Selah // Something Witty

Shallow work is the work that I do.

Date: 10.07.18 -- Day 92 ("30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  -- Day 7)
Music: "The Book of Right-On" (Cover) / Sarah Jarosz

Prompt: This week is focused on National Days. Starting with today, which is National Frappe Day! Do you prefer your drinks hot or cold? What kind of blended drinks do you like?

Ah, frappes. Just the mention of frappes makes me think of grinding blenders and over-roasted coffee beans. It's a working hazard. I spend a lot of time tutoring in coffee shops.

Everything is mood dependent, although I have to say cold is my most likely choice. For coffee, I prefer the smoothness of a cold brew. It's a way to delude myself into thinking I won't get the jitters if I exceed three cups. But when I really need coffee, hot is fine. Cold is fine. It could taste like the ground for all I care as long as I get what I need from the bean juice.

For tea, I prefer my tea lattes warm on the rare occasion I can actually access them. My favorite is a Scottish Breakfast tea latte from a coffee chain called Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. They only have one in all of Washington state, located in SeaTac. It can be found in the furthest terminal away from my usual one. It takes fifteen minutes to walk from one side to another; I know because I've done it when my layover is a bit long. This is also how I found out you can regret and not regret the same thing at the exact same time. Bodies ain't what they used to be.

Usually, my main go-to is just a cup of once hot tea. I say once hot because I have a tendency to forget that I've made a cup of tea, leave it on the counter, and by the time my brain remembers, the cup has gone cold. Before, I used to heat it up again, usually cycling through this in several attempts of reviving the tea. No one has that kind of time. So I learned to appreciate cold tea. Also bitter tea. I cannot tell you how many times I've become so hyper-focused on a project that hours fly by, and my tea has steeped for far too long. My fiance can attest to this, much to his chagrin. It seems the only time I actively hold a hot cup of anything in my hands is to ease the ache of arthritis.

I get the occasional frappe, usually when my caffeine cut-off has passed. They're nice in moments of indulgence or when I have to implement a lesson plan that I know is going to be like pulling teeth. Nothing soothes harsh reality like a dollop of whipped cream, several ounces of ice blended with fake coffee, and the fervent hope that the baristas appreciate that I don't bang my head against the table every time a student tries to pull a short cut before the lesson has even begun.

Happy National Frappe Day, folks! And to all the baristas out there, I'm so sorry.