Coffee on A Geek's Life

NaPoWriMo 2020 - Day 18: The Joy In Small Sips

Sat, 18 Apr 2020 08:46:35 +0000

For Day 18 of NaPoWriMo this year, the prompt is to write an ode to life’s small pleasures. My first cup of coffee of the day is one of those for me. Loosely inspired by what is becoming one of my favourite poems, Wendell Berry’s The Peace of Wild Things.

\\\* When the darkness of night lifts and I awake to the dreariness of existing in this place, forgetting where Yesterday ends and Today begins to slip into Tomorrow, I reach for this worn mug, its stained sides and chipped edges reassuring in their durability. At first light I lose myself to the muscle memory of returning and find joy in small sips.

21. Routine

Tue, 24 Jan 2017 11:55:17 +0000

Two mornings during a typical work week, I make a pit stop at the Starbucks in Union Square.

Over the course of the last year, it has become apparent that quite a few people have a similar routine. I now recognise — and share the odd nod with — an older gentleman who usually arrives at the same time I do and unfailingly buys an espresso machiato which he proceeds to nurse for all of thirty minutes before shooting off to what I assume must be work.

#88 - Happy Place

Wed, 30 Mar 2016 22:17:34 +0000

Over-priced perhaps but this is very quickly becoming my Happy Place where I pause briefly before heading into the bedlam of work…

#SteadyHabits

#4 -Of names...

Wed, 06 Jan 2016 21:11:20 +0000

At the coffee machine, catching up with the new, younger engineer who shares my first name, he asks me what my surname is. I give him the anglicized, easy to pronounce version which doesn’t satisfy him. He asks me how I would pronounce it - cue five attempts, after each of which he fails colossally to reproduce the sounds I make somehow ending up adding, subtracting and transposing syllables through his various attempts.

Breakfast (or a crappy ode to coffee)

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 22:34:32 +0000

For the prompt Breakfast at the Magpie Tales

Breakfast, 1921, Fernand Leger


hold your head-
steady between your hands;
bow your head
as though in supplication-
and let the strong,
sweet scent
slowly wafting up-
hit you.

see your face-
faint silhouette,
three day stubble,
matted hair-
and tired eyes
reflected in the cup
and bow in reverence
to its quickening
power.

wrap your hands
around its base
and feel the warmth.
drink deep, swirl it's dregs
in your mouth's
backparts
and let the waves
of unfettered joy
course through your veins

give in -
and kneel
in full surrender
to the joy
of your dark,
black cup.

Coffee might be great after all....

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:27:00 +0000

Strong coffee might be great for your mental health after all; if this research proves to be applicable to humans that is.

Via BBC News