Oh, Johann!

I've always been of the opinion that commercials are very much akin to a Jedi mind trick--they're effective, but only on the weak minded. I don't buy my fabric softner based on a cuddly bear or my insurance based on a cute gecko (although I love the way he dances in the Texas commercial), and I laugh every time the Yoda & Darth Maul Lipton Tea commercials come on but I still brew my own iced tea.

Of late, there has been a series of commercials for Gevalia coffee. Have you seen them? These commercials feature a young man with long, blond hair and an obviously European accent. He's absolutely gorgeous. He compares our American cup of "joe" to the Gevalia coffee, which he refers to as johann. In one commercial, he tells us that johann won't power walk with you at the mall, but he will rub your feet. In my favorite, he comes to the rescue of a young woman working in an office-standard cubicle. He tells her that johann will get her to that coveted corner office with a young assistant who looks just like him. Its a fantasy, but let's face it, its a powerful one.

What really surprises me about the Gevalia campaign is that it is so obviously targeted strictly to women! Given that men now do so much grocery shopping, either as an active couples partner or because they live alone, I find it odd they would essentially exclude half the population from their advertising. I have half been expecting to see a similar series directed at men, but so far nothing.

Its been decades since I've had Gevalia coffee. It used to be available exclusively through a mail order program where you automatically received a bag every month or so. One of the key messages in these new commercials is that Gevalia is now available in grocery stores. Heck, Starbucks did it, so I guess that makes it OK for a high-class company such as Gevalia to step down off their self-proclaimed pedastel and do likelwise. But what I found so particularly odd about these commercials is that when I found myself in the coffee aisle the other day in need of a new bag of coffe, I seriously debated getting the Gevalia. They had a nice selection of roasts available and I stood there in store carefully considering each possible selection.

Did their advertising ploy work, you ask? Did I reach for that bright, yellow bag of Gevalia? Well, see for yourself.

Yep, I had breakfast with johann this morning. What can I say? It was wonderful! Johann was all he was promised to be. The first sip made me want to take another and then another. Before I knew it, I was sitting at the breakfast table alone with an empty cup. I dashed to the kitchen. I must have more johann! I fixed a second cup and was as quickly done with it. Alone again and quite sad.

And now, you will simply have to excuse me. Because after two cups of coffee, I must burn off this ridiculous caffeine high by walking a few hours and I have got to find out if johann comes in decaf! See y'all later. Ohh, I wonder when my new hunk of an assistant arrives? Do you suppose he can type??

When You Think of It THAT Way!

I was talking to my Mom yesterday and she was telling me she had gone out that day, which doesn't happen all that often and that she had needed to fill up her fuel tank. Because she goes out so rarely, filling up her car happens very infrequently. So she was quite surprised to find that with 1/4 tank still left, the fill up had cost her over $40! Now that's nothing new to me. I drive an SUV and, while I don't drive all that much, my weekly fill ups cost me at least that much.

Once again, the price of gasoline is becoming a hot national topic. The cost of oil is broadcast daily, and nearly all of us at this point shudder as the prices goes beyond $100 per barrel. We know that before long, we'll be feeling the pain at the pump. With Spring just beginning and the fact that gas prices always rise in warm weather as people travel more, a $4 gallon of gas can only be a few days away. And who knows from there? $5 a gallon and beyond sometime this summer seems almost inevitable.

So I was thinking about this yesterday, after talking to Mom. At the time I was thinking about it, I had a cup of coffee in my hand. I love coffee. I love the diversity that single word encompasses. Some roasts are so light and the flavor so delicate, you hesitate to put even a small amount of milk into it. Others are so intense, they have to be mixed half-and-half with milk. (I'll bet you're thinking I've gone completely off topic here, don't you? Hang on a minute. I've got a point coming.) I particularly love those coffees with that rich, smoky flavor that is very near the same taste as a really good cigar. And yes, I do know what a really good cigar tastes like! But that really is getting off topic.

Because I enjoy those flavors, I really like Starbucks coffee. So I was thrilled when they recently came out with their coffee in K-cups for my Keurig single-cup coffee machine. YUM! I love to fix that first cup of the day. As its brewing, the incredible aroma fills my entire kitchen. Just the smell, alone, is enough to get you wide awake. I prepare a batch of milk foam, add a sprinkle of cinnamon (the really good stuff), and just a tiny sprinkle of sugar over that (amazing flavor, if you haven't tried it). There's just no better way to start the day.

But Starbucks coffee is expensive. Go into any of the zillion and one of their stores, and you'll pay $3.50 for a disposable cup of of their joe. $3.50! At least!!! Even the K-cups are more expensive than other brands. A tiny box of only 10 pods will cost you $10 in any grocery store. $1 per cup of home-brewed coffee. Whew!

So there I am. Sitting with my $1 coffee in hand and thinking about my Mom paying $40 for a tank of gas. Now I'm certain I'm not the only person to have ever had this epiphany. And by now, you've probably figured out where I'm going. What if our cars ran on coffee, instead of gasoline?

