Morning Coffee

Property of
Stormberry

It's still early and the coffee I brewed maybe two hours ago stays still warm in my thermos. Another day working from home, from the couch, as I'm still carefully nursing my sprint ankle. Oh boy, will the days when I could walk normally again ever come back? Yes, those silly questions you pose yourself when a particularly inconvenient ailment afflicts you.

It's quiet. The cats are still not entirely used to their life outdoors, or at least Bonnie isn't, which annoys me to hell, with her incesant attempts to sneak back into the house. Not that I can afford it now! I finally uncovered my puzzle "in progress", and I can't have cats running around it or borrowing pieces to chew on. I want my Degas as intact as possible, thank you.

I'm making progress in the different tasks I have, and feeling good about it. I'm rethingking again and again my planner plans, what to do, how to fit the inserts, and whether should I and could I actually go for the coveted pear green A5 Malden Filofax. (I think not, I don't really need another binder).

I'll put on some soft, instrumental Jazz, sip my coffee and go back to work. After a bathroom break of course. An a short tour to the kitchen for some mixed nuts (no almonds, macadamias nor pecans!), maybe a kiwi, perhaps some yoghurt, and then back to the couch, the laptop and the ever present, life-infusing coffee.

Life is good.

Sunday Breakfast

 

Property of Stormberry

These last weeks have been really something, and I mean that in the most stressing and absurd of ways. I wrapped around my witchy side, my path and flicked my hand and said "Oh, this is all Mercury Retrograde", and though I want to believe it has exacerbated some things, trust me, not all of this crazy is due to a god up there - or a planet - doing a rendering of Michael Jackson's Moonwalk. 

But what has been happening? Well, let me tell you. It's quite crazy, I promise you.

First of all, there was this project at the office on which I was working last year, and which had a lot of "special circumstances" surrounding it. You know, the typical case were a task gets wrapped in office-politics. A lot of people had to give data for it, a lot of it wasn't matching, and then there were differences in opinions about how to do this or that, what should be included, what not, and so on. It becomes extra-complicated when there are a lot of opinions, but basically only one person actually doing the document, and trying to fit the unfitting parts others want in it.

But, in the end - the last workday of 2020, the project was finished, reviewed by the group and sent on its way. Or... well, maybe. Anyway, then it seems that other people were also working on the same project, and they didn't know about the document I compiled, and so some feathers were ruffled. THEN, in these past weeks, it happens that we noticed that one of the annexes of the document weren't updated. The info in the document was, but not one item in one annex. Well, that was enough for hell to break loose. Before you ask, no, actually the outdated data wasn't all that different from the previous one, and the impact on the whole was minimal. Not like it reflected on the content of the document, because there the calculations were done with the updated information.

So I checked, I found other mistakes, corrected them, and sent the document revised, corrected and updated. No biggie, right? Well, no. Those who were there, giving opinions and sending a flurry of documents my way, act as if the London Bridge has fallen down. It did upset me, honestly, because it was an honest mistake, and the ones berating me actually were tasked with revising the document, so they should have caught the slip earlier. It took me sometime, some meditation, calming rose quartz and grounding hematite, but I let it slide. You know, it must be the Mercury Retrograde.

Found at
 https://www.horoscope.com/

I did consult on my Tarot decks, and the first one showed me The Tower. Yeah, catastrofe, but also the moment when false ideals fall, and the truth is revealed. This certainly was a moment where this sort of message seemed to fit like a glove.

Then... because these kind of things never come alone, classes at the Master's Program really got heavy. We had accumulated for this week four projects for three classes (yeah, in one we have two), and though I had worked in one of them before hand, and on the other I'm with some classmates that really pull their weights, all of that got toppled with an insane amount of readings, just for this week. There is an average of how much our readings add up per week, and the normal amount is about some 60 pages per week. There have been outliers, like weeks were it goes up to 120, but this week alone we've got  600 pages just for one class, and a homework that's taking most of us over two days to at least have the outline.

I haven't been able to read anything (I mean, like novels, my leisure readings and stuff like that), because I'm constantly busy, and it's driving me crazy because it feels like it never ends.

And my house also got a leaking pipe (there was one, but now we found another, and this is really big, and in a complicated place), so yes, there are plenty of issues to keep me even more occupied.

So, what to do?

Property of Stomberry

Well, first, make yourself a coffee, maybe order some brain-sustenance (donuts, I ordered donuts), and make a plan of what can you do, what needs to be done now, what can be pushed back for later, what can you just leave without doing (like summarizing tasks or sharing them with others). Break those tasks in smaller chunks and do as much as you can. So you may not be able to finish it all, but see what can you finish and what really, really needs to be finished and when it is due.

I know the assignments and the essays need to be done because my grades depend on that, but not the readings. I can skip reading, or do it later, after the class, just reading the parts that weren't clear from the presentation. Thankfully, these classes have no tests, so there's no problem with that.

And when you have had such a stuffed week or two weeks or month, take a break, start your Sunday with a special breakfast. Today I tried making a poached egg for the first time, and I made a hot sandwich with roasted mushrooms (crimini mushrooms), chives and pepper slices. A nice tea, and then ordered my donuts and made a coffee, and sat down to blog.

A much needed break, before delving again into homework. And you know what? I feel less stuck, less blocked already.

Happy Sunday!

Coffee with a Friend at the Distance

Property of Stormberry

Every Wednesday, my Best Friend and I send each other a picture of our coffee or our tea, as a way to pretend we are out for a coffee together. We take a moment and chit-chat a little throughout the day, and talk about things in out lives.

I love these moments, as we understand each other incredibly well, and we can always give really good advise to each other. We live in different contients, so we really can't just meet weekly at a coffeeshop, so this is something we devised a long ago in order to have "our coffee time". Little we knew that we would all live such a crazy change of all our structures, and these Coffee Dates would become our normalcy little nook.

Last year, if you remember, Quarantine Diaries became a thing, and maybe we thought this would be a thing of a season, half a year, and yet, here we are, thorn from our old normalcy, and now that we start to understand - really understand - that this is how things go and will go from now on, we start working on getting on our feet and finding our new rhythm.

