Even Astronauts Need It...

…Coffee, that is!
I am at Starbucks right now, drinking coffee and reading a great book called Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas.
It’s really speaking to my inner heretic!
The author is Elaine Pagels and this is the second book of hers I have read, the first one being The Origin of Satan. [← Terrific book. Better than this one.]
It is sooooooo cold outside, and very very windy.
But it is so snuggly warm in here, especially with a steaming Starbucks coffee and their new no-charge refill policy in effect.
Hey, I may be here all night!
Coffee!
Sometimes it scares me, how much I love good coffee!

When I was in college, in Peterborough, I had a saying.
I made a sign of it, and affixed the saying to my dorm-room door. I still think it is one of the most profoundest of things I have ever come up with.

“If you don’t have time for coffee, you're definitely too busy.”

My room, (well, my roommate and I)... our room was one that had a steady stream of other students flowing through, filling their coffee cups from our never-ceasing-to-gurgle Melitta© java machine!
I believe in my college-days saying as much now as I did then.

I recall a tragedy that took place a few years ago, when my family and I took a trip out to Hornby Island, off of Vancouver Island. You must take two ferries to get there, it is a rather remote destination.
One boat takes you to Denman Island, and then you drive across Denby to the far side, and get on another boat that takes you to Hornby.
We brought coffee (of course) but the Neanderthal system we had designed to make the coffee.... well, it was not all that great.
Unless we ATE the coffee grounds, we were basically coffee-less for the whole stay on Hornby.
By the end of the first day I was very nearly dead. My sister and I, both.
Seriously almost dead.
By the second day, we wanted to use our last shreds of strength to kill other people, I am not exaggerating. This is how bad it is, for a coffee-drinker to go without!

“Coffee makes us severe, and grave, and philosophical” said Jonathan Swift.
“Yes, especially the severe part,” say I.

“Coffee falls into the stomach...ideas begin to move, things remembered arrive at full gallop... the shafts of wit start up like sharp-shooters, similes arise, the paper is covered with ink” says Honore de Balzac.
Oh, I so agree.
I do not want a world without coffee.

Wasn’t it J Alfred Prufrock that said he had measured out his life with coffee spoons?

And even if routine space flight is made available to us civilians one day, I ain’t going until someone assures me that there is coffee aboard!
"If you'll excuse me a minute, I'm going to have a cup of coffee." → broadcast from Apollo 11's LEM, "Eagle", to Johnson Space Center, Houston July 20, 1969.

Now -- If you’ll excuse me for a minute, I’m going to go get a free refill.

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