Category review

I like my coffee pot

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

That’s all I got for ya.

It’s 5:15 a.m., on my final Wednesday of my 10-hour Sunday to Wednesday shifts at the Stitch Fix Bizzy Hizzy. I loved these shifts. I love having three days off. But as of Monday, I will be Monday to Friday, “normal” 8-hour shifts, 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. More change.

My chiropractor had a class last week so I missed my regular adjustment and now I can feel my hip moving inward. I never expected that this journey to improve my fitness and awareness of how my body works (if you aren’t a regular I have diplegic spastic cerebral palsy) would lead to this strange zeroing in… I am starting to pinpoint these subtle differences, but I am still learning how to fix them.

I bailed on my strength coach Andrew last night. He had asked to move my Monday session to Tuesday and by Tuesday (yesterday), I just didn’t have it in me. I didn’t sleep well. My stress was through the roof. I overdid it Monday (trying to prove myself to no one but me). And to top it all off, my diet had been all processed foods. When I felt that hip turning inward, I knew my body needed me to stop.

So here we are, the final Wednesday. The third day of my life with my new Ninja DualBrew coffee pot. Unboxing video here.

The Teenager got her second fix, and she loved it. She was aghast to learn that a sweatshirt could cost $78 at full retail price, but I think this experience will teach her the difference between the workmanship of different brands. She asked me not to record her trying things on, but I wish she had because the fit and look of this fix was exponentially better than the first. Unboxing video here.

I have to leave for work in a moment, but let me say I am on my second cup of Green Mountain Dark Magic coffee, courtesy of one of the Teenager’s clients, and I must say it’s the only coffee to keep pace with my Supercoffee.

The Ninja DualBrew has been great so far. I like the brewing options, the heat and strength of the coffee, but I am making small errors in operating it. But I haven’t experienced any of the problems listed in the reviews. My four a.m. brain likes the K-cup option, and my weekend self loves the option to brew a pot. I have not tried iced coffee yet.

When Life gives you Lemons buy a new Coffee Pot

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As many of you know— I had to buy a new computer over the weekend and it impacted my stress levels and my financial health.

So to console myself, I participated in Target.com’s pre-Black Friday sales and ordered myself a new coffee pot: a Ninja DualBrew.

Here is the unboxing.

I have been making my coffee in my espresso machine for most of the last three years, because I don’t have a full size coffee pot. I’m the only coffee drinker in the house now and I rarely drink more than one cup. I like it really strong and really hot so the Krups espresso machine I bought 23 years ago is just fine.

The teenager programmed the new coffee machine to have my coffee ready before 5 a.m. We used the “rich” setting as remember— I like it strong. We also chose 26 ounces.

Well, Supercoffee brewed on rich had me vibrating after a cup and a half. I brought the rest to work. It’s noon and I’m still drinking it.

I need to rethink that tomorrow.

Baked Flavors: A Ben & Jerry’s Review and a CVS saving spree

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

It’s 8 p.m. on a Wednesday night. I just finished a rather strange Chinese take-out meal after a long work week and a hearty work-out with Andrew, my strength and fitness coach at Apex Training.

Hit another PR I believe, a 35 lb dumbbell RDL.

My performance at work has been stronger (by my calculations Sunday was about 104%, Monday 98% I think, 100% yesterday and 99% today). I finally replaced the company-issued box that Gayle doodled for me with a stadium backpack with my supplies divided by department. My box has gotten super messy and it was ripping.

Amidst all that, I still find myself dwelling on the fact that Friday, September 30, is my dad’s birthday.

It makes me so sad. It’s the first one without him here. He missed the teen’s high school graduation, her 18th birthday, her first car accident, buying her first car.

He missed the flood in my house, my dead car battery, and all the other things that happen day to day.

So now is the perfect time to review ice cream.

Last week I had $5 in Extra Bucks at CVS about to expire, and they were having an ice cream sale— so I got 3 pints of Ben & Jerry’s, a bottle of unsweetened flavored sparkling water and an 8 ounce bag of pistachios and almonds for $12.78. It was $30 before my deals.