There are 16 cups in a gallon. Just my cheap Starbucks K-cups would figure out to be $16 per gallon. Go to the "premium" pre-brewed from a Starbucks store, and you'd be spending $28 per gallon (I figured there are 2 cups of coffee in one of their ventis). This would mean that filling up the 13 gallon tank of my SUV would run me between $208 and $364! You know what I say?


Thank God we got cheap gas, cuz we sure ain't got cheap coffee.

Things That Make Me Crazy!

Many of you probably already know this, but the strangest things drive me absolutely crazy! I'm just coming to this realization, myself. Here are two cases in point:


1. Things I don't have to do, but don't know how to do.



I get a daily email called Knitting Daily. I enjoy learning about new knitting techniques and getting a chance to see so many new patterns. I've had to come to grips with the fact that I don't need every pattern they offer. Its hard, but I am learning how to live without them all. But a recent issue had a pattern for a cardigan that I found very unique. See the photo at the left. Now two things were very apparent to me about this garment:

a. I really, really liked it and
b. I could never wear it because it would make my caboose look as big as, well, a caboose.

But I really wanted to know how those nifty tucks are made. That part of the pattern was given in the post. So I read it. Then I reread it. I read it again. Then again. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what those instructions were saying to do. Nor could I figure out how the parts I did understand could possibly result in this outcome.

In all likelihood, I'll never make this garment. But the fact that I can't figure it out, even though I don't need to know how, is driving me crazy! And that's just so stupid, even I can't believe it.

2. Things I don't need to know, but I want to know.

If I want to go to I-79 South from my house and go anywhere in Fairmont or southward, the best way for me to do that is to turn left out of my driveway and head away from Morgantown until I hit Route 19 South. There is this one stretch of road on 19 that goes up a hill and is very curvy. Its all of about 1 mile long. Just about in the middle of the hill is a dirt road that comes down from the hill to meet the road. I've been on Route 19 a bunch of times over the past two months as I've been going to get my Mom to take her to doctors' appointments. These trips are all during the weekdays. And every time I go, there is a street cleaner on that 1 mile stretch of road. Every time! One day, when I had to make the trip twice, I saw him both times. ??? Its always in the vicinity of that dirt road and its always actively cleaning. What in heaven's name could be making such a mess on that road that they have to have a street cleaner operating continuously? I swear, the next time I'm driving that way and see that machine, I'm going to wave the driver over and ask. Cuz you know what? Not knowing is driving me crazy!

Yep, no doubt about it. I'm weird.

Living Alone

I heard a piece on the Today show yesterday (http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/#46652960) about how 1 out of 7 people in the U.S. today lives alone. I thought of all the people I know who live alone--my Mom, my sister, my Mom's sister, several friends, and well, ME. My Mom has said quite emphatically she doesn't plan on getting married again. I can't quite say I'd go that far, but I haven't exactly found anybody out there that I'd even give a second glance, let alone a full-scale second look! Except maybe my Mom's gerontologist. Now there's a guy I could go for if he ever gets single again.

But I did get thinking about the advantages of living alone:

1. I can sing out loud all I want and nobody says, "Oh, please stop that!"


2. I can dance around the house or exercise whenever a good song comes on and nobody thinks I've gone totally bonkers.


3. I don't have to coordinate schedules with anybody.


4. I don't have to justify to anybody why I have a closet full of sock yarn that's yet to be turned into socks!


5. Nobody questions my taste in music or wonders why my Amazon Cloud Favorites includes everything from Frank Sinatra to Kitaro. And nobody complains they can't understand a word Julie Fowlis sings, cuz its in Gaelic.


6. I can watch NCIS on TV 24/7 and nobody complains.


7. Nobody can say NO if I decide to adopt yet another dog or cat. Not that I plan on it, though. Five cats gets you odd looks; six gets you called The Crazy Cat Lady.


8. The big yellow Labrador retriever CAN sleep in my bed, although honestly there's not enough room for the both of us in a twin-sized bed.


9. I can use up all the hot water in a super-long shower if I want to.


10. I can have dessert for dinner if I want to!

Am I ever lonely? Maybe just every once in awhile. Maybe every now and then I think it might be nice to have someone to come home to. But those feelings don't come very often or last very long. Quite frankly, I'm the best company I know. LOL! And as I've said in posts before, there's more to be done than I can ever hope to get done.

And the dogs make it ever so much easier. Now there's an "aloneness" I could never tolerate--to be without my dogs. I can't even imagine such a horrible thing. Certainly, I plan on outliving the three I have now. But there will be new dogs to raise, no matter how many years I may have left. That lesson was definitely reinforced by a friend who's in her mid-70s who got a new pup. If she can, I can!

Nope, I don't really expect I'll ever find anyone again who'd want to put up with all the craziness around here. And as each year alone passes, I get more and more set in my ways. I doubt there's a man out there could make me stop dancing through the house every time "Shall We Dance?" plays on my Favorites. So at least for the foreseeable future, I'll eat peach cobbler for supper, go for a walk or see a movie when I darned well please, watch what I want on the TV, and just live a happy, peaceful life with those of other species who choose to call my place home.