Sunday coffee

You know what I love about Sundays?  I don’t exercise first thing, or make breakfast, or pack lunches.  The first thing I do after peeing and brushing my teeth is to go down to the basement and get my 5-cup coffee pot, stick a filter in, and bring it up to the kitchen.  Because on Sundays, instead of making one cup of coffee in my French press, I make a whole pot.

During the week, coffee is a reward.  I’ve learned not to make it until after I’ve packed lunches and bundled children and kissed my husband goodbye.  Nothing starts the day worse than making coffee too early and having to drink it, standing up, while I’m rushing to comb hair, or make sandwiches, or clean up spilled orange juice.  Morning coffee should be drunk sitting down, with the paper, or good company, with a journal, or alone, staring out a window.

During the week, there isn’t time to lounge around all morning drinking coffee this way.  I drink one cup in the morning, and one cup in the afternoon, both at the end of work that had to be done that day.  Both with a small side of words – a newspaper, a book, a blank computer screen waiting to be filled.

But on Sunday, our rest day, the thing I look forward to most is that full pot of coffee.  I love the ritual that is different from my French press ritual, the satisfaction of knowing that once I fill the basket, and pour the water, and press the on button, I can keep filling my cup til the pot is gone.  That I can drink my coffee with leisure, sitting in a comfy chair instead of at the kitchen table, feet propped up on the ottoman, reading the Dear Annie letters in the paper, watching squirrels out the window, writing about Sunday coffee.