new favorite coffeehouse

The best vanilla latte I've had was at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, that sadly has no locations in the metro area (or on the East Coast, for that matter). I guess a runnerup would have been Ground for Enjoyment. I think I may now have come close to finding a substitute: Murky Coffee.

I end up in Arlington once a week for a writers' group and have met up with a friend who lives there a few times. Today he introduced me to the Murky Cup, claiming it to be incredible coffee. Now...as I said above, I've firmly declared my love for Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf*, and I'm pretty picky about my coffee, so I was a little skeptical.

So I order my vanilla latte (I drink enough regular 'drip' coffee at home) and I am so not disappointed. It was almost, if not just, as a good as CBTL. At least as good as GFE. It was warm, not thick, but not watery, and the foam was wonderfully silky smooth and was practically blended with the coffee. Sometimes at some places you can really taste the seperation between foam and coffee. But not this afternoon. And it wasn't too sweet either, which is another problem I've had with some vanilla lattes.

I got there a little early and it was so wonderful to sit back with my book (The Agony and the Ecstacy by Irving Stone...very good so far) and enjoy the early evening. Virginia was much cooler and a little less humid than DC. Or maybe that's just because we were sitting close to the street and the rush from the cars created a nice breeze.

I look forward to going back and suggest that if you're in Arlington, check it out. It's on the corner of Wilson and Washington, I think. My friend enjoys the drip, I am currently in like with the vanilla latte (check back in a few weeks...it might be more serious then. Who knows? It could be love).

*On a side note, a CBTL opened up near campus my senior year and I had a card where if you bought so many coffees, you got a free one. And because I was so in love with this coffee, and knew that there wasn't one in Texas and this was my last time to get it whenever I wanted, I dragged my friend V to it nearly every day before class during Mayterm. I got my free coffee a few days before graduation, I think. Oh Coffee Bean...I miss you.

titles

I'm usually pretty good at coming up with titles. Sometimes the title even comes first, a word or a phrase...and then the idea develops further from that. I have several documents with a title and then a few sentences about the idea, maybe a few opening paragraphs, and then that's it. I'll come back to them later, but it was an idea that gripped me at the time and I couldn't wait to put it down so I wouldn't forget it.

Now...whether these titles themselves are any good may be up for debate.

Unfortunately...I'm finishing up a draft for a story and I have nothing. Not even a thought of a title. Well, ok, that's not completely true. I've thought a few but they seem far too cliché to use for this type of story.

And it needs a title. In a few days. Preferably in a day. Send positive thoughts my way and maybe the perfect one will come to me in a dream. I should just make sure I write it down the moment I wake up, otherwise I'll be kicking myself for forgetting.

Hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day weekend!

By the way, if you're looking for a couple of hours to kill, I'd recommend going to see Shrek the Third. I saw it this afternoon and even though it has its cheesy moments (and of course we saw the cheese coming), it was cute and I laughed a lot. And I about froze in the theatre which was a great way to escape the humidity clinging to your skin outside.

If I can just find my own adorable, swashbuckling feline with a Spanish accent...

gazpacho...finally

No...I'm still here. I haven't gone anywhere. Well, technically I did. I spent a very long weekend last week in Texas for a much needed vacation. As far as I'm aware, I'm here through August when I will finally have a chance to go back and visit Montana (it's been three years!) and escape from the humidity.

I hate to report that I haven't been up to a whole lot. The title of this post relates to last night's activities. Two years ago I asked for, and received, a blender for Christmas because I'd really been wanting to make smoothies and gazpacho. Unfortunately, said blender was held hostage in Texas due to my lack of suitcase space and it being just a little to heavy to justify shipping costs. Realizing the only way I would probably see this blender would be to move back to Texas, I finally bought a new one here several weeks ago.

Last night I made gazpacho from a recipe in a Mediterranean cookbook, out of many recipes for it that I have and all are slightly different, and it was wonderful! I was a little hesitant about how it would turn out. I had a freak weird skin-allergic reaction to the last soup I tried making because of the chili peppers (it was some Thai coconut soup). Nothing went wrong last night, except for my lack of only having one large container for the unblended soup and dividing the blended portions up into two smaller containers.

I bought some extra ingredients to try this chilled almond soup when I finish all my gazpacho. Not quite sure how that one will taste. But I hope to make more gazpacho throughout the summer, possibly trying the other recipes and seeing which one I like best.

Sorry for the prosaic post. I'm trying to think up a title for my short story right now while editing and also reading an incredible novel. I'll post later about my trip and will probably also post about this novel when I finish.

james bond and aston martins

On my way to work this morning I saw it, the thing that makes my heart flutter and turn my head until I'm afraid I'll either run into a mailbox or can no longer see it. And no, I'm not talking about all the adorable little puppies that make me grin on the street and wish I had one (until I remember that this would require me taking it out in the middle of the coldest days in Washington). Yes...I am talking about: a car.

But not just any car. A sleek, shiny, new, gleaming black Aston Martin, the car that glides through the streets as smoothly as a shark glides through the ocean currents.

I should probably state for the record that I am not a car person. Yes, I do know how to drive a standard (and love it and may never go back to an automatic if I can help it), and I do like driving fast on near empty highways or down through the curving rocky mountains of my sweet Southern Californian roads. But I couldn't get technical and I normally don't care about horsepower, or turbo charged engines, or whatnot.

Corvettes, yeah, I like them. BMWs, take 'em or leave 'em, Ferraris...quite beautiful but they don't make my heart flutter. But Aston Martins can make me stop in my tracks. Hummers...no thanks.

Maybe it's the James Bond thing. Maybe it's the dream to live a fast, adventurous life full of mystery and drama and intrigue. Maybe it's the same reason why so many people order a martini, "shaken, not stirred" even if they're not a martini fan. I don't even think it's a status symbol because not many people tend to really think of them or notice them.

Some people have a rabbits' foot or charm bracelets to make it a good day. Others make a wish for a good day by kissing the clasp on their necklace when it reaches the front. I have my Aston Martin sightings.

Ah...it's going to be a good day.

thoughts from friday night

Sometimes you have to wonder if you're doing the right thing.

I'm writing this sitting on the steps just below Lincoln, looking at a dark reflecting pool with two Washingtons and Capitols, lit up brilliantly against an almost dark sky. I see flickers of flash splatter against the stone steps, only no music except what is filtered through my iPod that only I can hear.

I left and went out walking after a long day at the office, again questioning what I was doing, where I was and where I was going. After an hour I found myself walking through the snow of dying blossoms, blown from their perches by a faint whisper of the wind and coloring the sidewalks in pinks and yellows.

I'm sitting down now, relishing the tingling in my legs, the coolness and the amazing lack of people on an incredible spring night. I feel I could be content to just watch the ripples, the blurring of the edges of the Washington while your eyes flow up to the base of a sturdier version.

Moments like this, I realize, I live for. Pure contentment where so much doesn't matter. Just myself, this wind and these legacies...these giants of American history.

I may not know if what I'm doing is right. But I have moments that feel so right. And even though I know I will eventually move on, most likely for somewhere with a warmer winter climate, I will always have these moments.

I'm not sure I'd trade that for all the other unknowns.