Chemically Imbalanced (espresso-jogged screeds)

needing the eight-week program

being on the road in delaware, this blog will undoubtedly veer off the pike o’ dementia (also know as i-95) for a swill of shottage in this place — even though the presumed dominance of murky’s baristi turned out to be somewhat, er, presumptuous at the recent serbc. looking closely, it appears the joint’s previous regional barista champion will not be serving brew.

the wife’s grandma is at that stage where one blithely turns a cold shoulder to 50-odd years in a single suburban three-story (the first joint built in the pasture, i’m told) for a life of more managed minutiae, where there is always a red emergency lever next to the shower and the elevators include etiquette instructions. our reasons for being here are twofold: (1) for the moving of stuff into the managed condo. (2) for the moving of stuff to our own newly wrought abode. this means the end of laundering the linens at the neighbor’s. another sign of the news industry’s demise? you ask, but no. it wasn’t that i couldn’t afford appliances, i just couldn’t afford the uber-compact stackable washer-dryer set — the kind the grandma is willing to part with. because, you know, we must save room in the back room for the espresso lab.

by 11 a.m., the throbbing in my medulla had gone full godzilla, thrashing around the cranium with all the subtle fury of a rottweiler with a tail hard-wired to direct current. “caffeine withdrawals,” i mumbled, but no one heard. the crinkling of packing paper drowned me out and simultaneously made my ears bleed. turns out an uncle who had shown up to help move goods suffered a similar malady. we’d be in the elevator of this managed condo complex, furniture in hand, and both bash our heads on the walls roughly twice per floor beep. synchronized cortexing, we called it. at last he went to the drug store. bought aspirin. brought it home.

“ummmm, bill. it says ‘children’s chewable’ on here.” didn’t matter, and frankly, it was only slightly surprising to find dosage insructions all the way through the osteoporosis-and-efferdent age category. so we each took 10. best tasting aspirin ever — like a powderized version of the orange mint recently detected in an underdosed, fast-pulled yigacheffe! and it was good — ‘long lasting relief for all your aches and pains’ good. musta been the slow-release technology unleashed when the granules get stuck in your teeth and seep slowly into your tongue over a period of hours.

but the pain is back. and so, in sheer desperation and for the sake of familial efficacy, we are going to try this place on the way to church. or maybe this place. just anywhere but here.