I ran some kind of analytic on my Twitter account last month, and discovered that the three words I use most are:
- Chicken
- Sandwich
- Coffee
This was not surprising, but slightly frightening, and left me worried both at how much coffee I’m drinking and how much I’m talking about it. It’s not the drinking of it that I enjoy so much as the making, but I could never make it without drinking any, since I am not a sociopath. Although not one to worry about my health, I have noticed that the more coffee I drink in the afternoon, the more likely I am to descend into a nauseous swoon around six o’clock. Lately, on being yanked from the dream-world, I’ve found that my customary rage at wakefulness disappears as soon as I remember the existence of coffee. “Ooh!” I muse. “This is the time of day when I don’t have to feel bad for drinking it!”
Apparently holidays are one of those times too. My holiday calendar starts at 10:30 on Christmas Eve, at the massive brunch that my parents have been throwing for some time now. It is the only time I ingest nog, cheese grits or apricot fried pies and, since the guest list is as static as the menu, the only time I see much of my family’s family friends. No matter how lovely the people are—and since some of them may read my blog, let me here emphasis their loveliness—making chit chat with adults requires quick feet and a sharpened wit. At 10:30 in the morning, that means a cup of coffee in between slurping down egg nog and bloody Mary’s. You know—to stay sharp.
For dinner on the 24th we go to my grandparents’ house, where a heavy meal of fillet and chocolate mousse as rich as the Tsar is followed up by what my grandmother calls, “strong Louisiana coffee.” That means its base is a cold drip concentrate, stored in an old wine bottle, diluted and reheated as needed. At the word coffee I bolted from my seat, and helped prepare it as an escape from the combination food & family coma. As I dumped coffeesludge and water into my grandmother’s copper saucepan, I realized that parties are more fun when you’re doing something, and that activity can either give you something to talk about, or a reason not to talk.
Christmas morning? Drip coffee was thrust into my hand.
Christmas lunch? My Aunt makes mounds of bacon, about two dozen scrambled eggs and great coffee to go with.
Post lunch Christmas haze? Well, we just have to experiment with our new French press, don’t we? It’s stainless steel and double-walled, which meant the coffee stayed warm for hours. Being of a scientific mind, I was compelled to check it every half hour or so. I never felt shaky and I never felt sick, but when I finally left the house my legs were ready to go.
In a rare departure from Christmas routine, I took them downtown to LP Field, to watch the Titans get thrashed by San Diego. It was cold and windy, so in between applying long-johns and sweater-layers, I fixed two Thermoses full of hot coffee. Under my father’s watchful eye, I warmed them first and screwed the caps on tight. I passed through security anxious that I wouldn’t be allowed to bring them in—I’d have been sweating if my pores weren’t frozen shut—but my bag was passed over, and I entered the stadium unmolested.
By the time the Chargers were up 14-3, I wanted something warm, something soothing, but reaching into my bag I found that the Thermoses were absent. In my rush to get bundled, I had forgotten to put them into my bag, and they spent the entire game keeping hot things hot on my desk in my bedroom. I cursed silently: “This couldn’t get any worse!” and then, of course, it did. Charger touchdown after Charger touchdown cascaded over me, and my belly remained unwarmed.
Crushing disappointment of a professional sports loss aside, December 24 and 25 were exactly like all the years preceding, with each uncle and strip of bacon in its proper place. The only other difference was the prodigious amount of coffee quaffed, drunk for no other reason than because it was there and it was hot. Perhaps in its own way a small rebellion, a hairline crack in an otherwise unbreakable routine. The holidays are fun without being surprising, and a mild stimulant, when substituted for the mystery and wonder of childhood, works as well as anything else.
