It’s all I have left, my only remaining vice: my daily cup of joe.
I quit smoking thirty years ago, cut way back on donuts and cookies, and limit my beer and wine to a glass or two a month. Yes, I know that coffee leaches calcium from my already brittle spine and hip, the parts of my skeleton with osteoporosis. The parts I spend $$ for a weekly drug to keep the disease from progressing. Why, you may ask, am I canceling out the drug’s effects?
I do take a daily calcium supplement and eat yogurt and leafy green veggies. But come on. I grew up with The Aunts. They were women who drank endless cups of coffee laced with thick rich cream, a red lipstick print on the rim of the cup, a cigarette in one hand, also lipstick printed. It smelled so good.
| Recognizing and Treating Menopause Symptoms: A 50+ woman’s guide to managing hot flashes, weight gain, mood swings, depression, vaginal dryness, night sweats and other menopause symptoms |
Coffee kept me company on the boring desk jobs I got in high school and after college, when I became a civil service bureaucrat. I grabbed a coffee and a roll from the stand outside my office building, before pushing through the revolving door on my way to the elevator. Coffee, a revolving door and an elevator building: those were my career aspirations in the 1960s.
Coffee woke me up in the morning when crying babies had broken into my sleep the night before. Coffee was a drink to share with friends when my marriage fell apart. “Let’s have coffee!” Don’t you still say that to friends, old and new? It’s not lunch, it’s not alcohol with all its potential for loosened inhibitions and subsequent embarassment. It’s just coffee.
And check this out: a new study says that coffee can improve memory performance! The Journal of Alzheimer’s has published a report that a key ingredient in coffee, GCSF, increased the memory of , what else, mice. And it has to be drip coffee, four or five cups a day.
Oh well. I use a French press, two cups are my limit, and never after noon. Any more and I get the jangles. My hands shake, my heart palpitates and it’s not at all pleasant. I toss and turn all night. Guess I’ll have to ward off Alzheimer’s some other way.
Meanwhile, I’ll have a tall hazelnut half-caff, black, no sugar. Just for the enjoyment of it. My morning cuppa joe is all I have left.
| Recognizing and Treating Menopause Symptoms: A 50+ woman’s guide to managing hot flashes, weight gain, mood swings, depression, vaginal dryness, night sweats and other menopause symptoms |
ReginaLove, that is SO great to hear! As for soy, it may help with menopause symptoms -- it it controversial. The best way to use soy is in the form of whole fermented soy foods (miso, tempeh, tamari and natto). Non-fermented soy foods such as soy mi
Agreed. I never thought I was vain until I had a mastectomy at age 39. I was devastated and told the doc I wanted to wake up with implants. Now at age 60, I am lopsided and wondering if I was just avoiding the inevitable. You get what you get and you
Sounds very interesting.
Spike, you are awesome! Love your perspective, thanks for sharing.
Oh LInda – I LOVE this… I often feel like coffee is the last thing left… why do “THEY” want to take it away from me???
Here is a post I did earlier this year – I posted it on VN too, but when they shifted over to WordPress, the text didn’t follow the picture… But it might make you laugh a wee bit.
http://titirangistoryteller.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/coffee-service/
Thanks, your story did make me laugh as well! St. Veronica of the Caffeine Chapel! Also love the sign at the coffee shop entrance.
Linda
http://www.lindawis.com
Glad you enjoyed it. I went to Uni at Brockport down the road from Buffalo (way back in the 70s). Lived in Rochester for nearly 15 years before moving to Auckland 17 years ago…