What a curious and exciting generation we are! From the totally analogical world, where phonecalls and color TV were luxuries, where we still wrote letters and did research at libraries from encyclopedias, we are now in a fast world, one that has gone so fast, it but a hard break on us. One, we are surviving through even faster communication.

If you are here, if you are loosing your step, if you feel disconnected, take a picture of your drink, send it to a friend or post it on your social media, and caption it #happycoffeedate.

Coffee Days with a Friend

Source: Property of Stormberry

Today is Wednesday, and for a while now Wednesdays are Coffee Date Days for my friend Arjen and I. She's all the way in Beligium while I'm here in Costa Rica, yet we do this coffee date, where on Wednesday morning (morning for each) we would send each other a picture of our coffee. This make our morning coffee more special because we are thinking of our us and - in my case - imagine a pleasant coversation about something.

Today I didn't get a coffee because I was out of coffee, but I sipped on a cup of red tea, and I let my thoughts wander for a while, as if I were seated at a table, in front of my beloved Arjen.

So, what was in my head? There are a lot of things going on in my life right now, but as I sipped my tea, I was thinking about this guy I'm sort of seeing, and whom I'm wondering about whether it is time to let him go. It's not really a relationship, more like a hook-up thing that has been dragging for a long time because it was pleasant and convenient, but now I wonder if it's time to cut all ties.

Another thing in my head was my thesis and how should I proceed forward. It's time to get on the last stretch of the track, buckle up for the last three chapters and have them rolling.

Boy, I'm really tired of this, and this particular degree is so unrewarding! I still don't feel it.

Finally, looming thoughts want to crowd my mind, but I rush them away thinking a tad about the novel I have started to write. It's so strange, but I smile at the thought of the dear friendship I will lose if that gets published. And I want it to get published.

How can one be happy at the thought of losing someone one loves? I guess I don't like the duality of my emotions for this person, and how even though I do like them a lot, and love them, I'm also deeply displeased and deeply disdainful of them, and I rather have them removed from my life. I guess I'm just too old to find myself immersed in the Greek Dramas others concoct for themselves, and so I rather lose the person than my meager patience.

I sip my tea and stare for a moment into the sky, before returning back to the world that surrounds me.

Monday is Here

Source: property of Stormberry

After the weekend, this is the routine: wake up early again, do the morning exercise, get ready for work, jump into he car, drive to the office - oh fuck, I forgot the Company had closed off some parking spots to organize the inauguration of some grass spots -, go to the office, fill my bottle of water, get the coffee going and start the day with reading the news. (I'm still in the middle of that.)

Normally my day also includes jumping on YouTube, selecting some music list and put it on for the day. Today, however, I just put my headphones on, but I had no music. Sometimes I like to check some news that come with videos, and it's not funny to have to stop Guns'n'Roses to listen to a piece of news. Anyway, as I was minding my own business, I heard my coworkers talk.

One of our major political parties had its former CFO and someone else sentenced for fraud relating the money that went through the campaing in the 2014 campaing. Mainly that they created all sorts of fake bills in order to cash more money from the Government. Obviously - because politics is full of vultures - many other politicians came forward denouncing... what has already been denounced and judged. This is kind of funny, because some of the people who came raging about this "indecency" belong to parties that have also been accused of similar crimes, or are currently accused of taking money from bribes and setting up a double financing system, into which money entered from obscure sources.

So, my coworkers are talking, and one of them - who supported a populist, far right, religious candidate - went on mockingly saying she was sure those of us who voted for the current Government must be regretting our vote. It's easy to say that from the losing end, but as someone who voted for this Government, based on the information we had at the time, no, I don't regret it. It's not the best, it's not ideal, but it is better than what we could have had with someone hell bent on getting rid of the rights of the LGBT+ community, who has used as shield and excuse for the rise of violence against this community. Someone who would have set back reproductive rights for women.

Little after, this same coleague is on the phone, angrily talking to her son because he took to school the wrong tracking suit. It was something about it being no longer good for him or something of the sort. As I listened on, I was wondering how could the kid take the wrong piece of clothing. Don't they discard the clothes that no longer fit them? Why do they keep clothes they can no longer use? And even if they do, why are they along with the clothes they use on daily basis? And why would the kid even put on something that no longer fits?

She has always been very overprotective of her child, to the point where she spends a large portion of her working day phoning her child, his school, her parents... More than a helicopter parent, she's a drone parent. I guess the kid has grown up thiking there are no responsabilities that would fall upon his shoulders, because his mother will always take care of everything. He can shrug off any of her berating, because in the end she will always do everything for him.

From here, I started tying things together. She believes she is doing an excelent job as a parent, by teaching her son how not to be responsible. At work, her priority is her son, so she often would seek the shortest way to deal with her assignments. She has no qualms about sneaking off from work early, as if there were no consequences for her ditching the job, which she does every single day. She's on the phone everyday with her mother, and yet her mother - whom she supports - complains that her other children love her better, because my coworker doesn't spend as much time with her as the other kids. Her mother seems oblivious of the fact that her other children have shorter work schedules and live with her, in apartments built in her backyard.

This strange, toxic circle of abuse makes me think about her political choices and comments as well. She thinks she's making a choice that personally  benefits her, and likes to act like she is in possession of insider information, that she has the contacts to take her to higher places. Truth is, she's being stringed along, exploited. She wants to believe she's better, shw knows better than the rest, that she's smart, even though her "smarts" are proven only by her hability to take advantage and sneak in. She gleefully witnesses the fall for fraud of members of a party, but willfully ignores the crimes of her own party, just the way she strives to look like the toughest mom on the teachers and the most dedicated one, while her child has grown irresponsible and unmanageable.

Another coworker and I believe her son might be gay. He just "pings" that way. If we are right, how will her mind spin and convolute her world view, her alleged inner information, her alleged high connections when they are tangled with an association that hates what her son might be?

This is my Monday and this is what mingles with my coffee today.

A Plan to Get Back on Track

Picture by Stormberry. Still on the Bullet Journal Project.

