Tag Archives: coffee

Aug 20 2012
31 Comments
Humorous

Notes I Took While Watching Your Date

I see and judge you.

Hi there,

You probably didn’t notice, but I was here yesterday while you were on your date. I was in the corner, staring directly at you.

I’d been here for about two hours when your date sat down, and about two hours and five minutes when you came along. As my attention span for work reached its upper limit, your conversation and interactions got more and more interesting. You were maybe seven feet away from me, the café was very quiet, and I could hear everything. I happened to take a few pages of notes on your rendezvous and I’m more than happy to share some of them with you.

First of all, your date chose a very awkward table. Most normal human beings prefer to sit next to a wall or a structure that shelters at least one side. This comes from an evolutionarily instilled desire to avoid predators. Walls provide a sense of security and allow the dining party to relax and enjoy their coffee and conversation. The fact your date willingly chose an exposed table means a number of things. She could be trying to kill you, but she could also trust your ability to fend off potential threats. At the worst, she might be a psychopath and a danger to herself and others.

Not only did she choose an awful table, she defended her decision when you asked about it, implying that she believed her poor table choice made her a quirky, unique girl, which it did not. Girls who think they are spontaneous and fun rarely are. They will tire you out with their foolhardy decisions and pretend to enjoy picnicking on highways. My recommendation: let her choose the table next time and see what she picks. If she fails again, go to the bathroom and crawl out the window. You don’t want to know what she’s capable of.

Some important developments occurred during her lengthy bathroom break, during which I looked up and saw you eating by yourself. When I looked up a few minutes later, I saw that not only were you still eating by yourself, you were sweating. It appears you welcomed the break from talking and leapt at the chance to eat your food without her watching, a move I applaud.

However, the sweat glistening on your brow indicated both to me and your date that you may have been enjoying your egg sandwich too vigorously–not an attractive quality. To be fair, she was gone for a hot second, which is not a great sign. If she really liked you, she would have held off anything major until after the date, unless it was an emergency that threatened to make itself uncomfortably present. If she was touching up make-up, she’s a diva, and if she was hanging out texting friends and reading articles on her smart phone, then I think you and I both know what that means.

At any rate, I’m glad that we could share your date together. I don’t particularly like her, but you seem like a nice, normal guy and I wish both you all the best.

Emily

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Jun 29 2012
19 Comments
Humorous, Social Media, Three minute read

A Harrowing Trip through my Thought Process. Bring Your Galoshes.

This would have been the picture for the coffee post, even though it’s not completely relevant.

It’s 10:30 am and it’s time to blog. I’m running some raw ideas through the meat grinder of my brain.

My sister’s wedding is tomorrow, but I don’t want to blog about that because I’ve been talking about it constantly and I’m sure people are wondering if it’s even real. (It’s happening tomorrow, by the way.)

So I trashed wedding topics, and moved on and tried to think creatively. When I try to be “creative,” I tend to look around my room for inspiration, which often leads me to killer ideas such as “what if my clothes came alive and tried to kill me” or “what if my lotion came alive and tried to kill me” or “what if my bed came alive and tried to kill me.” You see, I mean killer in the literal sense of the word, not in the sense that any of these ideas are good. Room-based inspiration does not often work for me.

I discarded those killer ideas and transitioned to sweat-based ones as I considered blogging about the wedding guests’ sweat potential. The extreme heat at this outdoor wedding, the high amount of social interactions, the excitement, and the nervousness will create the mother of all perspiration-inducing cocktails. It’s going to be a moist one. But then I considered that not only is this pretty gross, but it’s also about the wedding, which I didn’t want to write about.

After I tossed that idea out, I looked to my right and saw my coffee mug, which appeared to be empty. I picked it up and found a different situation entirely. There were a few mouthfuls of lukewarm joe left, and I was a little happy about that, so I considered writing an overblown piece on how incredible and amazing and wonderful it is when there’s coffee left over in the mug that you didn’t know about. But then I thought, well I wasn’t that happy about it. This might be a little hard to do. So I didn’t do it.

I moved on to consider blogging about how I’ve been following a lot of people on twitter lately. But if you just read that last sentence, you know as well as I do that my twitter antics are likely a dead end. So I buried that one too.

