My Coffee Pot Broke.

If you're not a coffee drinker, then you don't get the significance of this. I may as well not even get up if I can't have my coffee.
Well, we can't have that either, especially, when my insomniac affected body decides it needs to be out of bed.

So I did the only responsible thing I could think of, that being to dig around in the camping stuff and find the old percolator, look in my old farm cookbooks on how to brew coffee in this archaic manner and proceed. Keep in mind, all of this had to be accomplished SANS COFFEE!!

We did pretty well, here at Chez C-A-T. And to be honest, it makes a pretty darn good cup of coffee, even if it did balk at being used on a electric stove, rather than a campfire. It does take awhile though, like about the time it takes to boil water hard enough for it to be forced through the little stemmy thing, up into the percolator thing and drip back down through the coffee grounds. And then do all of that for 6-10 mins. And then cool down enough so it doesn't scorch the tongue right outta the mouth. But the coffee is pretty good. Due to my New Years Resolution...(this is a hint here), I will use this coffee maker rather than replacing the old one. Unless of course this one takes a hit, then all bets are off. We do have to have our coffee to survive after all.

So, today is The Brat's birthday. Happy Birthday Brat! I'm not real sure how this happened, but he's 22. Seems like just yesterday he was falling out of trees, jumping off of anything guaranteed to buy him some airtime (and in one case, some hospital time), learning how to ride a 2 wheeler (while being pushed downhill by two of his helpful big sisters - "dodge the trees!"). He's always been my baby, which when he was growing up was a pretty easy position to be in, what with 4 older sisters. And now he spends his time 24/7 in Iraq. Baghdad actually. It goes without saying that I WANT HIM HOME! True to his positive nature, he finds it not so bad. He says the Iraqi's are people just like we are. They want peace and stability just like we do. They want the same things for their families that we do. When he and his buddies got one of the tanks stuck in the mud during the rainy season (rainy season? In Iraq? Who knew?), several locals showed up with shovels and tractors to help them. The kids are adorable, he says, but then he's always loved kids. And he's always wanted to help people, which I suspect is one of the reason's he's there, that and the US govt sent him there.
Like many, he was a teenager when he first set foot on that sandy soil, when he left home he was still my baby boy. Now, when he is able to come home, there's a quiet maturity about him, he's grown into a man; a man who would do just about anything for me and the girls. A protector. And I'm so proud of him. And I miss him so much.
Be safe Brat!

See what happens when I don't get my coffee?