I have been sick on and off for almost two months, and I really like tea when I am sick. Some nice English Breakfast (or, better, Irish Breakfast) with considerable sugar and a splash of milk, and I feel a little better already. I could never put my caffeine addiction on hold enough to actually have tea for breakfast (except for a month and a half in 2003 when I was vegan and didn’t like black coffee and never drank any, neither of which are the case now), though. But the last few sicknesses were very…throaty, and I have discovered the joy of a pot of strong tea in the morning. For all of its virtues, French press coffee is not kind to a sore throat. My wife got me sick again last week, and she turned out to have a less severe type of strep throat, so we assume that’s what has me hacking up things that look like green pasta in the morning (yum!).
Back to tea. Very yummy. My current favorite for mornings is the Republic of Tea’s new Irish Breakfast, a tin of which is on its way here with some Christmas gifts, some self-Santa playing on my part. Probably tomorrow.
On the other hand, I was on medicine and tea all last week, and the whole series of days seems like a blur. So maybe the burn-through-it-all of coffee is a good thing, too. Or maybe I wasn’t drinking enough tea, since it hurt to swallow all week (poor me).
I finished Christmas shopping today. Post Office tomorrow to send gifts to Oregon and Florida and a few packages to arrive from online shopping, and I’m all set. Things I ordered were late the last two years, and it did more than bum me out.
Speaking of bummed, the kickstand I bought today won’t attach because of bolt size issues. And I was all happy to find a black one, since all the hardware on my bike is black. Long story involving stoners and me trying to file metal down. To the local hardware store I go this week, lest I lose a precious finger.
And, in closing, some advice from Nietzsche on coffee and tea:
A few more hints from my morality…No meals between meals, no coffee: coffee spreads darkness. Tea is wholesome only in the morning. A little, but strong: tea is very unwholesome and sicklies one o’er the whole day if it is too weak by a single degree. Everybody has his own measure, often between the narrowest and most delicate limits. In a climate that is very agacant, tea is not advisable for a beginning: one should begin an hour earlier with a cup of thick, oil-less cocoa.
Nietzsche, in Ecce Homo (page 239 in current Kaufmann translation).