At this point, I have roughly 5-15 bad ideas buried in little idea coffins in my idea graveyard, a place I visit regularly. Some of these little guys even become zombies and try to eat my brains and make it impossible for me to think of other ideas, or become ghosts that haunt me continually with false potential.

Just when I was about to despair, I stumbled upon the idea of writing about how to unleash my creative potential, which in my mind was literally about unleashing some kind of monster named “Creative Potential.” Seconds later, I realized that this very literal interpretation of creative potential and the word unleash is not actually creative. So I hung up my hat, downed a cold brew, sighed a great sigh, yearned for more in life, and then published my thought process for all to see.

You’re not alone if a good idea escapes you. Don’t be jealous of the people that do have awesome ideas, because that could be you someday.

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Oct 26 2011
4 Comments
One minute read

At Least We Have the Cappuccini

They don’t do the hearts, but they’re still tasty.

Each week in our Arabic classes, we take on a different theme pertaining to Egyptian society or culture. Unfortunately, the discussions branching from these themes are often depressing.

In a country that has a 20-25% unemployment rate, a weak economy still recovering from the revolution, strained gender relations, rampant urbanization with insufficient accommodation capabilities , deteriorating environmental conditions, an exploding population set to double by 2025, an increasingly tense religious atmosphere, rapidly disappearing natural resources including water, border skirmishes with Israel, a broken political system and growing disillusionment with the political process, skyrocketing food prices,  a 20% poverty rate and 40% adult illiteracy rate, and an egregious gap between the rich and the poor (not as egregious as the one in the United States), sometimes it’s hard to find something pleasant to talk about.

On that note, I’d like to discuss the cappuccino situation at the American University of Cairo: Tahrir Campus. It is fantastic. For only 8 EGP (about $1.20), you can get a delicious espresso drink that is easily just as good as the ones found at nearby Cilantro, Beanos, and Costa Coffee, all of which will set you back at least 15 EGP.

Though the cappuccino I bought yesterday was not as good as the one I purchased on Monday, I have high hopes for the drink I might be purchasing today. And this hope will persevere. I have tasted the foamy, cinnamon sprinkled froth of AUC Tahrir’s espresso machine and I will never forget the sensation of perfect harmony that seeped through my veins upon contact with the exotic elixir.

Nay, though our theme next week be prison literature, or the one after that infanticide, still will the hope churn in my belly for the sweet 45 minute break I have at 10 o’clock, during which I might escape, if just for a moment, from the ever oppressive reality and bury myself in the delightful embrace of the one thing that has never let me down: spending money on coffee in order to lift my spirits.

Some might say I’m ignoring the bigger picture here, and that the fact I can afford to spend 8 EGP on coffee at the most prestigious university in the country without batting an eyelash is an indication of a wider, more troubling social phenomenon. To them I say, “Want a sip?”

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Oct 25 2011
2 Comments
Anecdotes, Stories, Two minute read

The Coffee Grinder Saga, Part 2

(This story is continued from yesterday….when I left you I was debating whether or not to plug in someone else’s coffee grinder of unknown current needs into a 220V outlet, a decision that may or may not lead to disaster)

After hesitating briefly, I decided I didn’t need anyone’s help and boldly plugged the coffee grinder into the 220V outlet and flipped the switch. Pop!…..(silence). These are the sounds that came from the machine; they were not the sounds of coffee beans changing into a powdered state.

And just like that, with a friendly popping sound, my life had changed. It seemed the universe was laughing at me.  Why hadn’t there been an earthquake to indicate the scale of the fiasco? Lightening bolts and pigs flying? A flood and a plague of locusts? The catastrophe didn’t seem real. I imagined that if I ran away, the whole problem would disappear as fast as it had surged into existence.

But I didn’t, and the appliance didn’t magically start working when I tried turning it on and off and putting it into the other outlet. It was, as they say, “fried.”  Then I  thought, “It’s just a coffee grinder…how expensive could it be to get a new one?” Even as I thought this, I knew in my heart of hearts that it could be very expensive. I had felt how heavy that machine was. I had seen KitchenAid Pro-Line written on its stainless steel side. This appliance had not been meant for the grubby hands of semi-dedicated Arabic students. How had I dared touch the cooking tools of my superiors?

