As I was 'futzing' around with my rapidly cooling coffee just now, I came to the abrupt realization that the perfect cup of coffee is something that I am always searching for. Coffee and I really do not get along very well any more but I am yet reluctant to give up the brew that I have come to enjoy and appreciate. As with many things, my SO and I have conflicting preferences when it comes to coffee. He likes his brew to be strong and robust. My stomach, on the other hand, requires a more mellow, less acidic cuppajoe. Even then, mine must be tempered with either a non-dairy-type creamer or the ubiquitous and oxymoronic fat-free cream. With all of those precautions, I often end up with symptoms that tell me I really should not drink coffee any longer. Still I search, determined to find the mellow coffee bean that I can grow old with.
The perfect-coffee thought process then brought me to the path of thinking about what other 'things' do I constantly search for the perfect example of. Bananas came to mind almost instantly.
Have you ever observed grocery store shoppers lingering over and fingering most of the bananas laid out in the banana display?
I go in and out of banana-buying streaks. Bananas are no exception to the now-familiar story of yin and yang with my SO and I. We both enjoy the flavor of bananas, but my digestive system is no longer in sync with banana chemistry. Occasionally I do cave into a banana-craving urge, paying for the urge dearly, which, therefore,limits my banana-buying exposure. I, too, am always in search of the perfect banana.
Buying bananas is a very personal experience. Some shoppers (my dad, for one) prefer a soft banana, with some brown ripening spots visible. This stage of ripeness is repulsive to most of my senses. I only see this type of banana as a tasty candidate for banana bread. Others prefer their bananas to be on the greenish side, so green that it is difficult to remove the peel from the fruit. This type of banana seems to me like chewing chalk. Then there is the perfect banana, one which is half-way between the banana-bread ingredient and the chalk-banana. But......purchasing bananas that will keep you in supply with constant perfect bananas is another skill, in and of itself. You must buy really green bananas that will ripen in time, you must buy kinda-green bananas that will ripen in a day or two and you must buy two or three bananas that are ready-to-eat the moment you arrive home. This, my friends, is banana-buying science.
Then there is the search for the perfect picture-taking pose, of which I seem to have yet to discover. I avoid the camera like the plague. In posterity, there will be no photos available of me, only whispered remembrances, folk-lore and urban legends.
Here's to searching for perfection......for whatever it is that the perfect 'one' is evading your grasp.
My coffee needs warming again. Some things never change.
Ancora imparo
