Slight Detour: Monday Miscellany

It continues to be SO wet, but, thankfully, sometimes this stretch of wet actually has a pretty side----if ya don't have to walk in it, that is.

Yup, we got a little break over the weekend, but the gloom has returned this morning, and I even heard the weather forecaster pointing out that Wednesday's gonna be a really soggy day.

Yay!

No more griping about wet cuz I know it's turned into a broken record.

What you haven't heard me gripe about lately, though, is coffee.

Yeah, coffee is wet, and I don't mind that cuz, of course, I'm wetting my whistle, right? And, of course, it wakes me up in the morning and provides me an added touch of get-up and go in the afternoon---especially when combined with chocolate!

For some reason, coffee sometimes takes on an adversarial approach with me. Take this morning, for example.

I poured my cup, heated it up some more in the microwave, reached for the cup and the dang stuff spilled all over the front of the microwave tray and the counter, even slightly burning my thumb.

That meant pulling out the wet, brown towel from the tray, getting another paper towel, dabbing up the mess, picking up the cup and seeing a brown ring on the kitchen counter, grabbing another towel to wipe that up and finally heading upstairs.

This is the major third coffee assault for me in as many days.

The first occurred Saturday afternoon as I was heading over to visit with my sisters. I made a cup of Keurig coffee and used a store-bought paper cup with lid.

Occasionally I save those cups and re-use them because any Subaru owner can tell you that the company manufactures a great car but for some reason has no clue how to design a cup holder for its console.

No round depression at the base for the cup to fit in, especially if it's a regular coffee cup with a handle. Even paper cups have no support, so we can always count on them tipping over with the very first left turn.

After several spills involving convenience store cups WITH tops, I learned to put something substantial (wad of paper towels or a bottled water container) in the box with the coffee. That way if the cup leaned right; something was there to catch it.

So, it's a challenge at best traveling with a cup of hot coffee in a Subaru. I don't really know what happened Saturday, but I put my cup in the container, fully planning to give it some support, but while getting into the car, I must have bumped it.

The cup tipped over, lid came off and all but about a quarter inch of hot coffee went every direction, including all over the car seat. The coffee cup holder had about half an inch of coffee.

So I cleaned up the mess, laid a towel on the driver's seat, made another cup of coffee, stuffed a water bottle with frozen water on the right side of the holder and carefully inserted coffee No. 2.

Fortunately, this coffee behaved on the way over to Barbara and Laurie's, and I was able to enjoy sipping while visiting.

The "most unkindest coffee cup debacle of all" came yesterday toward the end of my blogging time. During blogging time, I did the usual sipping on my morning latte.

Well, with the blog post wrapped up, I picked up the cup to finish off the last of the chocolate combination but got much more than I bargained for: a mouthful of chocolate-covered coffee grounds.

Don't try this at home to simulate the sensation. Just take my word----it's every bit as bad as the episode on TV's "The Middle" when Frankie is finishing off the last of a sack of potato chips, only to be swallowing them when Axl tells her that's where he put his toenail clippings.

There's a paper towel in my waste basket with a great big chocolate blob covered with coffee grounds. Twas my first desperate decision the instant I knew what had just gone into my mouth and was almost headed down my throat.

So far, I'm sipping on this morning's latte and not detecting any weird texture, but I can tell you that I will tread lightly when I get to the last drop, where yesterday's surprise was not at all good.

There's my coffee saga, and I'm sticking to it----hoping for a break in the ongoing assaults. If Subaru would get its act together, the coffee maker would make the coffee hot enough for me and I'd be more careful when pouring water while brewing the next pot, none of this would happen.

One thing for sure, none of it is gonna stop me from loving my coffee.

In other weekend news, I was thrilled Saturday when Terra, who's taking Lefty in 4-H came over while it was sunny and gave Lefty a thorough grooming session. Then, I showed her how to saddle and bridle him.

I admit being very anxious when we took Lefty to the round pen for his very first ride of the year and for Terra's very first ride ever on Lefty.

Within seconds, however, I knew the worry was all for naught. Terra and Lefty did just fine. Lefty, like any kid or horse will do, tested her by going where he wanted to go. Within no time, Terra was letting Lefty know that SHE was the driver.

She rode him for 45 minutes, and from what I saw Saturday, she and Lefty are gonna do just fine.

When it was raining over the weekend and even when it wasn't, I was able to do a lot of "lawnmower limbing" in preparation for whenever a mower can go across the lawn without leaving ruts.

Many trees around the yard have low-hanging limbs that definitely challenge my acrobatic skills while driving my lawnmower, so I've decided to give myself a break this year with no obstructed pathways under the trees.

Some of the indoor plants also went to the greenhouse, and they seem to be surviving. The lawn and garden work is considerably behind schedule so far and probably will be for the next week as the rain continues to fall.

Slowly but surely, though, springtime work will happen. For now, the strategy is to attack the little things that can be completed in spite of rain.

And, now it's time to top off my latte and see if I can have full enjoyment to the very last drop.

Happy Monday.