Nom de Plume

There are certain purchases you make– only to discover that your purchase has gained you admittance into some type of cult. I realized this for the first time when I bought a 1974 BMW 2002 over five years ago, and I recognized it again with this new coffee roasting obsession

My second order of green coffee beans from Sweet Marias arrived on Monday, and I now have a new addiction: monsooned coffee. Monsooned coffee is coffee that has been allowed to dry in open-air warehouses during the rainy season. It ferments slightly, giving an almost musty flavor. One web writer likens it to stinky cheese: it’s an acquired taste. I love it.

But this leads to another question: how does one maximize the performance of a Poppery II popcorn maker? It’s certainly easy to roast coffee beans in one: simply dump in about 4 oz, plug in, and wait until the beans are dark and crack for the second time. But 4 oz. isn’t very much, and it takes about 40 minutes to do a pound.

Welcome to the world of coffee roaster “mods.” There are people who are seriously pimping their popperies. And then there are the diehards who build their own coffee roasters.

I admire all this ingenuity, I really do. However, I think I would probably set fire to something should I chance this on my own. Thus, I have a terrible feeling that sooner or later I’m going to buy a coffee roaster.

Lately, I have been rereading various old favorites, which include Edith Wharton, Middlemarch, and of course Jane Austen. I still find Emma to be the most complex character, Fanny Price the most irritating (with Eleanor Dashwood coming up a close second), and Elizabeth Bennet the most fun.

And this led me to a slim volume that’s been sitting on my shelves patiently for quite some time. Presumption takes off where Pride and Prejudice ends. Lizzy and Darcy are excruciatingly happy, so we turn our attention now to Georgianna, Darcy’s sister. Since we left her in P&P, she has gained in confidence and irrepressible spirits, and now she must choose between a naval captain and a young architect. Barrett so closely mimics Austen’s prose that in looking back, it’s hard to tell which events occurred in the original and which happened in the sequel. My one complaint is that it wasn’t longer; the evening whizzed by.

For those looking for yet another sequel to Pride and Prejudice, this novel (or entertainment as the author dubs it) should not be overlooked. So for those of you seeking this site for Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, which my stats tell me is one of the most popular posts even after two years, definitely check this one out.

I’ve had these guys (great great grandfather, his father-in-law, and a fierce unnamed Civil War soldier) sitting on my bookshelf for eons. They keep me company as I write, peering at me through the years. I have, however, felt bad about exposing their already falling apart cases to the elements; somehow, it seemed disrespectful.

So I shadowboxed them up.

I’m a fan of feed aggregator bloglines, which lets you read all the blogs you track in a single interface. It has all sorts of nifty little features, including “Related Feeds.” This lets you select a feed and then look at others that are similar. So I just looked to see what feeds were similar to mine — and am a little puzzled. Most have something to do with Kuwait.

Hmm.

Bill commented rather sadly that he’ll never get a telegram because Western Union stopped the service last month. I commiserated. And the next thing you know …

Send one of your own.

Lo and behold — the rain stopped. We’re taking off and going for a walk.

How does one broach the subject of e-mail forwards with very nice, sweet relatives and acquaintances of a certain age for whom e-mail is the best thing since sliced bread? It’s standard stuff — jokes, pet pictures and those horrible “send this to 20 people or you’ll die a gruesome, painful death” missives. So far, I’ve been hitting delete the moment I hear that little ping. However, at this point, I’m up to about four a day from four different people — so about one a day per person.

Which is great for apples and vitamins — but not much else.

And that’s not even counting all the people responding to everyone on the original list.

I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I’m about to lose it. Advice anyone? Please?