And I Invoked Her

Monday morning, a large internal sales call. I knew a number of people in Hong Kong and Australia, for example had Monday as a holiday.  But where were all the folks from China? I texted a few and reminded them of the call and they reminded me that it was Qing Ming.  I hadn’t realized the day set aside for visiting ancestral tombs, was today.  I’m old enough to remember visiting China when Qing Ming was derided as a feudal custom  that only people on Taiwan or Hong Kong still bothered with.  Business contacts, old pals, a number of mainlanders I spoke with last week were planning ancestral visits.

Out in the kitchen there isn’t any coffee.  I had thought I had enough left for a final pot.  I hadn’t.  The bit I made was weak and watery.  I resigned myself to throwing on my coat and finding the keys and driving downtown to Starbucks to secure a few sacks of their ground beans.  On the way out the door I remember to come back inside to secure a some loose change for the parking meter and sped up the driveway and out on to 208.

 

At Starbucks I park easily enough and soon the young barista understands that I want this Breakfast Blend to be ground to espresso size.  I take a scone (sure, vanilla bean) and a double espresso shot for me.  Back in the car the espresso is transcendent.  Been a while.  I let the Pidge do his thing, on the morning Wake, enjoying to the radio on the ride back and we drove past the campus where my grandmother had walked a hundred years back, and I invoked her aloud on this day of honor for the ancestors.  She too used to stare up at Skyptop from this bluff.

 

Coffee’s in, gurgling.  I have purchased a bag of dark roast espresso and a second bag of ‘Odyssey Blend.’  This being the largest, best-capitalized purveyor of coffee in the world, I shouldn’t be surprised that this bag is enticing.  The Odyssey blend promises “Notes of Tangerine Zest & Wild Honey” and unlike the black and white minimalist evocation of the espresso bag this looks more like what you’d put mint chocolate chip ice cream in.  We don’t tour the Aegean on this return home, rather sailing past beans from Rwanda, Peru and West Java.  Penelope will be pissed, if I don’t have this ready when she rises.  I don’t know what 'Wild Honey' tastes like, but it reminds me of the self-same Beach Boys song.  Reluctantly I confess I do note a bit of orange. 

 

 

 

 

Monday, 04/05/21