Bloodletting

It was probably crummy

It was a bright, unusually warm Tuesday morning when I went to the clinic to have them let my blood.  They required me to fast for 12 hours before they drained me, presumably because they couldn't get accurate sugar readings or some such unless I was completely starving and on the verge of collapse.

After the bloodletting, I really needed to eat something.  In all their infinite wisdom, the owners of the clinic included a Lettieri coffee stand on the ground floor.  I'm sure when these plans were drawn up someone grumbled about corporate something-something-evil, but I was so happy to see coffee and food that the place could have had a giant sign saying "Corporations Will One Day Own Your Soul" and I still would have bought food from them.

As it stood, it was a Lettieri, makers of rather tasty coffee.  I ordered a Sumatran coffee with a chocolate chip muffin.   The lady at the counter demanded that I drink the coffee before driving and I wondered why -- I felt remarkably OK.

Anyways,

I went to work (cuz I felt remarkably OK) and, as I stepped off the elevator, the world started to move.  The rest of the day was spent trying to get the office to stop spinning.  I drank the (very tasty) Sumatran coffee, ate the muffin and then got yelled at by coworkers for not drinking any water.  

HFCS and caffeine save the day!

So I had water, a rather disgusting meal of "Honey Garlic Chicken" from the lunch counter (not pictured because I rid myself of that vile goo as fast as possible), and then downed a Sprite and more coffee.  I used Desktop Espresso, natch.

Eventually the world stopped spinning and I was able to drive home.

Breakfast, Lunch and The Redemption of Silvia

I am going to admit something:  I don't care how much everyone says that oatmeal is filling and full of protein and complete and whatnot, but it doesn't fill me up.  I'm, like, hungry about ten minutes after I've eaten a big bowl of the stuff.  So this morning, with my oatmeal and OJ, I had scrambled eggs.  Hopefully the oatmeal's cholesterol-busting abilities negated the cholesterol from the eggs.

OK, oatmeal, mop up that cholesterol!

But whatever.  I wasn't hungry until lunch, which was a good thing because the snack closet was totally bare.  I'm talking all-the-Ritz-crackers-are-finished bare.  I'm talking people walking in my boss's office mid-meeting to eat the chocolates on her desk.  BARE!

A guy brought in a whole apple pie and it was gone in less than 5 minutes.  By the time the people who weren't in the breakroom got the email announcing the pie, it was gone.

Morning brew, water, lunch, snack and afternoon espresso.

For lunch I had leftover fig, mascarpone, parmegianno, prosciutto and honey pizza that I obviously didn't make myself.  I mean, who the fuck keeps mascarpone in their fridge?  And would you buy mascarpone just to make a pizza?  No. Oh, if you don't know what mascarpone is, it's this cream-cheesy Italian cheese that is probably as fatty as butter.  No amount of oatmeal could have undone the cholesterol in that pizza.  

I finished the meal with some crackers I had brought from home (in the paper plate) and an espresso I made using Silvia and the cheap-o Aiello coffee I bought at the grocery store next to the office.  Anyways, I have determined that the problem really is the Black Cat coffee because the cheap-o coffee made a really good espresso.  I even made one for the guy who used to sit in the cube next to me.   Yeah.  Desktop Espresso looked kinda lonely today.

The Return of the Xmas Bleuch

Dammit, Silvia and Rocky!  Because of the two of you I've had to go back to drinking Starbucks VIA Xmas Bleuch in the morning!  Because of you, I needed to down it with a stupid sesame-poppy-seed cracker and water.  But this morning the water cooler was out of order, so I had to drink the tap water and THAT tastes like water with dissolved metal in it.  Fie upon you Rocky and Silvia!  Fie!

Chartreuse Mug looks pretty pissed off.

I tried, Silvia&Rocky.  I tried.  I even looked up stupid online videos about how to use you.  You know what I found out?  I found out that you, Rocky, never actually dispense the right amount of coffee.   So I tried eyeballing the amount of coffee that was going into Silvia.  But no dice.  NO DICE.  The coffee was still weak and revolting. 

I surmised that possibly it was the coffee.  But the coffee is fancy-ass Black Cat Classic Espresso coffee!  It's supposed to be The Shit. 

Being the good little former-scientist I am, I decided to just try my own coffee in the Silvia.  You may remember (if you exist) that my coffee had made the office a little insane when I made it initially.  I expected the same effect this time.

Alas, this was not the case.  I made a double with my coffee and it was OK.  It was way, way better than with the fancy-ass Black Cat coffee, but it still wasn't the same syrupy-strong cup that the Silvia made initially.  Nor was it as tasty as the coffee Desktop Espresso made. 

