water without a filter on it? How many of you would be willing to drink the water out of your toilet?(It's the same water as from your tap) So as you can see, good water, much like a good woman, is hard to find. So included with all of the fussing about gas prices, there should be some fussing about the price of water.

If you have trained your body for distilled, filtered, spring water, then you are robbing your body of one it's main talents - fighting off diseases. There are germs in that tap water that your body would love the chance to fight off. It won't feel good at first, but eventually you will get used to it. However, the more bottled water you drink, the more reliant you are on it and the harder it will be for your body to fight off infections when the bottled water dries up. And it will dry up. So either get used to it now or get used to it then.

NOW, if you are dumping 8 cups of water into your coffee machine every morning for just one cup and then you are dumping out the rest of the coffee, then you are wasting 6.5 cups of water (a half cup is lost in the production of coffee). If you only want to brew two cups of coffee then you are wasting three scoops of valuable hand picked coffee. Coffee, for those of you who don't know, is about $10 a pound. (this will triple this summer due to transport costs due to the oil situation)

Now I am writing this post in a roundabout way. There is a deeper message here and I hope you are able to see it. I love coffee. I love water. I love the ability to make coffee every morning. That time of pause is coming and soon you will see everything that we take for granted.

People... Get ready.