"My New Year's resolution was to enjoy more coffee. So far, so good." ~ copied

Good morning and welcome back. It's Monday, March 26, 2018, and I am back in the proverbial saddle again, so to speak, and this broadcast is emanating from 'Ye Ole Blogger Ranch'. Yogi Berra must have been a very funny guy to talk to. I watched a video of someone telling about Yogi telling him how they made those AFLAC commercials where Yogi shared the limelight with The Duck. Yogi told him some of the tricks they used to get the duck to do what they wanted him to do. Yogi then leaned over, and, in a very serious tone, he told him the voice was not really that of the duck talking. One thing for Yogi, he may be gone, but we're still talking about him. I sometimes leave my desk and when I return I notice my coffee has become ice cold. I do enjoy my coffee. Typically, I need it to be black, strong, and hot. I look at the cup. I have a choice to make. I can walk into the break room and heat it up in the microwave. That would require me to leave my desk. I hate to drink it cold, especially when it is beginning to thicken up, however, it is Community, therefore, it's a premium brew, so, I brace myself and drink it down. I like the fact that my hand down, very nice, Keurig, has some type of dementia because it thinks it is an Espresso Machine. Maybe that's what it always wanted to be. It spits out about 1/4 of a cup. Let that sit until it gets cold and believe me when you drink it, it will take the top of your head off. Oh well, I think my sinuses are better now.

I can't remember exactly when I started drinking coffee. I know my grandfather would make a coffee concoction for the great grandkids, called milk-coffee. It would be loaded up with sugar and milk. I don't think he ever provided that treat for us grandkids. He did mellow out when the great grands showed up. I may not have started my coffee consumption until after I married. As far back as I can remember I have always consumed it black, no sugar. I also drink unsweetened tea. I do know that kids parrot their parents. Some might remember that stop smoking TV ad where the dad lays down the cigarette and walks away. The little guy reaches down to pick it up. While my granddad didn't give me coffee, I no doubt was influenced by his way of making it and drinking it. I do remember him sitting at the table at dinner time. We ate a lot of homegrown vegetables. And, he loved his fresh green peppers. He would mix up his peas, fried okra, and cornbread and when he would take a bite he would also bite off a piece of the pepper. We would imitate him doing that same thing with a French fry. We would take in our fork of food and bite off that potato just like he did his peppers. Oh yeah, I do like some pepper sauce on my food and the occasional green pepper. I like the taste, just like my granddad did, however, they usually don't like me so much.

You have to wonder sometimes how our taste for certain items is developed. I like black licorice candy, hot cinnamon candy, and root beer barrel candy. I like the licorice in the hard candy, or jelly beans but never the rubbery stuff. I don't care for peanut butter and especially in cookies or candy. My wife loves peanut butter. She wouldn't even think of eating the black licorice, hot cinnamon, or root beer candies. I have thought that maybe I developed a taste for the black licorice as a kid because I knew the other kids wouldn't eat it. The wife loves chocolate. I like it okay, but, I'm not a chocoholic. I love butterscotch pudding. I like lime flavored almost anything. The wife doesn't like butterscotch or lime. She likes different things. The other day she had some wrapped chocolates in a bowl. I tried one of the popular peanut butter chocolate combos. She asked me about it. I told her I was just reaffirming my inclination not to care that much about it. I wonder how that works. The Popular Science website in an article entitled, 'BRUSSELS SPROUTS: DELICIOUS OR DISGUSTING?' gave this explanation: "People who have a lot of papillae—the bumps on our tongue, most of which house our taste buds—often find flavors overwhelming. They're "supertasters," and as such they add cream to their coffee and order food mild instead of spicy. Subtasters, on the other hand, have low papillae density and prefer their chicken wings "atomic." Individual taste, however, isn't simply about papillae; it also has to do with our buds' ability to detect different molecules. Although our brains can recognize the same five tastes—bitter, sweet, salty, sour and umami (savory)—the suite of chemicals that can trigger those signals varies from one person to the next. Alexander Bachmanov, a geneticist at Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, says that humans carry a range of 20 to 40 genes dedicated to bitter taste receptors." It added some thoughts about the impact of the evolutionary process along with genetics and national origin. The good news? The wife and I do enjoy a lot of the same things and that usually makes for excellent meals. I've got the disappearing waistline to prove it. Full disclosure requires me to reveal that I wrote this last paragraph under the influence of HotTamales Fierce Cinnamon Flavored Chewy Candies. Just so you know. Take care and may God bless. Amen. .....More later.