Wired

Rumors say its National Coffee Day.

It also happens to be Semi-Annual Caitlin Gets Hooked Up to a Holter Monitor Day.


It is no secret that my taste in beverages is fairly dull. I can go for weeks on end with just water and green tea and not feel that I am lacking anything in life. Staying hydrated is my first, and apparently only, priority when it comes to drinks.

Over the last few years I have tried to make myself someone who has a more varied palate. I make plans to stock my fridge full of gluten-free beers, various ciders, exotic juices, and bottles of Kombucha. Maybe go all out and add a carton of chocolate milk. This great idea lasts a week or two before the grocery list loses any mention of liquids and sticks to the four main food groups: fruits, vegetables, cereals, and baking supplies.

But within the attempts of change there is one thing that has, in fact, stuck: Coffee.

I consider myself a Coffee Appreciator. I'm not a Coffee Addict where I find myself unable to function without a morning cup o' joe and I'm also not a Coffee Connoisseur who is able to judge a shop based on their roasting technique or the aroma when you pour. I'm just someone who enjoys a nice hot beverage to warm my insides and give me a little boost on the days I need to hike eight miles with students or direct traffic in the pouring rain.

I don't need anything fancy. I don't require lots of add-ins. I definitely don't crave a visit to Starbucks. I can make a cup at home and be good for the day. One cup of plain, boring, whatever-brand-Grandma-and-I-found-at-the-store coffee.


When my heart started to act up last spring my doctor was concerned about my fluid intake. She was reassured that I drank enough water (my Camelbak was a permanent fixture to my spine) but mentioned that any sort of caffeine could be triggering my palpatations.

Do you drink soda? A root beer float when it was offered; so maybe three or four times a year.

Do you drink alcohol? Not because of the caffeine, she reminded me, but because if I had a problem with liquor that could be part of what was damaging my heart. I was far from being an alcholic, I was barely a social drinker.

Do you drink tea and coffee? Um...

So for a few weeks I was left with just water. My Mango Vanilla Ceylon teabags sitting on a shelf and my Santa Cruz Roasting Co. grounds given to a friend. I felt more boring than ever. My mornings in the coastal fog felt colder and greyer. Drinking a glass of water with my oatmeal was hardly breakfast.

Could it be that I needed my coffee more than I realized?

When my heart continued to act up caffeine was ruled out as a major health risk and became something to enjoy in moderation. A win for my morning routine, a loss for any diagnostic conclusions. So I pulled out the tea and headed to Coffee Cat for a victory latte and that was that.


I started off today in my doctor's office talking more about my heart. She hooked me up to wires to read my EKG and then disconnected me to hook me up to more (portable) wires to wear for the next 24 hours. The instructions were clear: Act normal.

So, naturally, I got in the car and drove to my favorite coffee shop for a latte.



Cheers to coffee and cheers to hearts. They seem to go hand in hand sometimes.
http://instagram.com/p/ti56NSGBF2/

Miss Baird the Hipster

In middle school I never thought much about our sub.

For the most part, the individual playing Teacher for the day was a retired school employee who gave us classwork and then sat quietly and read the newspaper. They dressed semi-professional, walked into class with a cup of coffee in their hand, and called on the students who raised their hands. They were usually polite, clean people who were safe adults to be around for the hour required of their service. 

As a sub, I don't know if I fit that mold.

It's not that I am unprofessional or unsafe. Not by any means. (I'm a frickin' backpacking guide: I can wrap your ankle if you trip on a chair leg in class and properly document the incident to hand to the school principal.) And it's not that I don't fit the stereotypes, either. I usually have a cup of coffee with me when I get to class in the morning and have a drawer at home full of dress pants. 

What makes me different than the subs I grew up with is that I actively want to be a part of the class experience. I think it is kind of boring if I am just another face these junior highers vaguely associate with their education. For them and for me. I am young and have life experience and love to share stories and lame jokes. And sharing goes both ways, you know.


Yesterday in Ms. Swick's English classes we read a short story called 'Raymond's Run' about a young woman taking care of her developmentally and physically disabled older brother. We first looked at it from a literary perspective (What is the theme? What is the plot's climax? Who is the main character?) and then moved into a human perspective. 

Donald Miller's work falls into the non-fiction genre--the human perspective--and I was glad to have read these words just a few minutes before students sat in their seats. I shared this with them from Searching for God Knows What:

I remember when I first learned about people who were and weren't cool. There was a kid in my middle school who never took a bath. He had dreadful buckteeth, so large they came out of his mouth an inch, and so under no circumstances could he close his lips. I used to look at him in class and wonder how his mouth did not dry out. He kept long hair, his family too poor to afford a haircut, and he would wear the same clothes for a week, each day becoming more gray, each week his hair coming more over his eyes, and he had the jumpy feel of a beat dog. He would set his languid body over the papers on his desk, his oily hair coming over his head like a curtain, and in this position he would sit all day, talking to no one, only hoping to avoid the jury of his peers, a constant source of condemnation.

... I get this feeling sometimes that [at the end of our lives] we will wish we had seen everybody as equal, that we had eaten dinner with [people like my classmate], held them in our arms, opened up spare rooms for them and loved them and learned from them. I was just another stupid child in the flow, you know; I didn't know any of these things. I didn't know it didn't matter what a person looked like, how much money they made or whether or not they were cool. I didn't know that cool was just a myth and that one person was just as beautiful and meaningful as another.

After the snickering from the first few lines died off the room turned into a still silence. I closed the book and looked at the faces staring up at me. 

A boy in the back of the room raised his hand, "Miss Baird?"
"Yes, Nathan."
"Is there any more of that book you can read to us?"


So I love the fact that I am spending part of my fall season at my Alma Mater being seen. And heard. And having good conversations with students who are questioning what life looks like outside of their hometown, outside of their home life. It helps me remember there is hope for humanity, that there are world-changers in classrooms who are spreading the concepts of love and peace alongside the ability to define parts of speech and solve equations. 

Because even a sub can encourage change.