The last period of the year at the University starts and I've managed to enroll in two classes, one of which is the last subject I need to pass to complete my studies for the Finance diploma. I'm so close!! I'm excited and full of energy and hope, but at the same time I remember the hard lessons learned during the past period, where here and there I sometimes lost sight of my schedule and then got lots of work to do. My schedule was quite packed, I must admit, and there were days where I worked myself close to an aneurism (so to say), with so much I studied and how hard I did my summaries and readings. This meant also that some things had to give and me left behind, neglected, and the ones that got the worse of my lack of time were my penpals.

Picture by Stormberry. My post bag :-)

This time around, I decided to make time and give some priority to my lovely penpals, and all the people that had been writing to me, for over the last year and start replying to them. I wasn't going to feel guilty again when opening my P.O.Box and finding a letter in it. So, since my studies had not really started yet, I decided to use the time and get back on track with my penpals and start replying to them. My pile has been going thinner and thinner as I reply to my friends, managing already to send out four letters, and then this very weekend finding the time and the energy to reply to seven friends! Wow, that's quite a feat for someone like me, who usually takes a couple of days to reply to one letter. :-) I normally write the very way I speak: I just don't shut up. Really. But this time I tried to practice some restriction and gathered my thoughts better for the benefit of my friends. :-)

However, I have many penpals and it's not fair to either of them for me to reply to them only once a year or so, just because I'm studying. Of course, my penpals are the best penpals in the planet: all of them beautiful, sweet and understanding girls, but still, they are important to me, and I should show how much they matter to me by carving out time to be with them. This is how an idea occured to me: I'll have a "Letter Writing" day every week. And since now I don't have German on Mondays, what better than make myself a "Letter Writing Monday"?

Picture by Stormberry. Starbucks' coffee and letter

Last week I decided to go after work to a Starbucks' coffeeshop that's close to my office, basically to decide it the place could work for me for some studying. I've been thinking about spicing up my study time by once a week taking myself to a different place, close to work, so I could get to study without having been drained first by the traffic jams one always finds at that time of the day. This Starbucks is quite loud, so it would hardly be ideal for studying, not to mention that it tends to be quite packed, but as I sat there writing my letters with a cup of Latin American blend of Espresso Roast, I realized that the place was perfect for this. And that became a seed of an idea that slowly took roots in my head until the decision of a "Letter Writing Monday" was born.

On Tumblr I follow a lot of blogs that have to do with studying, and lot of them show pictures of notes, summaries, mind maps, neat desks and notes covering tables with a laptop here and there, and a trademark Starbucks cup. Not many of these talk to you about programmed down time, and down time is needed. So, I need to reply to my friends, and I need to plan in a break in my schedule, make time for classes, studies, readings, and yes, me-time with letter writing, friend-meeting and movie nights.

I still haven't thought about installing a particular date for meeting with my friends, whom I haven't seen in quite a few weeks now, but to begin with the new period, I'm setting my letter-days and my initial study days. :-) All the rest will come around.

Oh, BTW, on the matter of the Bullet Journal, I'm about to finish my notebook, which will complete my project. I have been thinking about making a video about it, my first, because it might be too much for photographing and then writing a post about it. Who knows. As it is, there are nice parts of it, and parts I didn't like so much. My planning system with have a little variation for next year - and not only the new binder I'm planning on getting. But we shall see about that.

Coffee Jitters

Taken from the internet, but such a
long time ago I don't remember.

It wasn't supposed to be a post a month, but oh well, this is what you get, so be grateful. Today's post is about something I like a lot, and which bit me back on Monday: coffee. Now, I love coffee, I really do, and though I don't always drink coffee (I drink surprisingly quite a little compared to how much I like it) when I do I like my coffee strong. Well, you - dear reader - probably know me enough to know that I drink quite strong coffee. For those that don't know me, I drink strong coffee. Strong enough to be barred from graveyards when I drink coffee (though I don't see why would I drink coffee in a graveyard... oh wait, I thought of why would I!), because in case I would spill some on the ground, we could end up with a Walking Dead situation.

Foto taken by me. Studying for
Promotional Mix.

Anyway, the last two weeks I've been terribly busy, with so much studying and summary making and for the test I had for my different classes. And the papers... hell, that wasn't funny at all. Somehow this period was quite stressful for me, even though I enjoyed very much two of the classes I had. On Sunday I had my last test, and after that I was elated!! That wonderful feeling of freedom that you can only experience when you have been submitted to a lot of studying, that amazing thing that tells you "You don't have tasks for today, you can do as you please". Oh that wonderful feeling! So I wrote to a friend, spent a lot of time laying in my bed, with my feet on pillows, my head on cushions, reading novels and magazines, while with the TV on, half listening to the thousand and half crime stories of Investigation Discovery Channel... That is... That's what I want to do the rest of my life. That's what I'll do when I retire :-). - Ok, I keep on derailing from my intended purpose, which is the thing about the coffee jitters. - So yes, the week was looking up fantastic. I mean, sure, on Monday I had a German test... but that's a language test and I always do good in those. No biggie! Except...

It all started around 8:30 to 9:00 am. I had some work to do, and I wanted to start to write to another dear, dear friend of mine - no time like in between school periods to catch up with all your accumulated penpal letters! - however I was feeling a little pain in my right hand. I'm right handed, but usually, when my hand hurts is my left hand, and that's due because I use the mouse with the left hand. Though ever since I use only and exclusively laptops at home and work, that has stopped being a problem. In other times, when I overexert my hand at writing, the pain is much stronger and it goes all the way up my arm. This wasn't so bad. I presume this could have been the case because for the last subject I studied, I made all my summaries using fountain pens, and these make you apply less pressure on the writing.

