After morning coffee, and special Christmas Day oatmeal, as David and I were in the spa soaking up sunshine and watching the hummingbirds, I said to David, “I really can’t think of any place I’d rather be on Christmas Day than here.” Granted it only got up to 71º here today (according to our pool control) but it was sunny all day. We’re only using the spa this trip as it’s just too cold at night to heat the pool in December. I just bought 16 new white chairs (with a nice discount for buying “in bulk”) from the very gay True Value Hardware here. David arranged them and I started singing “Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies, ’cause everyone goes, everyone knows, Brother Love’s show.” (One of Neil Diamond’s best, Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show.) Because it looks like we are about to have a revival here.
This is our, or was our, “Seattle” espresso machine. We have owned this machine since we lived in our Dubois Apartment. We can’t remember what year we bought it and can only trace our years of owning it by which of our homes it has been in. We think it came into our lives around the year 2000, so almost 18 years. And trust me if you price a quad shot cappuccino at Vivace it has paid for itself many times over. For at least the last 7 years I’ve been begging David to allow us to bring this machine to Palm Springs. (The coffee shop options here suck in our humble opinions.) I kept arguing how nice it would be to have quality espresso here without leaving the house. (Not that you can find quality espresso out there if you do leave the house).
And I kept arguing that it would allow us to get and even better espresso machine in Seattle. And by that I mean one that could be PLUMBED into a water line so we never had to fill it with water again. (Like a propane grill often runs out of propane in the middle of a bar-b-que, an espresso machine with a water reservoir always runs out of water while steaming milk. I made great impassioned arguments each time one of us was going to drive down here. And I never convinced him. He’d say it was too expensive. I was puzzled. I’m begging him to get to go shopping for a new espresso machine and he’s putting the brakes on? “Who are you and what have you done with my real husband?”
So now we are building a house in Seattle. There will be plumbing involved. And David was driving down here this trip. (David was driving largely because he was incensed at the cost of a rental car for 13 days: “I could drive there for less” was what he said. Then a train went off the tracks and landed on I-5 two days before he and Opal, and our espresso machine, left Seattle.) But I finally convinced him. The new machine has been purchased from Clive Coffee (in Portland) and we might be picking it up on the drive home. I am hoping to meet “Biff” who sold us the machine over the phone as we watched his online videos. His name isn’t “Biff” it might be “Piff.” Yeah, I think his name was Brian Piff, but I like saying “Biff” as it’s so West Side Story. He’s in most of the Clive Coffee videos. Our plan is to meet Biff on the drive home. So much to look forward to . . . a new home and a new espresso machine.
