press pots, vices, happiness

It started last week, when I was thinking about hurricane Irene, the possible flooding, those who would be without power.  My mind took off on a rabbit trail.  How would all those Manhattanites survive without their cuppas? I remembered that French press coffee making method.  It doesn't require electricity, does it?

Every Friday, like clockwork, I pop into my local Gee-Dub (Goodwill Store) for a quick browse. What did I find, side by side, doppelgangers in the dishware?  Two perfectly new French presses marked $3 each, in green wax china marker, looking all lonely and wishing for the kitchen at Willow Manor.  I had to. Besides, I had already been thinking about French press coffee.  It was fate.

That afternoon, I tossed some freshly ground coffee into one of the cute little glass and chrome pots, added boiling water, waited a few minutes, then slowly pressed the grounds to the bottom.  Heaven; and even more so, since I had given up coffee several years ago, to cure my insomnia.  To make a long story short, I am now drinking coffee again.  It makes me happy.  I'm sleeping fine.  I love coffee.  It was silly to give it up.

"People always think that happiness is a faraway thing,"

 thought Francie, "something complicated and hard to get.

  Yet, what little things can make it up; 

a place of shelter when it rains - 

a cup of strong hot coffee when you're blue; 

a cigarette for contentment; 

a book to read when you're alone - 

just to be with someone you love. 

 Those things make happiness."

  

Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn