1. Place a small piece of double-sided tape between bottom “seams” of the java jacket. Press together. Now you have a flat “pocket.”

2. Place another piece of double-sided tape on the back of java jacket “pocket,” and press into birthday card.

3. Place coffee gift card in pocket. (If card slides around, use a tiny piece of double-sided tape on back of gift card to keep in place)

4. Gift your happy, caffeinated, amazed friend.

And you didn’t think you were crafty. Feel like getting crazy? Like using a hole punch? Try the pretty-pretty version.

Punch two holes in top of java jacket. Pull ribbon through. Tie bow. Pretty!

Sparkly version? Use decorative stick-on gems.

And there we have it. A no-craft craft that reuses, reduces, recycles, and keeps your caffeinated friends happy.

Why would I bother doing this? For what it’s worth, I support our local coffee shops and drink many a cappuccino there. But I like that frothy Starbucks froth, and enjoy it on occasion. Now and then.

It’s not like I have a problem or anything.

1. In 1993 we registered for twelve blue-and-white coffee cups from William-Sonoma. We received a gift box with eleven blue-striped cups and, like an ugly duckling, one with a stripe of green. Green Stripe always sat in the back, used only for a crowd, if we really needed twelve cups – until Josie came along and decided it was special, it was the lucky cup.  The renamed Lucky Green isn’t pictured – he’s busy holding her ice cream, or tea, or hot chocolate. Now he’s a swan.

2.  That is one big Kansas Jayhawks mug. It originally belonged to a friend, a friend who asked me to edit and proofread his dissertation, his 300-page, ten-years-in-the-making, bone-dry military history dissertation. I drank gallons of late-night coffee from that mug, pencil in hand, and when all was said and done he got a PhD – and I got the mug.

3.  Five-Layer Butterscotch. Lemon Angel. Raspberry, Blueberry, Bumbleberry. How do I love thee, Betty’s Pies of Two Harbors, Minnesota? Let me count the slices.

4.  Polly’s Pancake Parlor in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire resides in my pantheon of breakfasts: buckwheat waffles, cob-smoked bacon, bracing coffee and maple sugar, maple butter, maple syrup, maple heaven – all from right down the road.

5.  I’ve had this butterflied mini-mug as long as I can remember, which is – ahem – at least the early 70′s. It held everything from root beer to Lipton tea to coffee nabbed from dad’s bigger mug. Today I don’t think of it as child-sized; it’s espresso-sized.

6.  Oh Maine Diner of Wells, Maine. We were in such a crustacean daze after your meaty lobster rolls and melted butter, we sprung for a mug.

7.  Once upon a time, long ago when Josie was not a supercool 14-year-old, she marched into a glaze-your-own ceramics shop and boldly painted the word DAD. It’s been Greg’s number one mug ever since, enjoying permanent favored status in the front row. The bottom reads Love, Josie – which is code for “break this, and feel bad for life.”

8.  Greg’s brother Stephen and his wife, Swedish-born Moa, live in Stockholm. When Josie was 8 or 9 she fell hard for the charming Moomintroll books by Swedish-Finn author Tove Jansson, and the Scandinavian connection proved especially useful in obtaining cute mugs and other Moomin-shwag.

9.  Are you true to Anne of Green Gables, like me and Josie? If you get misty saying “Marilla’s cordial” and “Gilbert Blythe,” this souvenir is for you. My mom visited Canada’s Prince Edward Island last year and dropped by the real Green Gables, part of author Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Cavendish National Historic Site. I want to go. For now I’ve got a mug.

10.  I spent a good chunk of my childhood collecting penguins, and here’s what it taught me: people might forget your name, but never your collection.  And you will spend the rest of your life thanking said well-meaning people for penguin keychains and figurines and mugs. You can pack it all away and wait for people to forget – but keep out the mugs. They’re darn useful penguins.

11. I may or may not have stolen this cup from a restaurant in Falun, Sweden. I’m sure you’ve never nabbed anything from a restaurant. Have you?

——

That concludes our mug shot. Have a lovely weekend, and tell me – what’s in your cabinet?

——————-

Knitter

Baker

Productivity breakers.

Talk and talk…

…rain, coffee, normal.

————

As we like to say around here, coffee is no longer optional; as in, I don’t think we’re getting special benefits, like perkiness or open eyes – it’s just plain required.  Do you have ten words on coffee?  Spill.

You’re back from Vegas, she laughed.

How did you know we were there? We hadn’t seen them lately.

Oh, I saw it on the blog.

You read the blog? Grinning, me and the Chianti leaned over.  Jeez, I’m so happy to know you’re reading!

She put a hand on my arm.  I scan it.

My friend Peter called one morning last week, and we caught up, talked about dinners, writing, current goings-on. I confessed I’d been procrastinating, and not any regular putting-off, either, but a lethal strain of not-now that includes mentally burying evidence of things I need to do. I’m afraid I’m stuck, I said.  I think I’m stuck.

“What can I do to help you?” he said.

“What?”

“I said, what can I do.  To – help – you.  Today.”

“That is the nicest thing I’ve heard all day.”

“Clearly, you haven’t had much of a day.  What can I do?”

Wow.

“You can give me something.”

“What,” he said, “chocolate chips? Brownies?”

“Give me a deadline.”

“What?”

“Give me a deadline.  I…need to finish things.  Writing things, house things, life things.  My own deadlines don’t work.”

“What do you mean, don’t work?”

“They…expire.  I make new ones.”

Silence, then two sips of coffee.  My old penguin mug, chipped.

“Okay,” he said. “You’ve got three weeks.”

“Three weeks for what?”

“To finish whatever you started.”

I put down the penguin.

“Deal.  And thank you.”

“For what?”

“The kick. Exactly right.”

Pulling on my gray pea coat, I’m ready to leave the coffee shop but I pause to chat with a friend, a successful writer.

Jen has wavy brown hair that she pushes back once before disappearing into her novels and non-fiction – quiet and unaware, she gives off no bothersome hum. She likes to sit in the front window nursing a latte, peering at stacked manuscripts, glasses down her nose and pen in hand.  I’ve told her many times how I envy her lack of laptop, that I can’t even write longhand anymore, that surely real ink fosters creative prose.  She’s prolific in a way I’m not and appears to use her time wisely, far away in good writing, meaningful work.

Three days ago, she told me her secret:  “Stare out the window for an hour.  Then write for five minutes.”

I knew it!

But…is it fussy, or patient?  I am in fact extremely patient when it comes to pressing sugar into tins and piping swirls on cakes, and doing extremely skilled tasks like making palm trees out of Styrofoam.  But I’m not truly patient, like my mother.  Her diligence is rare even among the patient, no kidding – if you need your necklace untangled or your candlesticks cleaned, she’s your girl.  Her patience is a virtue, and mine is, shall we say…sweet. Frivolous.

Clearly, one’s relationship to the sugar bowl says volumes – packets – about personality. My Grandma Edna had a kitchen cabinet devoted solely to pocketed Sweet-n-Low; Greg likes a two-second pour (no more), and my Dad does not want sugared coffee but does want a big bowl of chocolate ganache, thank you very much.

My father-in-law has been known to tank three sugars into one small tea, but generally prefers the double whammy of sugar icing on sugar cookies. Me – I like one full Splenda – properly wapped around in the air first – sprinkled on cappuccino. My daughter takes a Wonka-esque view – never too much, it’s all good and you know, that gobstopper should be everlasting.

Flavoring sugar and pressing it into darling little shapes takes sweet devotion to a whole new level, true that, but I think once you see – and taste – their sparkly goodness, you’ll convert, at least once.

My inner Queen Elizabeth has always wanted to clutch a violet-blue handbag and say “one lump or two?” when friends come to tea, but as yet no one’s come to tea – um, we go to coffee – and I’m still not living in England. I am here, drinking cappuccino from a large paper cup. Still – I’m so beguiled by this idea, sugar cubes as art, so precious, too civilized. Set aside the Splenda and summon your inner fussy, and all your patience, to make them – because after all, a spoonful (or shape-ful) of sugar, well…you know.

Cinnamon & Chocolate Sugars

1 lb. (16 oz.) superfine sugar*
2 tsp cocoa powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon

In a small bowl, combine half the sugar with cocoa powder, stirring to blend. In a separate bowl, combine the remaining sugar with cinnamon, stirring to blend. Add 2 1/2 tsp cold water to each bowl. Using hands, mix each well, to the consistency of barely wet sand.

Use a spoon to press sugar mixtures tightly into butter/sugar molds, pressing with the back of the spoon to pack. Invert onto parchment-lined backing sheet. Tap to release shapes, and allow sugars to dry at room temperature, at least a few hours, until completely dry and firm.

Sugars will be slightly fragile; to serve, transfer by spoon or spatula. Store in airtight container.

makes about 30

note: you can use miniature tartlet tins to mold the sugars, as shown, or you can also try the flexible silicon mini-molds designed to form candy or butters.

other note:  This idea was originally culled years ago from a now-forgotten or misplaced source.  If you were the first-ever molded sugar-maker, please accept the credit and my compliments.  You’ve done a great service for dentists everywhere.

* superfine sugar note: if you do choose to indulge in this bit of luxurious fussy-craft, I urge you to actually pick up and use the superfine sugar. Regular granulated sugar will produce a more open-grained, less stable shape, and nothing can ruin that “one lump or two?” moment like broken sugar filling your carpet.

Only in Lawrence could your new mail carrier and your old mail carrier hook up. And talk about you.

Only in Lawrence can a grown man ride a unicycle down the street wearing a pink jumpsuit and bunny ears and no one bats an eye.

Only in Lawrence could I be living with my builder, know every restaurant manager in town, and eat the same hot, sugared donuts I ate in college – only with slower metabolism.

And only in Lawrence could my favorite barista* wear Mickey ears – with his name embroidered on the back, a gift from us for many fine espresso drinks – not only on Halloween, but just plain whenever he feels like it. Say, just because it’s Tuesday.

Happy Halloween from the wonderful world of Lawrence, Kansas.

*please note that our barista friend is not in witness protection. He was laughing and moving and that’s how it came out.