Taken from https://cdn.makespace.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/16143607/french-press-save-space-small-kitchen.jpg

So, the thing is that my hand was hurting, so I decided not to start writing to my friend at once, but give it a little rest, and meanwhile make myself a coffee. I use a French Press. The one I have now is different from the one I used to have (and which I believe remained with Kari), basically because it's a 4 cup one, instead of a 2 cup one (it says "2 cups", but really, it's only like a mug). I'm still learning the measures with it, so getting a perfect coffee is still a bit challenging. I've been thinking about buying myself a smaller one, and pack this up and keep it for when I'll have my own place (which hopefully won't take that long). I've made some coffee some weeks ago and it was week. On Monday I decided I would use my capacity and make about 2 cups - this 4 cup one is FAR larger than  the regular 2 cup ones, and seems like it could brew 3 cups - so I measured up the coffee and went down to the cafeteria and poured hot water into it. Back at my cubicle, I poured myself a lovely mug of coffee and sipped it with delight. then, when I finished my first cup - it went down surprisingly fast - I poured myself the second cup only to notice that it wasn't quite as much coffee. In fact it wasn't even a half cup. And THEN I started feeling like crap.

From somewhere on Google

My hand was still hurting for being exposed to fifteen days of 6 to 9 hours daily of writing, with several bouts of 2,5 to 3 hour continuous writing. I needed something for that - like getting a bandage - so I went from my floor to the floor where the doctor's office is. Using the stairs. Not my brightest moment, I'll admit. Hell, everything was spinning and shaking! Then there was the all encompasing nausea that wouldn't let me be. While I waited for the nurse to bandage my wrist, I was scared shitless thinking that she would notice I was sick as hell, and might say something. How was I going to explain that I drank a brewed-to-kill cup of coffee? It was pretty much O.D.-ing on caffeine. I would have made plans to leave for home, but I had a test on Monday - German, remember? - and I had to write that down. However, with all that caffeine in my bloodstream, I just couldn't concentrate. Could hardly work, and definitively couldn't write to my friend or even check on my homework.

Taken from Google.

Like any normal person today, I googled "coffee jitters", and sought for ways to get them over. The curse of this era, google offered nothing good, save from some posts about yeah, this is what the coffee jitters are, and do you want some advise on how to get rid of them (Me: yes! please! now!), yeah well... (me: now! now! now!), the jitters are produced by... (me: *scrolls down furiously*)... nothing has ever been proven to actually help with coffee jitters. In my case, my jitters went as far as taking away all my apetite, and also made me sleepy. I tried to drink water, but that didn't seem to help. I did notice how they lessened when I ate some, particularly stuff like breads. I did notice that walking and slow, deep breathing helped quite a lot. Be it as it may, I was on jitter effect all the way to 8:00 pm.

Needless to say, I've spent the last two days (including Today) avoiding coffee. I already feel the need for it. It's not like I never had some sort of jitters before, only I have never had deadly jitters in the past. Sure, my heart has sped up in the past. but I've never been that shaky, unsteady on my feel, or so sick to my stomach. That was a new and unpleasant one. So, the things I learned from this experience are:

• Jitters are real. And they aren't funny, they are bad.
• Internet isn't really has helpful when you actually need help. Like when dying from coffee jitters.
• Fountain pens are actually much better for writing. They reduce the amount of pain you end up suffering from unholy amounts of writing.
• Jitters can last a hell lot of time.
• Things that help with jitters: walking. Staircases don't help, but walking of flat, horizontal surfaces do. Breathing slowly. Eating some carbs, like bread.

Well, this post wasn't really intended to help anyone, and I guess it has fully succeeded in that department. :-) Hope you have a good one, while I sip on my large cup of water, and wait until I'm brave enough to face the coffee again. And meanwhile, I'll perch up my feet and read.

Books, Coffee and ChapStick

"Living without Reading
would be living
without Living."

Today I met with three of my dearest friends at a Starbucks for some book-club chatting. It's not a "Book Club" like the traditional ones. You see, it's a group of girls from different countries - okay, mostly four different Latin American countries - who basically chat about books on a closed group on Facebook. Our group is reference-only, so people can't request entrance unless one of the existing members decides to refer that person into the group. that way we all make sure that at least one of us knows the new member personally and can be responsible for them. In the beginning the group was mostly made up of Mexican girls, but as time went by, the Costa Rican share has been growing and growing until now we are the largest part of the group.

Inspite of it, and the fact that we all make a network of friends, trying to meet all together has been impossible. Some of us have met, and have made new friends - personal, real life friends - and have had the most amazing time together. Though I have never met a new friend through these few meetings we have been able to arrange, to my utter delight, I have had the opportunity of introducing some of my friends to other friends, so that now they are friends too. ^_^

Our conversations usually go around many interesting, delightful things. We share experiences about books, tell each other about what we have read and what er  recommend to each other, but also talk about relationships, friends, work, travels and find the most amazing things in common, or the most curious divergencies.

In today's coffee&books, many of the girls who said would attend, didn't make it, but those of us who did had the chance to talk about travels, our experiences shopping in the U.S, (not like I have much to say about that, as my "shopping" while in Salem and Boston was reduced to books, bumperstickers, a cat-ears hat for myself and a Tardis hat for Kate, and a large cup of black and white LEGO bricks for my brother), and then ending up with Andrea also asking to tag along for our October 2016 Salem Trip. Yay! It's going to be fabulous! Must admit though, that I'm worried Carrie would be displease, as I have the feeling that she doesn't like Andrea very much. That would be so sad, because I love Carrie and I definitively love Andrea. Both of them warm my heart quite a lot.

Anyway, we were supposed to go see the new Starbucks that opened at Sabana, but there was a football match in process, so we decided to go to another Starbucks. We all like Starbucks very much ^_^. And no, we don't mind the overcharged coffee when our country produces the best coffee in the world. Personally, I like it because I always order a special. My favorite of all is the Pumpkin Spice, but that's an October specialty. Today I could choose between Gingerbread, some cupcake something and Dark Cherry. Since I already had the gingerbread one, I went for the dark cherry. Loved it!

Among our conversations we talked about someone from our group who pretty much tricked her entrance and who turned out to be the worse possible person to have in the group. She's basically a needy, irresponsible attention whore, who seeks constantly to impose on others, play the victim or flaunt her financial situation in other people's faces. Can't wait to get rid of her. It seems she has earned the dislike of many of us, so maybe it won't be hard to get her out. Boy, why is it that in every great group, at some point some pain in the ass comes to ruin the fun?

Thanks Hyne, though she had said she would come to our meeting, in the end she didn't. At least we had peace and a great time.

Among the things we discussed there was a particular subject Andrea mentioned. She had gone recently to the States where she bought herself a time-turner keychain. She's a Harry Potter fan, an completely identifies herself with Hermione. Thus the time-turner only made sense. She was so happy and so proud of it, that she shared a picture of it on our group. I saw it today, and the real thing is even more beautiful that the picture. Anyway, this annoying attention whore replied to her picture saying that she had several collectibles she had purchased from very exclusive and expensive places, and that we should make a collectible swap. We discussed this odd thing and Andrea mentioned she replied to her telling her that she didn't buy collectibles, only things she could actually put to good use. The idea made me think, because, yes, I also tend to buy things just because they are pretty, and they all end up stashed somewhere, so I thought of taking her advise for myself and start thinking about the actual use I can give to things and use them.

It's difficult sometimes to get past this, because some things are nearly "automatic" in us, but maybe if we pay attention, not only do we save money, but also can afford to concentrate better on making ourselves happy. Happiness isn't in the purchasing of things, but more in the achieving, in the living, in the realizing. Happiness attached to purchase is the happiness by possession of things, not necessarily by the "enjoying" of things. Shouldn't we favor the enjoyment, the living, the experiencing over the possession? After all, the joy, the experience lives forever in the memory and can't be taken away, while the possession can easily be lost.

However, there's another part of this "care to what we buy" thing other than my earlier diatribe on happiness, and that's being observant of what one really need. For instance, now I'm trying to cut my buying food at work and rather carry it from home. Since I'm on a diet, it's much easier to observe the processing of the food and keeping better watch over what and when I eat, rather than suddenly having to decide what do I want to eat, and hope it comes in the right portions. Now, food isn't my only "problem". Evidently, pens and pencils are also, since I have more pens and pencils that what I could use in a life time, but also - and so I found out today - chapsticks. Perhaps you remember that I've this tendency of buying lipsticks, lots of them, even though I don't really use them. About that, recently I had to throw away my whole collection because they were all expired, and I had hardly used them. Of course, this only prompted me to buy more, but those have not been used. What I do use a lot is chapsticks. I don't like it when my lips are dry, skin tensed and painful, so I try to make sure I always have one on me. When I don't, I go crazy and make sure to buy one at the first chance. As result, as I just realized, I end up with a lot of chapsticks rolling around in my bags, in my drawers, pen cases, baskets, boxes... you name it. I love them I use them, they all get used up before they expire, but do I really need to have around... six of them at all times? At least?

This is something in which I must start to control myself.

Baby steps. ^_^

Feeling Happy!!!

Goodness Gracious! I'm feeling so incredibly, absolutely and completely Happy! Sure, it could be the effect of my delicious bagel-breakfast, which this time around was poppy (though there weren't many poppy seeds on the bagel), or the effect of the Light Coke that I mistakenly got, since I don't drink light coke, I only drink regular coke. Now, life would be just perfect if I could go out into the beautiful, warm, sunny patch of street some yards away from the office building, and sit on a concrete half-wall with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Sadly, I can't smoke (stupid asthma not going away) and I forgot to make coffee. But still, I'm about to go out and fetch myself some lunch (I was supposed to go lunch with my twitter friends, but all of them balked out in the last minute), and I'll enjoy that wonderful warmth, walk in the sun and be simply happy!

I've been meeting with friends, getting stuff fixed - meaning restoring things to the state they were in prior to me going to Hungary in February - and now I'm looking forward to a weekend full of more programs with friends and exciting things to do.

Sometimes life is plain AWESOME!!

Why Doesn't... Oh Hell! Mercury Retrograde

Today I had a wonderful day. I put on my dressy shorts, my favorite white blouse and went out to complete the last remaining tasks of my second List of 13. I was to this antique bookstore I wanted to go for quite a while (I had gone to the original one in Cracow, so I wanted to see what this one looks like - they don't have bagels), and also checked out the antique bookstore of the bookstore chain I buy pretty much all of my books from in Hungary. It was a fabulous trip, though this last one was less than what I expected - honestly, I wanted to see used books, old books, and not the same books they are offering in the regular bookstores of the chain, with the original price. And, note to the chain owners: finding several copies of the same book isn't something you expect to see in an antique bookstore, where all pieces are supposed to be unique. The first one - aside from the unforgivable lack of bagels, which are offered in Cracow - the place was more rundown, with less books and up front with an intense emphasis in Jewish literature. Of course, that's understandable, since the bookstore is located in the Jewish district, but it could have been nice to fill a shelve unit with regular books for the "gentile customers". Still, it was an enjoyable trip, and I've got myself two books and a ginger tea.

From there I went to the Mammut Mall, to get myself a copy of the PestiEst, so I know what movies will be scheduled from tomorrow and up to the next Wednesday. Bad week again. Could it be that nothing good will hit the movies up until August 9th? Then I directed my steps to the Starbucks located next to the Mall (not in it, because that's not as nice as the one outside), where I had a delicious Vanilla Latte Frappuccino with extra coffee, extra whipped cream and extra caramel, all sided with an exquisit and much deserved bagel with cheese cream. ^_^ Ah! I LOVE BAGELS! Armed thus with the most fabulous afternoon stuff, I sat down at one of the large tables, whipped out my trusty smartpen, and started writing today's blog post. (See the picture.) Since I have this fabulous software that turns my handwriting into typed text, I was able to write all I wanted, knowing that once at home, I'll only have to hook up my pen to my laptop, sync them, select the pages, convert, check out for possible mistakes and misspellings, copy, paste and publish. Blogging through handwriting... such a wonderful, EPIC, poetic thing! And I have done it before. ^_^

After I finished my post, as I was waiting for my lovely boyfriend, I went on pulling out the next item from my bag - my Book of Ideas - and worked on it a little (I gara think this book over. It's getting really long... in the fist part, and I have middle parts to add to it!), the when I has over with that (over but not finished!) I continued with a letter - known in the underworld as "the black letter". And things went beautifully. I loved every minute in there, even when a trio sat down close to me to talk over a big budget wedding they where planning along with a professional camera man, and to be held in Miskolc, a city I definitively don't like.

