This is what happy looks like.

aaaah. Many of you may not be aware of the ongoing saga that had become my morning cup of coffee. That's probably because without the morning cup of coffee I don't have the strength to relate the saga. It was truly a vicious circle, one of those ironic little twists life just throws at you, ostensibly to test your will and see what you're made of. Now I know how all of those poor people on the Titanic felt. Except that I have coffee now and they mostly drowned, but whatever. I know how discouraged they probably felt when they heard that first iceberg hit.

Anyhow, the troubles with my french press (the preferred brewing method of any control freak worth her salt) culminated last week when the pyrex base bit developed a hairline fracture running it's length and I had to pronounce it unfit for further duty. It was a sad moment and the requisite moment of silence was observed. You served me well old friend.

Since then, coffee making has been a veritable lottery of results, coming from a mish mash of techniques I've tried to hold me over while I begin The Quest For the New French Press. (purchases in my life are either impulse buys or painfully fretted over for ages, trying to find just the right "one"; it has to be the perfect balance of aesthetically pleasing, economical, functional and interesting- a tough job for any inanimate object but I have lofty standards and I'm worth it) So morning coffee had taken on quite a painful twist as of late and become an entire production. I don't have a coffee machine so I couldn't just suck it up and resort to that while I waited. I do have a travel french press mug, but it's metal and after a couple of days I just wasn't having it. It doesn't taste the same, or I'm neurotic and think it doesn't or whatever. I think the size of the mug is different than my regular press so my normal amounts of plastic cow and sugar were off and coffee is clearly a question of ratios (as are so many other things) But the important thing was that I didn't prefer it and so I had to find another way.

Then I thought maybe the next best thing I could do would be to sort of "make" a "kind of" french press, with some screen I had lying around but this too turned out to be too much in the mornings, and plus I wasn't sure if the screen from windows is safe for foodstuffs. And noone I know knew the answer to that. I decided not to chance it. What I finally settled on as an interim measure was (*cough* going up the street to the coffee shop *cough*) to mix grounds and and water in one mug, put cream powder and sugar in the drinking mug and use my meat spatter shield as a strainer to strain coffee directly into drinking mug. Et Voila! It worked to be sure but cleanup left a little to be desired. Why are meat screens so damn hard to clean?! Uncool.

So anyhow, I am happy to report that the search has come to an end. I'm up in Boston touching base with all my homies this week and after weaseling a free dinner out of my dad we decided to hit up the local Starbucks for coffee and in my wandering around the shop to kill time while I waited for them to get my stuff ready I tripped over this little gem for the bargain price of $14.95 (which is cheaper than the plastic ones that I've seen everywhere and shunned because I don't drink coffee out of plastic):

Aesthetically pleasing?: check (I like the stainless look but oooh, copper)
Interesting?: check (because I am perhaps that lame)
functional?: check
economical?: CHECK

and she scores!!!!!

I stole this pic from ebay, where the seller is asking 50 bucks for this. Riotous, I MUST track whether he sells it.

And so now here I sit, fresh mug o joe made just the way I like it in hand. And as you see, I have my strength back, and with it the ability to babble on again. I can hear you weeping with joy from here.