Obviously something has happened to Silvia in the past two weeks that I've been away.  And obviously Black Cat Espresso is not The Shit.

As such, Silvia&Rocky's Evil Empire has been defeated by the scrappy Desktop Espresso Team.  For now, at least.

Which One's Han Solo?

Desktop Espresso To The Rescue!

I returned to the office today and found that (1) the Rocky Doser/Grinder and fancy-ass coffee had arrived and that (2) no one was making espressos with the Silvia.

Bad Silvia! Bad!

I figured that, you know, I'd give the old girl a whirl.  I tried 5 times to make an espresso.  FIVE TIMES!  And each time, it sucked.  I blame the Rocky Doser as well as Silvia.  The doser never put out the right amount of coffee.  Ever.  And Silvia?  Even with the right amount of coffee and the right tamping of the stupid coffee, it made a shitty coffee.  It was cold.  It had no crema.  It was bitter.  Maybe the coffee sucked.  I don't know what it was but by 2pm I had had enough!  It was time for Desktop Espresso to come to the rescue!

The Undisputed Champ!

I made some coffee with Desktop Espresso and it was tasty!  I gave some to the guy in the cube next to me (who is now in the cube down the aisle from me, thanks to a cube reshuffling) and he was very happy!  He hadn't had an espresso since Silvia had displaced Desktop Espresso as the coffee maker of choice.

By the end of the day, two more people had approached me about getting in on the Desktop Espresso coffee.  Take that, Silvia!  I knew that Desktop Espresso had nothing to fear!

The Espresso Strikes Back

A: 50 engineers and 1 Technical Writer

So it came.   The Rancillo Silvia made its appearance in the office today to great fanfare and rejoicing.  All the engineers crowded around it and tried it out and everyone made the "How many engineers does it take to make an espresso" joke.   When I say that everyone made that joke, I literally mean that every single person who walked into the break room made that joke.

After everyone got over their bad selves, it became obvious that neither the Rocky grinder nor the fancy-ass coffee had arrived.  My stash of espresso was "volunteered" to serve as the office coffee until the real coffee arrived.  

My office coffee is, shall we say, not the best.  It's tasty, yes, but it isn't made for a high quality machine.  Consequently, the coffee that the Silvia made was bitter and insanely strong.  And by "insanely strong" I mean that people were bouncing off walls and unable to focus. 

The work of Imperial Stormtroopers?

Meanwhile, Desktop Espresso sat dismantled in a corner of my cubicle.  It reminded me of that scene in Empire Strikes Back where  they're in the cloud city and they've just been taken prisoner by the Empire and Chewbacca finds C3P0 dismatled. My Desktop Espresso reminds me of Headless C3P0.  That's very sad.  But I don't think Desktop Espresso has anything to worry about:  There is so much clean-up needed for the Silvia that I'm pretty sure that laziness will prevent the engineers from using it.

This Is The End, Desktop Espresso, The End

The office is getting an espresso machine.

"You're up to something, Chartreuse Mug!"

This all started last week when the QA manager acquired a Nespresso machine for his office. Everyone flocked to his office to taste the fruits of those convenient little capsules. I had an allongé instead of my usual Starbucks VIA Xmas Bleuch and it was so much better. My espresso cup, though, seemed to know that something was up. It regarded my chartreuse mug suspiciously.

A day or so after the Nespresso arrived in the office, an email went out asking for suggestions for espresso machines.

And today we got word that a new espresso machine would be arriving fortwith.

This may be the end of my Desktop Espresso and the end of my barrista services to the office. No more will I share an afternoon espresso with the guy in the cube next to me.

Desktop Espresso and I go way back.  I received it as a gift from the guy who would later become my Spousal Unit.  He got it for me after I complained about the coffee in the café in our building at the University.  We were promised a Starbucks (not ideal), but what we got was a "We Proudly Serve Starbucks Coffee".  The nice ladies who manned the place had no idea how to make an espresso as this isn't a skill Sodexo teaches its employees.

Family Portrait, 2011

I left academia and started a job downtown, where there was plenty of good coffee.  But then I switched jobs and ended up in a business park in the 'burbs.  Our building had a cafeteria that was owned by a family of bitchy people.  The son was OK and when he was there he made a decent espresso, but his mother and father couldn't brew an espresso to save their lives.   After several months of enduring their barely-edible swill, I violated safety policies and brought in Desktop Espresso.  Soon I was brewing espresso for a group of about 10 people, including some of the nice folks on the Health and Safety Committee.

Then I changed to my current job and brought Desktop Espresso with me.  For the past year, Desktop Espresso has been providing tasty espresso for me and the guy in the cube next to mine.  Now it's all over.

This is the end.

...ride the snake...