Boyfriend came, we've bought two lox bagel sandwiches, got home, I hooked my smartpen, sync it... and the text converter didn't work. Say, what?? Yes, it didn't work. But how, why, how come...? Then it downed to me...

Fucking Mercury Retrograde.

I'll see if I can have that post converted or I'll type it down - which I really didn't want to -, probably adjust it, rework it, remaster it - I don't know, because it was written in a day-tagged fashion - and publish it... maybe after Mercury Retrograde? Maybe before, but hopefully while it's still an actual and workable topic.

All in all, with the Retrograde and all, it has been a wonderful day and I have spent a marvelous time! Thanks to going out, thanks to making a couple of good decisions, thanks to beating down laziness, and thanks to that great idea called "List of 13". The next one will be different. :-) I plan not to include any weekly activity, all new things! Sure, I'll keep some of my weekly activities "off the record", but this time my intention isn't to keep me entertained and growing, but to break with the rutine, concentrate on the "unique", and find 13 absolutely magical things to do. How's your 13 going on?

The Accomplishments of the Day

It's past 22:30 h and I'm sitting at our desk (not my desk, though I would have loved to have a desk of my own by now), sipping delicious Yoga Tea by Demmers Teehaus. This is a kind of beautiful herbal tea that helps you relax, calm down, just like a good session of yoga, and which I'd love to call Shavasana Tea. This particular tea is also beautiful because it changes color as you pour the hot water onto it. First goes blue, then gray, then green to brown and finally a golden, bronzed red. The taste is amazing and it does prepare you gently for sleep. I love this tea. ^_^

Tomorrow we'll go to Mezőkövesd (again) with my Mom and Dad to visit Mama and Papa and stay for a day. Due to this, it seems that we'll also be carrying Cinder around, since we can't ask her to feed herself while we are not here. Then Kari is right too, this is a great chance to see how she behaves around Mázli and Picur (the other two cats), as well as around Gina and Bence (the dogs), since probably he'll have to ask Mama and Papa to catsit Cinder when he comes to Costa Rica.

The plan to go to Helsinki is not going as smoothly as planned. The airplane ticket is what's giving us a headache, as there's a really good price at one airline we can't get hold of (no phone to call, no designated contact to help us in case something doesn't go as planned), and the others are a bit more expensive than we would have liked it to be. Oh well, oh well... something will come out of it... eventually, I hope. However I did manage to finish Trish's letter and mail it, as well as sending a short misive for a friend in Costa Rica, plus a couple of postcards. I had also lunch at Nordsee - first time in Hungary, as I usually have my Nordsee fix in Vienna - and then had a coffee at Starbucks, while getting acquinted with the fab mugs and thumblers you can get, and one if which (at least) I would certainly own and take with me back to Costa Rica! Yes, I know, I'm going all crazy for tea and all, but coffee... coffee is my soul!

Today I feel quite accomplished, even if for many it doesn't seem like a day where I've done much. Yes, I didn't save the world from inminent death, nor I completed my whole new List of 13, and add to that, the movie Headhunters - based on the book of the same title by Jo Nesbo - is premiering THIS Thursday, and I've only read chapter one of the book, so I have about two days to finish the book, so I can run into the movies as fast as I can to watch it as fresh as I can knowing well the difference between the book and the movie... from the perspective of the book. Yeah, better spoil a movie than a book don't you agree?

And yet, today is a great day.

Recent Daily Life Discoveries

I'm getting some trouble assembling my new List of 13 (8 tasks so far), mainly because I'm considering to go on a regime to lose some weight during Waxing Moon (the best time for diets), since not only I want to lose the extra pounds I've gotten, but I want to make space for all the awesome sweets there are to eat around here! ^_^ Nope, I won't look nice, fit and shapely for the summer, but I need to keep my weight within healthy values to keep on hogging on cakes.

After yesterday exhausting and beautiful day, today was a bit more calm, even though I ran some errands. I had a few things to take care of, such as getting myself a pair of black flipflops to be in the house - I've got a pair of fake crocks with those curved soles that are supposed to make you lose weight as you walk and work out your butt... they were the cheapest ones, so what tha flinking, right? I went to a commercial center in Buda, which I like a lot, but when I've got there I couldn't enter because it was being evacuated for a bomb threat. Go figure. Then again I guess everything was okay, because I heard explotion later on.

After this I went to another commercial center which is supposed to be bigger and better but was lacking of two very important things - as I found out today: it has no postal office nor a Subway (restaurant). It already doesn't have a Benetton - though it has an H&M and a C&A - nor a Pirex, which is my favorite paperstore, and their Mango store and Leroy restaurant is much better than the one at the bomb-mall, the surroundings are quite "misery-ridden" (lots and lots of dangerous looking people), though they do have a Karma restaurant - which makes an AMAZING Cosmopolitan cocktail, and shows more and better movies than the bomb-mall, I still prefer the bomb mall.

To top it all, they have a Starbucks coffee store that today had a long line. I was carrying in my bag a half-written letter, and I was looking forward to finish it calmly, sitting at a table with a Caramel Machiato, but no, a line of over 10 people waiting to place their order, a line so long that came out to the door, kept me from fulfilling a little dream of mine.The other Starbucks - where I started such letter - is right next to the bomb-mall (and there's another inside the bomb-mall), and that's simply fabulous. Granted, the coffee might not be as awesome as the coffee and capuccinos I've drank at Vienna, but I must admit that I love the vibe of the place. ^_^ Guilty pleasure, I guess.

Tomorrow I may go there - Hyne, I need to get inspired to the last five items on my List of 13 - and besides, I want to go and see what does it feel to type there, write there and be creative there. Must be something, even if the feeling is far from the elevating coffeehouse experience of the artists of the past turn of the century - the times of Art Nouveau.

Maybe I'll try it out, and tell you about it... while sipping a nice Venti sized capuccino. ^_^

Coffee or Tea?