$250 dollars from KitchenAid.com. That was how much this machine cost. 250 smackaroos, big ones, green backs, etc. That’s approximately 1500 Egyptian Pounds, or half of my monthly stipend, or 375 pounds of falafel sandwiches. My heart sank thinking about all those truckloads of sandwich.

If I could just go back and infuse myself with a desire to go to bed early, or afflict myself with a horrible illness, or make me love learning about voltages and currents, then we wouldn’t be in this situation. And yet, here we are. Here I am. And I will foot this bill like the semi-dedicated Arabic student that I am. Hopefully it can be repaired, but if not, I will cross desert and sea in order to bring back another one. And after that, even though I shouldn’t, I will feel entitled to use it whenever I want to go over even more frequently to the apartment filled with expensive things that break all too easily. Someone else, of course, will plug them in.

My Arabic teacher always thanks us for making mistakes so we can learn from them, so here are some takeaways from this experience so far:

1. Voltages matter.

2. There are some things no amount of education can cure.

3. Expensive things break as easily as cheap things.

4. Running away is always an option.

5. The value of money is relative.

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Oct 23 2011
5 Comments
Anecdotes, Best blog posts, Stories, Three minute read

The Coffee Grinder Saga, Part 1

possible bane of my existence

Have you ever done something you regretted so much that you would give anything to undo it? Have you ever wanted nothing more than a time machine in order to go back and roofie yourself to prevent something horrible from happening? Have you ever felt remorse welling up in the pit of your stomach, a veritable fountain of bile waiting for any excuse to spew?  Many of you will not be able to relate to the dire circumstances I have found myself in, but I will relate them nevertheless.

Last night, in a fit of delirium, I thought it would be fun to go over to the apartment my friend was apartment-sitting and take advantage of the espresso maker there by having a late night coffee. Little did I know that only 2 hours after suggesting this idea, I would rue the very moment I ever thought of the words “go,” “espresso,” and “tonight” in the same sentence.

In times past, I relished going to said apartment in order to enjoy its civilized air, an air that comes the breath of a person living off a real salary and not the peanuts of a student stipend. This apartment has nice things in it: mixing bowls with rubber on the bottom, a digital oven, a flat screen television, etc. In hind sight, these were all indicators I should never have been there in the first place.

Amongst the fineries of this apartment are an espresso machine and a coffee grinder, two appliances that go together like Cairo tap water and hair loss. In my ignorance, I thought I knew how to work both of them. Step one: plug them in. This proved very easy to do with the espresso machine. I just plugged it right into the converter box that adapts the electric current for appliances made to work elsewhere i.e. the U.S.

Having plugged in the espresso machine, all I had to do was grind up some coffee beans. There was only one knob on the KitchenAid Pro Line coffee grinder, so the actual grinding part seemed essentially fool proof. Unfortunately, the machine was dealing with no mere fool. I am a fool with a college degree and a passport, a fool of the most dangerous kind. You see, the converter box had two sockets: one labeled 110V and the other labelled 220V. The numbers appeared to be meaningless afterthoughts, more decoration than anything else, but I soon found reality to be quite different.

I went to plug the coffee grinder in. The only plug open on the box was the 220V one, and I thought, “Well, I might as well try it to see if it works.” There are a few things wrong with this line of reasoning. First of all, why didn’t I check to see what kind of voltage the appliance itself called for? Even if I had the pathetic excuse of not knowing where to look, any dum-dum can check the bottom of a machine where these nuggets of information are usually hidden. Second of all, I had unknowingly begun playing Russian roulette with electrical outlets, one outlet leading to freshly ground coffee, and the other descending to a coffee-less pit of despair and self-loathing, a pit that can easily be avoided through the least amount of research. I didn’t even ask my friend for his opinion even though he was standing literally a foot away from me.

I went to plug in the coffee grinder and…..now that you’re burning with suspicion, this story will be continued tomorrow. It will involve international statecraft and the fall of capitalism, so stay tuned.

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