DECAFFINATED

This has been a great week. Carrie's new CD is great, the Legally Blonde soundtrack is great, the rain has finally gone away, it's starting to get cooler here, I love my blackout curtains so much that it's a struggle not to take them off the wall and pull them into bed with me, the So You Think You Can Dance show was great, my November trip to New York is coming together and I'm going to see Sara Bareilles tomorrow night.

There's only one thing I have to complain about this week: the shortage of coffee creamer in this office is driving me crazy.

It works well for me that my favorite kind of coffee creamer (Nestle's Coffee-mate, french vanilla) is also the favorite creamer of our CEO himself. About a month ago, in a move that I can only guess was a money-saving venture (didn't work), our little individual cups of creamer went away and in their place was a massive economy sized bottle with a pump on it. The bottle looked fine on the outside, but what came out of the pump was funky. Rather than a liquid, creamy consistency, it looked like straight up Elmer's glue. Really thick. And it didn't taste great.

I tolerated this because what choice did I have? Thick gluey coffee creamer is better than none at all. But on Monday, the pump ran out. And no one had ordered more. So I switched to hazelnut creamer. Not as tasty but better than nothing. Everyone else did this too, so guess how long the hazelnut lasted? One day.

So now all we have is half and half. While that works in restaurants, people here make the coffee so strong that I would need equal parts half and half and coffee in my cup to balance each other out.

So it's really thrown me off. When I first started working, I drank three cups of coffee before lunch. Not because I needed it but because I could. Eventually it went to two and a half, then two, and now it's one and a half. And y'all know how much I love routine. My life is built around it. My morning cup(s) of coffee are a big part of that. When I have the coffee, the day has begun. But this week I haven't even been able to finish one cup because it tastes so weird.

Anyway. Not a big deal. And besides, it's getting eclipsed by how great the week has been otherwise.