Monday, January 22, 2007

Cuppa Nuthin'

If you happen to be driving around southern Maine and notice a certain Sheep standing on a bridge or overpass weeping and sucking on a used coffee filter, don't be surprised. I'll leave it to your own good judgement as to whether or not you want to stop. This Sheep is a bit on edge and no one will blame you if you decided to depress the accelerator a bit more and speed away. It would probably be for the best.

It seems my coffee maker has died. And it was a good coffee maker. I've had it for just over a year. I am beside myself.

I have tried everything to rectify this situation. I cleaned it. I spoke encouragingly to it. I poked at various orifices with a size 2 aluminum knitting needle. Coffee no come out. I hit it. I shook it. I threatened it. I then apologized for the hitting, poking, shaking and threatening. Still no coffee for Sheepie. There is no reasoning with this machine.

Sheepie is sad. Sheepie is also drinking instant. Sheepie no function so good with the instant coffee. Others suffer when Sheepie no get coffee...

It's not like I'm a coffee snob or anything. But I do require, at the very least, "reasonable coffee." And instant does not qualify. Hence, the bridge scenario...

I am convinced that this whole sad turn of events is directly related to a karmic disturbance caused by my having done a gauge swatch for a sweater I am thinking of knitting up. The universe is just not set up for my engaging in this type of behavior. I'm not much of a swatcher. I've set off a whole chain of events that will probably be the end of life as we know it.

And, apparently, I went about the whole thing in the most wrongest of possible ways. After posting of my swatchiness yesterday, I have now learned that there was really much more to this than I thought. It seems that I am to knit the swatch, wash the swatch, photograph the swatch, catalogue the swatch, make dinner for the swatch and pick out china patterns with the swatch. I have failed utterly. I knit up the recommended number of stitches and rows, measured it, then unraveled it. It was like a swatch break up or something. I'm not all that good at long term relationships. Just ask my coffee maker...

But, I can justify this a bit. The sweater I'm looking at is called "Boxy Jacket" and is not a particularly fitted garment. The yarn is from a Lincoln Longwool fleece that gave me the fits two summers ago when it simply refused to accommodate anything that I thought might be nice to have in a yarn. In fact, it really only decided to work when I simply let it spin the way it wanted to be spun. Thus, I have something of a thick 'n thin thing going on. The gauge was never going to be spot-on under the best of circumstances. But I was able to come quite close and that was good enough for me. And this was back during that halcyon time when I thought I had access to coffee whenever the urge to have some overtook me.

Now that I know better, there will be no further swatching any time soon. Sheep need caffeine in order to do the higher maths. Or count. Or function in society. I'll be on the bridge if you need me...

SA

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my, only a year and the thing is dead? It doesn't seem like that coffee maker has lived a very long life. Hopefully you will be able to resurect it soon.

Anonymous said...

OMG! First of all, what are you doing with instant coffee in the house?????? I hope that you at least stopped on the way to school and got some real coffee! There is no way I could function at all without my many, many, many cups of coffee. Did you stop and buy a new coffee maker on the way home? Maybe you could find one at the drug store where you got the iron.

Anonymous said...

Gevalia almost always has offers for a free coffemaker with a first order of coffee... And I've heard their coffee is decent - www.gevalia.com.

No affilliation, just passing on what friend told me a couple months ago when her coffemaker stopped making coffee.

Mouse said...

We go through coffeemakers in this house about every 6 months because of the fact that my husband has to have the thing running for like 12 hours a day every day. We make sure we have a 'back up" so that it never comes to instant coffee...
I'm sure there's room under the kitchen sink for you- come join Rabbitch and I for some bleach shooters.

sheep#100 said...

First the iron, now the coffee maker. Try a drug store coffee maker.

April said...

Are you using soft water or hard water to make coffee with? If it's hard water you might just have the dreaded MINERAL BUILD-UP. I have 8,000 packets of mineral build-up remover, I'd be happy to send you some.

Anonymous said...

We had snow tonight...the cosmic disturbance continues...but I sympathize. When my tea kettle sort of melted, I did too. How late is your local drugstore open??

Anonymous said...

