Wednesday

I'm thinking that tomorrow is Aunt Marg's 70th birthday. Now that's old.

More of the financial crisis dominating the news today. The hearings on Capital Hill had all the ear markings of partisan politics. Assessing blame, posturing for constituents back home, and generally vilifying Paulson and Bernake were the orders of the day. If they don't wake up and create a plan, the market will not be happy.

Cream for my coffee. I've been meaning to address this topic for quite a while, but it has kept escaping me at the time the fingers hit the keys. Not today.

SBs has the preferred cream situation; half-and-half straight from the dairy case. Cafes and restaurants used to present cream in packaged containers like these in small saucers, often surrounded with ice to keep the creamers chilled. As a dairy product, the cream needed to be kept cool to keep it from spoiling.

For the road, in-room service at hotels, and coffee machines everyplace else, Coffee-Mate came into being. And the world is lesser for it. Powdered creamer. Some varieties were actually packaged in the same shape of containers as the real dairy creamers. Ugh.

Today, lots of the Quick Shops and the like use a liquid substitute for cream that is the equivalent of the powdered cream. And since it really isn't dairy-based, they don't have to worry about refrigeration. It bugs me. I don't know what I'm ingesting, and it has the artificial taste to boot.

I have commented for many years that I would be much better off if I could just enjoy my coffee straight up. But I learned to drink the stuff on Grandpa's lap. And he needed cream and sugar. The cream and sugar don't fall very far from the tree.

I've been stopping at the Duck Creek McDonald's for my morning coffee a couple times a week lately. Their local stores now do not leave any of the cream, sugar or any other packaged condiments out for the taking on the public counters. When they ask if you want cream or sugar in your coffee, they have dispensers adjacent to their coffee machines and they will put the stuff in for you. But they will also honor your request to put it in yourself. And they then provide you with the traditional dairy creamers.

Lance made it official. He's back. He says that his first race will be The Tour Down Under (in Australia) in January. The team, Astana, has too many chiefs. Contador, who won the tours of Italy and Spain this year, and France last year, really should be the leader of the team. Lance ain't coming back to be Number Two.

Have a great day.

BCOT