Morning Joe

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, a time to be reflective about family and friends and food on the table, roofs over our heads...but this morning, like so many mornings, I was thankful for coffee.

For the next four mornings, I can wake up when my body is ready, not when it hears the alarm. I am looking forward to the luxury of 4 days of sleeping late and lounging around this weekend. But even with those four days on the horizon, this morning was not any easier to face. Rather, I hit snooze, and stayed in bed while I listened to my coffee maker gurgle and spit and waited for the smell to waft up to my bedroom loft.

One of the best investments I ever made, my most affordable luxury, is my coffee maker with a timer. Although I schedule a half hour each morning to sit and have coffee while I watch the news, it is a luxury to step out of the shower and smell the coffee, or to let the scent nudge me awake before I get out of my comfy, cozy bed as I did today. It is worth the five minutes it takes at night to get the pot ready not to have to wait ten minutes in the morning for my perfectly brewed coffee.

It's nothing too fancy, just a Krups with a timer that makes consistently good coffee. Well, I guess I get some credit too. The combination of the cone drip filter machine and my ability to measure the right amount of coffee--so that I'm not over-extracting grounds and setting myself up for weak and bitter coffee--makes a great cup of coffee and renders most coffee I have in other homes not enjoyable. There. I said it. I don't generally like coffee at other people's homes, especially if their coffee machines have basket filters. I learned the cone lesson back at C&B and have owned nothing but simple Krups or Braun since then. If that makes me a coffee snob, then so be it. I accept that. Hotels and restaurants usually brew up a good cup too, but if not for the caffeine jolt I so desperately need in the morning or sometimes after dinner, I would pass on coffee elsewhere--especially if skim milk is my only option. Blue milk in coffee just isn't right.

I guess the good news is most mornings I wake up in the comfort of my own home, with my Krups just downstairs, half and half in my fridge, and a variety of mugs that feel just right in my hand and against my mouth to round out the experience of my fragrant morning brew. For all those things (and countless others) I am thankful.