Maybe you should talk about it at school for a while and ask the teachers what you should do. They'll have some ideas. :)

Lazuli said...

Oh no! The horror! The horror! Maybe keep a French press on hand for such emergencies: it only requires grounds (coarser grounds are better but any will do in a pinch) and hot water.

Anonymous said...

Target. W*l*M*rt. Your closest drugstore. Any of these handy places can supply a coffee maker. The kind that use a cone-shaped filter make better coffee. Go now, grasshopper, and get thee a coffeemaker.

And feed the instant to the birds.

Anonymous said...

Are you seated? I don't drink coffee. But I understand. I know coffee drinkers. Buy one anywhere. A cheap one is fine. Just something to get you through. Once you have sipped your first cup you can then research a nice coffee maker and save your money to buy it. The final step is once you have the new one set up, place the cheap one in the box and place it in the closet. That way you'll always have a back up. Leave the jar of instant in the back of the cabinet for making ice cream. Now coffee ice cream I'll eat.
Karen
http://nothingbutknit.blog-city.com/

Amy Boogie said...

You are right, swatches have caused major catastrophes. The Hurricane in Katrina - swatches. Fires in California. All caused by too many swatches. I usually start a sleeve and call it a swatch. It's not a swatch, it's a sleeve and if it's good it gets to stay a sleeve.

I'll have a few moments of silence for your poor little coffee maker. It's sad when a good one bites the dust.

This Weary Traveler said...

Thank God for the emergency-backup instant coffee, even though it sucks. Remember when our parents/grandparents thought that Sanka was the ultimate in high tech? "I'm drinking coffee like the astronauts!" Not so much for us.

Hannah said...

Our coffee maker just died too--and I dug out this old ratty espresso maker I bought at a yard sale a couple of years ago just to get my fix....

The bleach shooters comment cracks me up!

Lorraine said...

No coffee! Call 911! I'd be on the way to the ER with a migraine of epic proportions. Thank heavens for 3 coffee shops within 2 miles of my house. Run - run like the wind - to the nearest coffee shop!

Sheila said...

We have a french press and on the rare occasion that I crave a cup o' decaff, there it is, ready to use. Mmmm...cofee sounds like a good idea right now. Okay, so it isn't so rare that I drink coffee these days. There is something so personal about the french pressed cup of coffee that I really like. It does take time though, but it would make a great back-up coffee maker, and Adrian at Hello Yarn has a French Press cozie pattern on her site:
http://www.helloyarn.com/wp/?p=417

debsnm said...

What, no Starbucks??? Even Mickey D's has rather decent coffee, if a bit hot. WhatEVER you do, DO NOT buy a Mr. Coffee!! They are cheap, shiney, and oh, so promising, but they are NOT GOOD! Find a Target, and buy ANYthing else! Good luck, and I totally feel your pain.

Cursing Mama said...

Sweet Goodness! Don't you have a coffee shop in Maine?

psst...I have never really knit a true swatch. I am such a freaking rebel.

Mia said...

Oh Sheepie... the horror! My condolences! I once went absolutely NUTS trying to get my coffee maker to spout out the goods.. but realized I didn't have the lid on the carafe and apparently that's VERY important.. at least to the machine.

I feel for ya.. come on over and I'll make you a cappucino so good you'll think you died and went to heaven!!

Mel said...

Standing on an overpass sucking on a coffee filter? You mean in zombie-like fashion? Maybe one of those little Italian stovetop jobbies would be a good option. No worries about it dying, anyway, and if you get a little one burner camp stove you'd be ready for most any catastrophe.

Going back to zombies, I read a review the other night about a zombie mockumentary being shown at Sundance. It's called "American Zombie". There's a trailer here:

Denise said...

We seem to kill off coffee makers at a rather alarming rate here at casa del chaos, so we have given up on anything that is automated or requires an electrical outlet.

For the last several years we have used a large plastic Melitta cone to brew coffee. All you need is the cone, a filter, coffee, some sort of container to receive the brewed coffee(we use an insulated pot), and boiling water. (sounds more complicated than it is - I can set it up in seconds despite my pre-coffee zombie-like state)

Now, granted, you do have to pour the water in manually but it only takes a minute and the coffee quality is excellent!