Spring Brew

Spring Brew

Noel Laflin

3-20-19

I finally figured out how to program the coffee grinder/coffee maker. It’s been a year.

I did it accidentally, of course, when I touched a button on the machine in a darken kitchen.

As I could never figure out how to get the damn thing to start on its own all this time, I was always up by six fumbling about to start things brewing.

But since the accidental touch, and as there were beans in the basket and water in the holding tank, the pre-programmed feature worked like a charm!

The problem was, it was set for midnight by default.

Fortunately I was up at that hour and wondered what the strange sound coming from the kitchen might be.

The aroma of freshly ground coffee reminded me of having seen a new LED light flash on the machine hours earlier. Thus I put two and two together eventually.

So I had a cup of freshly brewed coffee as I reread the instruction booklet, figured things out, and set the program to a more reasonable hour.

It was a stimulating way to greet the first day of Spring - right at the stroke of midnight.

Coffee on the second day of Spring, and thereafter, will start grinding away at dawn in the future. Unless I touch a wrong button again, or until the next time change.

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday

Noel Laflin

3-6-19

I asked the butterfly, “And what have you given up for Lent?”

“Cocoons,” she sighed, in sweet reply, and swiftly sailed away.

The Few, The Proud, The Hungry

The Few, The Proud, The Hungry

Noel Laflin

3-6-19

I have been a fan of buckwheat pancakes since I was a kid. There is just something about the texture I have always liked – there is grit to them that appeals to my taste buds.

So I am grateful to my sister for recently supplying me with this. Whipped up a batch this morning as a matter of fact.

And speaking of siblings, I still like buckwheat cakes despite my brother telling me – long ago upon his return from Vietnam - how boll weevils would infest the flour so badly that they had no choice but to either toss it or (as my brother, the former cook, recalls) just tell fellow Marines that the crunch they were experiencing was buckwheat.

The Few, The Proud, The Crunchers.

Pockets

Pockets

Noel Laflin

3-2-19

Seated between two old friends in a crowded pew waiting for the service to begin this morning, I reached inside my old suit left coat pocket rummaging around for my reading glasses. I wanted to better see the memorial service bulletin that the kind usher had given me when I entered the church.

Caught in the glasses were pristine looking business cards inscribed with an address that I had not been to in a dozen years or more.

I nudged my old former co-workers seated to either side of me and showed them the cards. We three used to work together, along with scores of others gathered at the service today. Now, we were all scattered like the wind, but drawn together again to pay respects to the man we had all once fondly called boss – the man that had provided me those cards by which to proudly represent his company so long ago.

Wondering what the right inside coat pocket might contain, I reached in and felt a paper folded twice over.

It was a memorial service bulletin, from seven years ago, for the father of the man for whom we had all gathered today.