I picked all “bakery”/cookie flavors.

Over time I made these conclusions:

  • Half Baked (chocolate and vanilla ice cream with gobs of chocolate chip cookie dough and brownies) was a disappointment. The chocolate ice cream overpowered the vanilla. There weren’t enough cookies and brownies and the ones we did find tasted dry.
  • Thé Tonight Dough (caramel and chocolate ice cream with chocolate cookie chip cookie dough, chocolate cookie swirls and peanut butter cookie dough) came recommended by Andrew. The cookie chunks were significantly better than the Half Baked, and the Teen and I both wished there was more caramel ice cream.
  • Netflix and Chill’d (peanut butter ice cream with salty pretzel bits, salted caramel and brownie chunks) might have been our favorite. The peanut butter ice cream complimented the pretzel and brownie accents perfectly.

And finally, in closing, walking home from the gym tonight with the pink & blue swirls of sunset before me, I noticed some changes in our neighborhood. On one hand, the neighbor boy who spray painted his name on their front walk is a senior in high school and his graffiti has faded.

And at another house, designs in sidewalk chalk suggest that the babies born to the kids who were the Teenager’s neighborhood playmates are old enough to stake their claim to playing outside and repopulating our block with youth.

I look forward to it.

Finally a visit to Mythic Beasts and Brews: Turns out they are passing out homemade chocolate chip cookies

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The Teenager is working on her college application and wanted to find a coffee shop to force her out of the house so she would have less distractions. Originally, she wanted to go to Three Birds in downtown Easton, one of our favorite spots, but by the time she got out of work, they would be closed.

I know of places on the other end of the Lehigh Valley open in the evening, but couldn’t think of anything close to home. So, I googled.

Monsieur Google suggested several local Starbucks.

Sigh.

Not that I don’t enjoy a flat white every once in a while, but we wanted something a little more unique and potentially eclectic.

A little more poking around the internet and I remembered Mythic Beasts and Brews, a ten minute walk from our house. Or, as the teenager says, “Mom, it’s closer to the house than the high school.”

The atmosphere is coffee shop meets role-players’ game den, which is exactly what it aims to be. There are four of five large tables for gamers and a few little spots for those of us who have retired our game master and PC gear.

Yes, the teenager’s father and I played White Wolf back in the day.

The Teenager ordered chai, which will make our blind friend Nancy very happy to hear that we have found yet another source of chai. I decided to take the 20-sided die challenge. Whatever you roll is your drink, $4, and it’s 50 cents to reroll.

I rolled a 12, which is a large Irish cream macchiato. That is a good selection for me.

We enjoyed our visit, and we especially enjoyed the free homemade chocolate chip cookies.

Karaoke adventures

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

Both the Teenager and my blind friend Nan are musically-inclined. My daughter turned 18 in June and Nan turned significantly older than that in July.

I promised to take them to karaoke. It took a couple months to find an environment suitable for an eighteen-year-old that was also scheduled early enough for Nan and I.

Thursday was the night. After all, under my current schedule, Thursday is my Saturday night.

And it turned out there were two options in the same town. I found about one rather late in a new restaurant but hosted by someone I know. The other was at a more familiar location, one my family has visited since the Teenager was a baby. Literally, car-seat-on-the-table.

I picked SoMa Downtown Grill, formerly sports pub Delahanty’s on the Square. It will always have a soft spot in my heart because I remember when the building was a wreck and the owners received press coverage from my newspaper for their efforts to rehab it.

My favorite items on the menu were discontinued during their rebrand to SoMa but that has forced me to find new favorites on my visits. I knew this would be a family-friendly location for The Teenager to make her karaoke debut and one familiar enough for me to navigate with Nancy.

I even put a little effort into my outfit and wore my Stitch Fix jewelry. And my new “ultra flare” jeans from Target that I cut off at the bottom because they were regular and not “short.”