Some days ago my friend Joana, from Portugal, wrote an entry about tea-lovers titled Where tea lovers go?. Well, I thought immediately of my friend Dragonfly, who is a real entusiast of tea, and thought this is a topic I can't add to it, because I'm a coffee-person.You are what you are and there's no changing that. My friend Sartassa, who is also friends with Joana, replied to her entry with an entry of her own about her tea-person habits. Wow, that was pretty! In her entry This is to all the tea lovers out there, was simply fabulous, filled with loads and loads of pictures.

Teas are quite cool, because you can get a lot of types and a lot of flavours that range from the bitter to the sweet, from the intense to the soothingly gentle. I, myself, tend often to witch-kitchen around with teas, brewing this or that depending on the ailment I wish to sooth. Ginger, honey and lemon tea for flu, chamomile and peppermint for the monthly pains, peppermint for tummy aches, chamomile for upset stomachs, green tea for a better digestion, tilo for the nerves or to sleep well.Orange and peach teas are awesome for breakfast, apple&cinnamon are crazy for afternoons. At home, with Kari, I'm getting my little "witchcraft kitchen" together, buying all interesting, amazing teas I find, storing them in baskets of beautifully painted tin cans. For me even the aesthetics of keeping the tea, or the coffee are tremendously important. Everything must be aesthetically pleasing.

However, even so I have my tea-habits, I am a coffee-person. I may not drink coffee everyday, I may not drink it at home, but if I can choose between coffee and tea, I go for coffee... okay, except at planes, because teas are often quite the same, but coffees can range from superb brewing of the gods to Nescafé crap (sorry, Nescafé can't be called coffee, though no matter how bad it is, it can't be used to measure the lowest kind of coffee).

My friend Sartassa asked me how do I like my coffee. Well, I like it black, really strong, and from a good brand. I basically drink only Britt, a Costa Rican export quality gourmet coffee. I was a bit worried, truth to be told, about what would I do without Britt in Hungary, once I move back there. Was I going to have to fly over here twice a year, at least to stock up? Well, it seems there's no need for that as Britt offers online shopping and shipping all over the world. Once Kari goes back home we will be trying it out.

I used to dislike coffee because if it's strong, bitter taste when I was younger. I've got into it in the University, when I had to try something to stay awake to study. I still didn't like the taste at the begining, and it wasn't all that good for keeping me up (I kept falling asleep between 2 am and 3 am), but little by little it grew on me. It amazes me that both Joana and Sartassa comment using black tea to stay up. It would never do the trick for me.

The first coffees I drank had plenty of sugar (2 spoonfuls), or where fancy kinds, full of wipped cream, cinnamon, cocoa and so on. Then, as I started skipping the sugar from my tea, copying my aunt, (still do so, I think sugar ruins the true taste of tea), I considered taking the same considerations for my coffee. After all, though Hungarian too, I'm Costa Rican and Costa Rica is a coffee-land, growing one of the best coffees in the world, so it is almost my patriotic duty to appreciate coffee. I didn't take the sugar off right away from it (have never drank coffee with milk or cream), but I reduced it gradually (1,5 spoonfuls, 1 spoonful, 0,5 spoonfuls) until I took it out of it. This happened when I was already working in this company, but some 6-7 years ago. Soon, with my then good friend Skylar, discovered also the absolute pleasure of putting cigarettes and coffee together. There's nothing in life as good as that, particularly if your smokes are Djarum Black, the fancy, extraordinary clove cigarettes, or kretek.

Though Joana had a different idea with this, and so I must detach my entry from hers (because I'm not a tea-lover), I'd like to extend it to others who have blogs and would like to make a small entry (with pics) about their tea habits, and for those who don't, to revel for a moment in their tea memories.

Summarizing The Week So Far

After almost a week, maybe less, of not having a clock on my desk, I finally have one now. It's a rather cheap, little "typically Made-in-China" kind with thermometer and hygrometer. Now, if Kari asks me again how cold or how hot is it, I can tell him... as long as he asks me at home. I've been working hard on my agenda, penciling up a lot of tasks and apointments, watching how a rather clear, lightly programmed week packed up to capacity.

Tasks upon tasks, everything written down in pencil so I could change it when it was change, which happens a lot.

In this week, so far, I have got to like my boss even more, as he has proven to me that he does treat me with respect and takes his time to talk to me about the projects I'm holding, explains me his observations, doubts and listens attentively to my explanations, seeking to understand. I realized how blatantly rude and lazy some people are. I had the chance to be amazed by the shamelessness of some people who believe that it is perfectly acceptable to escape responsability by placing the blame of the task on other people, or simply claiming ignorance based on not fulfilling another task, a BASIC TASK anyone should take by granted.

A meeting programed from a while ago was cancelled, and I shouldn't be amazed at seeing someone push so hard to reprogram it when he belongs to group that has done everything in their power to push the meeting appointments further, further, further. I really wanted to concrete that meeting so I could cement down a few things, things that continue to escape, and at the begining I was upset for it. However, when the whole scope downed to me, I realized that it doesn't matter that the meeting won't be held tomorrow, because that was I do now when I'm finishing at the office, and so I can arrange a meeting with my friends, and I did!

Tomorrow I'm meeting a very good friend of mine, taking a coffee and sharing thoughts and small gossip. Things like that make me happy, things like that make my week.

Coffeeism

Today is one of those days. Yeah, you know those days, right? Well, today is one of them. The "I need coffee", where that "need" words says "give me coffee or bad things will start to happen. Soon". If you know be, and probably by now you do, you know I'm really more of a Coke-in-the-Morning kind of person, but from time to time I have these.... days happening. Well, today the happening happened to happen. It wouldn't have been so bad or so urgent if it were not for the latest regulation of the office. Oh yeah. The Regulation.

You see, our Regulation states that workers must be in the office (allegedly working, but there's no article in the Regulation making sure of that) from 07:00 hours to 16:36 hours, from Monday to Friday. Tardiness at checking in or early check outs most be, in any case be justified. Yeah, I was thinking the same: how in Hell will you justify leaving at 16:35? Specially now that we have a wicked finger reader clock at the entrance, inside the building? Beats me.

