Coffee

Having just recorded my wish to avoid hemlock-laced coffee, I am now spurred on to share a realization that I had the other day about my overwhelming addiction to that most honorable beverage.

I say my overwhelming addiction to coffee rather than caffiene because I now believe myself to be over the latter. We spent last week in Springfield visiting family, and I chose that time when good coffee is hard, if not impossible, to find in the homes in which we were staying to get off of caffiene and handle the headaches while grandparents were around.

After all, my doctor had mentioned that caffiene was not a good choice for a migraine sufferer, as it is a well-known headache trigger. I wasn't entirely disturbed by this news, since I like coffee much more than I like caffiene, and I palate decaf relatively well. But I will admit being a bit confused by my sensitivity to caffiene. I really never drank more than two cups a day. Really. I mean, when I was pregnant I was always told that that was an entirely acceptable amount to drink (although I was always too chicken), and have been told by many other medical professionals that that particular amount of coffee was fine. Just two cups. So why all of the headaches? The jitters that came on even when I had eaten? Did coffee *gulp* hate me?

I was pondering this as I was dumping the (decaf) grounds out of my french press yesterday. In doing this I also thought about my habit of pushing the plunger only halfway down when I get the first cup, so that the second cup can continue to get really good and gritty and dark. And how I leave it in the press for a LOOOOONNNNNGGGGG time so that it's really, really dark. And how I like dark coffee so much that if it weren't entirely texturally gross, I'd probably eat coffee beans.

And then I realized that the way that I'm making coffee, I'm drinking what is probably the equivalent of 7-8 espresso shots at a time.

Yeah, that'll do it.