I Love Coffee

First let me say, I love coffee. I have an unnatural affection for coffee. Over the years I have gone from cream and 2 sugars to half-and-half with saccharine and thence all the way - yes, I drink it black.

I savor every bitter drop. I like every kind of coffee, from the most mundane store brand to the richest espresso. Each has its place in the day. For me, coffee is more than just a way to keep alert, although with a full-time job and two kids, I can use all the alertness I can get. Coffee is more than just a way to keep going, it's a comforting, warm companion.

It's 10:17pm and I am drinking a cup of coffee as I write this. Yes, that is probably far too late in the evening to be drinking coffee, but you see, I am an addict.

I am more than an addict - I actually proselytize. I preach coffee to others. I have heard so many say to me "oh, drinking coffee is so bad for you". But is it? What major diseases, other than acid stomach, are directly related to coffee drinking? None that I know of. I even read of a study in the Lancet that recommended it for cardiovascular health.

In fact, I know of several ways coffee is good for you. It's been shown to reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's disease, colon cancer and even cavities. The best part is, you need to drink lots of it, not just that tiny teacupful in the morning. These are the facts I quote to all who question my devotion to my java.

Today I read that a review of 10 studies seems to prove that coffee also prevents liver cancer. Coffee drinkers were 41% less likely to get liver cancer than those who abstain from coffee. Just another good thing to come from coffee. And another great statistic to throw at those who sneer at my addiction.

I asked my mother one question...

Genetics is a science. Like all sciences, genetics follows mathematical equations and set parameters. If you are a geneticist, you know that aside from the occasional mutation, all gene combinations are going to fit within these parameters.

Yes well, all those theories and equations work fine until you get to my mother.

You would suppose that by combining the genes of two completely different people, you would arrive at five offspring whose characteristics would have wide variations within those genes' codes. But, it doesn't always work that way. My mother, for instance, refused to have any children who didn't look just like her.

My mother had genes that were predatory. They seek out and destroy all other genes even to the second generation. And they grow stronger with age.

As I look in the mirror each day I see her face more than I see the face that I used to think was me. I look at my children and see my mother in one and "mini-me" in the other, and I realize that science held no sway over this woman. I suppose if I have to look like someone, I should be happy to look like the woman who conquered genetics.

Time continues to prove my mother right as I notice all my siblings turning into versions of her. In any case, by the time I was an adult, I was sure we only had her genes too. My father seemed to provide only a means of support as my mother sought to spread her genes to future generations.

Which led me once to ask her a strange question.

I must preface this by saying that my mother, though compassionate and fond of animals, often grew tired of pets that refused to follow her rules or whose presence was becoming annoying. I remember being about 8 or 9, standing outside on a porch every night for weeks and calling a cat who never came home only to discover that he had been taken to the ASPCA. A dog disappeared while I was at school, he had just had his third flea infestation and I guess the third time is the charm. Pets disappeared without warning. It gave my childhood that element of surprise and mystery.

But all my life, I had believed that Benny the dog had run away. He was just the kind of dog you would expect to run away, frenzied and impulsive. I believed this, that is, until a few years ago. One evening as my brother and I sat in my mother's kitchen we discussed a dog who had run into the yard a few years after Benny had disappeared. This dog taunted the owners who chased him, turning himself inside out with the joy of his apparent escape. This dog looked and acted so much like Benny that we wondered if he had wandered home to say "hello".

It was then the truth was finally brought out into the open; a confession finally forthcoming from my mother and my eldest sister. All those years before, Benny and another neighborhood dog had been involved in some incident with a neighbor's cat; an incident that ended badly for the cat. My mother had taken the dog and had him put down, never letting on to us children that he had not, in fact, just run away.

It was then, at the scene of this startling revelation that a terrible thought occurred to me. The full impact of the ease with which my mother dispensed with unwanted pets combined with her insistence that all her offspring resemble her, compelled me to turn to her and ask:

"How many children did you really have?"

Office Friendships

I was thinking about a retired co-worker today and brought her name up while talking to a cubicle-mate. We both realized that since she retired, she has never once come to visit her old friends in the office, nor has she contacted anyone. Even the monthly dinner evenings that she always attended seem to have faded into memory, and aren't even organized anymore. The plain truth is, I miss her at times.
But not often. That is, I don't often sit and think "I wish R were here". It's a funny thing about work, you share the major part of each day, five days a week - you share your stories, your life, your kids' school pictures - but are you truly friends or just people in a stressful environment who take solace in shared experiences and affable chit-chat?

The younger employees, those in their early twenties fresh from college and without children, often spend a great deal of time together outside of work. They build friendships that seem rock solid - until one of them quits for a better job, or gets married and has a baby. Suddenly, their shared experiences are reduced to those of the office, and friends become just co-workers again.

Still, after spending five days a week for 20 years with someone, their sudden absence leaves a big hole in the fabric of your life.
The sad thing is that over time it becomes less noticeable, other bits of work and life and even other people are woven into its place. I think that if my retired friend called and wanted everyone to get together for a night out, just about everyone would gladly go. But the conversation would probably be about work - what is the same, what has changed, the latest gossip.

Perhaps she is right. Although you get to know a lot about a person over the years, the only thing you ever really had in common was work. Office friendships are a matter of being thrown together and finding those with whom you can communicate amenably. The friends I see outside of work for the most part, are people I knew before they and I worked together.

I am not sure. I prefer to think that yes, we were friends, but her life is busy and it's simply that she doesn't think to visit because she doesn't have the time or realize we miss her.

I prefer to think that, but I am not sure.