I don't have problems of tardiness, since I'm usually at the office between 06:10 and 06:40 hours. (My dad drives me to the office and he has this thing about a particular parking spot, so we are always insanely early.) However, it happened thas last week an ATM, located inside a building property of the company, was robbed in broad daylight during office hours. As result, The Regulation decided to take away all the keys from all the leased buildings (mine among them) and keep the keys in custody of the Company's Security Personal, which is not the same as the Security Personal at the leased buildings, since those have Private Security Personal. It started yesterday. I arrived first, as usual, at 6:20 and had to sit on the step before the door, reading my book and watching all my coworkers arrive. An interesting observation was that around 70% of them arrive late, late meaning between 7:10 and 7:30. All of them bosses and administrative asistants that love to chew us out for being one minute late or leaving one minute early.

Yesterday the Security Guy arrived at 08:00 hours saying that there was a crash on the road... when he had to come around a park to get here. However he had to go back because he didn't have the right key. We got into the building at 08:20 hours. After that it was decided that it was bullshit, and the Private Security was going to hold the keys to the main door. Oh, I forgot to mention that since we were left OUTSIDE the building none of us could finger-up our arrival.

Today I arrived at 06:10 hours. The idea of getting a good, hot, black coffee in the morning built up on the way to the office, only to find out that it was closed AGAIN. It was freaking cold and I was weating a strap dress and stockings, so hell yeah I was freezing my soul off. This time the Security Personel arrived at 6:50. Still, in the cold, allowed only into the kitchen and curled around by bag and my book, I couldn't stop thinking about a steamy mug of good, rich, dark coffee. I went with some of my coworkers to the local grocery store, and they bought coffee from a machine, but I wasn't just that desperate. Did considered an option, but when I remembered what I've learned at the Britt Coffeetour and from where exactly comes that coffee, I reconsidered.

With half a loaf of bread sparkled with cheese, a coke can and a small box of Complete, I've finally got to my office, boiled water in my trusty electric boiler and poured four big spoonfulls of aromatic coffee into my French Press. Fill it with hot water, put the lid on, wait, push the filter down slowly and serve myself that so deserved, so desired cup of coffee. What on Earth can be better than that? Right now nothing. I love my morning Coffee.

Now, I usually don't do advertizing, BUT if you'd like to taste the coffee I love so much, follow this link and look around their website and online store. CaféBritt.

Decaf World

The first thought of the day comes almost in an unstopable way: "T.G.I.F.", sometimes (most of times) comes tied up with a "I'd love some potato skins and chicken wings with Jack Daniels' sauce". Early or late, it doesn't matter, because it's Friday, and yes, you have to finish this or that, and hell, you gara make an Olympic run for it, because you are out of time! No more weekdays to pull your job from one to the other, and Hyne if it would have been good to skip that seminar that took all day yesterday.

A friend of mine, Luis, sent me a Hoops&Yoyo e-card yesterday. Hyne, if it is a lovely card! It was one of a series of Office+Coffee cards, which are a recurrent topic in their cards, and which I love so much, even though I'm not the biggest coffee drinker in town. (Well, this weekend I plan to buy myself a water heater pitcher and some Britt coffee, my fave brand, and we might see how things come around next week!) This card was about "decaf", something just as silly as alcohol free beer or canabis free cigs, or cigs with reduced nicotine and tar, or sweeteners without sugar. The thing is "what's the point?".

Little by little the world is cuttering up with fake copies of everything that we like, wrapped up in so much publicity it becomes dizzying. So yeah, some people like coffee, but it hurts them, so there's decaf for them. Diabetics can't eat sugar, so there's aspartame (which is a poison) and sacharine and all that crap. Now explain to me the cigs and the booze. Then explain to me why perfectly healthy people would consume no-sugar or decaf? And who is the abnormal animal that drinks decaf with no-sugar, and Hyne forbids, while smoking a nicotine low cig. You don't take the sugar out of the sugar, the smoke out of the smoke, the booze out of the booze or the coffee out of the coffee, and yet there are industries build and profiting out of make-believe things. There's butter that's not butter, and Hyne knows how many other things.

If we pay attention, we have these "decaf tendency" taking over in every aspect of life. There's a lot of people hired to do a job they are not qualified for, or people with a given expertise poured into a completely different area, when there would be expert working in that given area, far more qualified to do the job. Labor-wise speaking, this is called "being flexible". I call it being a "decaf professional". Want more? Coz I can give you more. How about that cell you buy that does ten thousand different things and its actually good for nothing? Because they stuck the PDA into the phone. So, can the genius behind the idea tell me how am I supposed to write down an appointment being talked over that same phone, at that precise time? Then there's a camera crammed up into the phone and that's cool, but it has low resolution and sometimes is a pain in the ass trying to get your pictures into a computer. Oh, and let's not get started with the computers! Lets not go over a certain brand that hires whatever celebrity availables, real or animated chops the head off and has them talk about oh how wonderful their new laptops are, but said laptops don't even worth the cardboard they are packed in because they fail constantly, the touchpad reacts to your aura, not only to your touch, has compatibility problems with printers of the same brand, can't stand a language change, which isn't downloaded, but comes among the facilities of the OS... and when it comes to the OS, the biggest decaf of all, two words: Windows Vista.

Problem is, by the way that I see it, that we live in a world where people has been systematically taught to never be satisfied: nothing is ever enough. Without goal or purpose, people need new, and fancy and "better". But is "better" better? Or it is simply a hell of an advertising campaing? You don't really need "better", you need "right". Does your computer work for you? Is it still functional? Then keep it. You don't need the new sweeper sold on TV when you have a perfectly good broom or hoover that has been doing the job magnificently all these years. You don't need "healthier" sugar or coffee, or coke, or booze, or suplements. If you want to be healthy, LIVE HEALTHY. Eat fresh vegetables, maybe even grow them in your backyard or in a pot, but you don't need to follow the trends, specially when the trend in healthy goes one day leaning to this and then leaning to that. You don't need to be toothpick skinny, you gara be you and live with it.

Be real, don't be decaf.