Aug 08 2009
The Addiction
This is my current favorite coffee cup. Isn’t it adorable? It’s less than three inches tall, and is even older than I am, and you know how I love that. Also, it’s exotic, made in Sweden. Like Ann-Margret and Pippi Longstocking.
Don’t tell the Swedish lovely, but my favorite coffee cups tend to die young and beautiful. I still miss my daisy mug from Stonehouse Pottery.
Although I am pretty much non compos mentis until I have my first few sips of coffee, lately I’ve noticed that I can’t drink much more than a thimbleful and a dash. If I do, I feel all nervous in my body but sleepy in my head, which is a truly unenjoyable sensation. I wonder if this is one of the many joys of getting older.
This summer marks the 30th anniversary of my coffee addiction. You remember Olivier and Thierry? Well, the year after I successfully brat-bashed them in Maine, their beleaguered parents paid my way to the Riviera for a repeat performance as a sort of reverse au pair (I believe that in the au pair business, it’s usually Americans importing girls from other countries instead of Americans being imported, but it was just fine with me).
I had a sitting room and bedroom in a tower in their lovely house overlooking Nice. I would have had the loan of their little white MG convertible if I’d been able to drive then, but perhaps it’s just as well. I got into enough trouble on public transit.
Every morning, the kids would jump into my bed (which had three little wooden steps to get into it and was my first encounter with a featherbed), yelling “Time to get ready! Yes, please!” We’d head down to the kitchen, where the coffee would be ready and seem like a complete necessity. I always drank it black and still do. Nothing gets between me and my caffeine.
So that’s how I started drinking coffee. And even though I can only drink it in moderation, I can’t get thinking or moving without it, so I have to admit that I am in fact an addict. I can’t imagine getting dressed and groomed and going somewhere else before having my daily dose. I’ll never understand those outside coffee drinkers.