Has To Be My Morning Coffee

The Photo a Day theme is "drink" and the star of my photo has to be my morning mug of coffee.  Here you see it twirling around in the microwave in my Yellowstone mug.  (hurry up! hurry up!)  It's my daily caffeine, my only caffeine (well, except for a bit of chocolate and that doesn't really count), and it's the most important drink of my day.  I don't really "drink" in the alcoholic sense of the word... hard to believe that I grew up in Wisconsin, isn't it?  For those of you who aren't familiar with the culture around here, drinking's kind of an Olympic sport and the main social activity.  How wasted you got over the weekend used to be the main subject of conversation at work on Monday.  Since I'm the only employee at the dive shop I don't know if that's changed but I suspect among the mainly blue-collar folks around here that it still is.  The (never very funny to me) joke is that when you open a new bottle you throw away the cap because you're not going to need it (kinda like college days).  Lotsa drinking and drunks around here.  Not here here, but in the general vicinity.  Don't get me wrong, I have no argument with people having a glass of wine or a cocktail, I realized a long time ago that I don't have much of a head for any kind of alcohol and I have just as much fun with a glass of water as I ever did with a drink, and I feel better the next day, so I don't.  Well, the thermometer took a dive yesterday.  It was 65 degrees when I zoomed to Woodman's to get a few things and by sundown (4:30 pm) it was headed below 40 degrees.  This morning it's 33 with a windchill of 13... and it's not supposed to get any warmer all day.  It's windy too, as I'm sure you surmised with our outrageous windchill.  Good thing I hauled up my winter jacket and put a few packets of chemical toe warmers into my backpack.  Brrr.  Maybe I'll take my new wool shawl to work with me too...  Makes me not want to take a shower just because I don't want to take off my clothes.  What?  It's chilly, not in here, I mean the furnace is set at 69 and all the windows are shut tight, okay that one over the sink might be cracked a bit but the oven heated up the house last night so that the thermostat read 76 when I went to bed, but it's the idea of being nekkid when it's that cold and windy outside that makes me want to snuggle down into my fleece duds.  But I will, shower I mean, not run around in the buff.  Sheesh, you people.

November 12--Spain, Lion Passant.  He wouldn't be hurried.  Hector stood with his trowel in his hand laying the plaster on the wall.  He smoothed it, making sure that it was even.  He used the corner of the trowel to scribe lines into it, hinting at where he planned to put his images.  First he laid on a wash of deep red to give the gold paint a depth and richness.  Paulo Conti came every day to harass him about when he would be finished but Hector just hummed and smiled at him, letting his boss think he was agreeing to work faster.

Durwood just called out that it's 8:00 and I need to wash and slice the strawberries I got on sale yesterday for lunch fruits and make sure I've got most of my litter and clutter put away since I'll be at work all day and we're having supper guests.  Exit, stage left.
--Barbara Sue