I wake up to the smell of fresh-brewed coffee. Lucky me! I can’t wait to go to the nearest coffee shop so I make it at home. I don’t have to get dressed to enjoy it. I have a terrific coffee maker that was given to me as a gift. It cost the big bucks. I don’t usually buy such expensive appliances. I don’t wake up alert and ready to go, so I gotta have my coffee. I drink it while I get ready for my day while listening to an old B.B. King CD. It is the nearest thing to heaven I can think of. How do you get up in the morning? If you are a sleepyhead, get some really good coffee of your choice. It will be your motivation. If you have someone to make it for you, you are in luck; otherwise, get a coffee maker you can program to go on by itself at seven or eight am.

There is one drawback to the whole process: the time it takes to keep it running in peak form. I get mineral build up and have to descale it all too often. It is not my favorite task. I can think of better things to do with my time. I could be out searching for some rare blues music. I collect old tapes (cassettes, remember them?), CDs, phonograph records, and the like. You could say that my abode is a kind of home of the blues. Come and share my passion and let’s remember the twang of a great steel guitar.

Pretty soon I am going to get sick and tired of cleaning the coffee pot. I might resort to a home water filtering system, you know the kind that softens water and prevents mineral build up. I’d found instructions on Home Water Health about how to clean it up, and wanted to install a filter so I wouldn’t be needing to repeat that task in the future. Won’t that be a splurge? It will save time and my coffee will taste better, or so they say. Real aficionados of special brews attest to this fact. You must not use ordinary tap water, at least that’s what they said on Facebook. I could make my coffee with bottled water, sure, but why go to the expense when a home water filter will do just fine. Certain things are necessities of life. I have friends with similar systems and they rave about the soft water coming out of the showerhead that makes their hair detangle in an instant. I guess there is some kind of additive to the tanks they install. Otherwise you can go other routes and get a reverse osmosis process or a carbon filter. I leave it to you to decide.

Every morning I sip at hot cup. I have mugs that are souvenirs from various blues clubs around the south. Some are adorned with pictures of famous musicians like Stevie Ray Vaughn. The collection is a hoot. It brings a smile to my face every morning. I select the “personality of the day.” If I have a CD handy, the moment is complete.