mmmmm, coffeeeee...

One of the things I like about this office is the fancy espresso machine in the kitchen. I like that they buy good beans for it and have a special industrial-size grinder so you always have freshly-ground and -brewed pipin' hot joe. The machine itself is marbled black and grey, but it occupies such a position of importance in my head and the kitchen that whenever I leave the room, I think it's bright red.

It's not like I often have reason to think to myself, "gosh, the espresso machine sure is red." But still, it's part of the way my world is laid out in my head, and whenever I walk into the kitchen and notice that the espresso machine is NOT in fact red, I have one of those world-discrepancy moments. Did I just dream the redness? Is this maybe a new machine?

The director of this office (with whom I had pancakes last week) apparently bought this machine four or five years ago. I didn't realize he was a bit sensitive on the subject, so when he asked me what I found different in this office versus my home office, I went on for a little bit about the working environment, paused, and added, "yeah, and I REALLY like the espresso machine." I thought he was going to choke on his tongue. Apparently, buying this machine is the most visible thing he's ever done. He swears, "everybody's office had espresso machines! Except us!" The president of the company said in one of the high muckitymeetings, "I don't know what they're doing over in that Schiphol office, but they sure do have a fancy espresso machine." The last time one of my coworkers came over to this office to help out, he came back raving about espresso and bought a little machine to keep on his desk.

Other news: unspeakably cool weekend, even though it was rainy. Where to start? It was terribly yay to see David. We learned that ingesting pot as food lasts a WHOLE lot longer than when it's smoked. Buh. Either that, or that was a VERY strong hash bread. (aside: it was a neat little nutty loaf of not entirely unsweet bread. Kinda yummy.) So yeah, I've succumbed to that part of Amsterdam's legal flexibities, anyway, a couple of times.

A lot of coffeeshops (pot-selling establishments) seem to have pool tables. Can really stoned people even play pool? This is an honest question. I sort of imagine something like:

stoner to buddy: dude....

(pause while he forgets what he was saying, looks at the pool table, remembers the existence of a game called "pool" and infers that he must be playing)

stoner: ...am I ... stripes?