Meanwhile, Nan was practicing Leann Rimes in her new suite in her new independent living situation.

And I had no intention of singing.

The only time I ever sang karaoke it was with my friend Ken, who hosted the event (and DJed my wedding). I waited years to try and ended up singing Crystal Gayle’s “Don’t it make my brown eyes blue.”

The Teenager and I busted Nan out from her place and headed to New Jersey, where we arrived early and settled in for some dinner for The Teen and I, and an Angry Orchard for Nan. I joined her with a Yuengling draft. We ordered a goat cheese crostini appetizer for the table, which was a delight.

Nan was the second singer of the evening, with Leann Rimes’ “Blue.”

It took a while for the Teenager to commit, but she and I did a duet of Barenaked Ladies’ “If I had a million dollars,” of course, as Murphy would have it, her microphone was off and she asked me to take the part I don’t normally do in our car duets. So she tried again and drug me up there for “1985” by Bowling for Soup.

Khloe

And now that’s stuck in my head.

We spent exactly what I had in cash in my wallet without even trying and Yuengling was on special and I didn’t even know it. We were home by 9:30.

And of course, my cat Fog came running to chastise me for being out later than usual and Khloe leapt onto my chest as soon as she got the opportunity.

My new obsession: Dax Shepard

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I believe I’ve mentioned (way too often) that 2022 has brought with it a lot of household-related stress. We are still trying to get the ceiling fixed with a contractor recommended by our insurance company. The project manager stopped by to try and match the material. They are literally giving me half a ceiling, just the portion destroyed by the flood.

I had my local franchise of Mr. Handyman replace some duct work under my downstairs bathroom. And The Teenager and I are trying to prioritize other household issues that come when you own a house and haven’t performed enough maintenance over 20 years: everything breaking at once.

So, as a attempt at escapism (between the house issues, my medical issues and my volunteer work and side hustle publishing company), I decided to view some of Dax Shepard’s work.

A friend had recommended his podcast, Armchair Expert, when I started listening to podcasts in the Stitch Fix Bizzy Hizzy warehouse. I immediately developed a mental picture of him that turned out to look nothing like him in real life. I imagined him as much shorter and less lean and blond.

And I wasn’t prepared for his big blue eyes.

Since I love Kristen Bell, and it saddened me to learn that she made one of her biggest splashes in Frozen as I am not a Disney fan (but I am a huge The Good Place fan), I figured it was about time I checked Dax out.

And I heard so many of Dax’s guests comment that he is such a talented comedic actor, so I wanted to see.

In my head, I still can’t reconcile how this super observant, intelligent man can portray such goofballs.

As a strong Gen Xer, I can remember sitting in my grandfather’s trailer watching ChiPs. I was hardly more than five or six, and I had a huge crush on John. My mother teased me relentlessly.

The contemporary retelling of this old television series beautifully crafted adult and sophomoric humor and tackled some larger issues in bite-sized moments. I loved it.

And now I’ve started Parenthood. I am ten episodes in. I love the family dynamics, even if the characters are very stereotypical in their basic concepts: the golden first-born son, the high-strung super competitive career woman daughter, the single mom daughter who has to move home in her mid-thirties, and the carefree jovial irresponsible son (played by Dax). But the plot lines and scripts are much richer and convey the major social and economic issues of the day.

I’m very much loving the show’s depiction of parents and teen daughters, especially since I have one of those. Dax’s character Crosby is growing with every episode, and that tickles me as well. The cinematography mimics a cross between a documentary and a sit com.

So that’s that.

Coffee dilemmas

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Probably a month or more ago, SuperCoffee just ran out of my dark roast Keurig pods, and they haven’t come back in stock and I haven’t seen any official notice that they’ve been discontinued.

My last shipment was in May.

So I have been trying every dark roast I can find. Even when I make them in my espresso machine, they taste weak and watery. I even tried added Nescafé instant coffee into the beans in the espresso machine that made it better. But still disappointing.

On a whim, I went onto Supercoffee’s web site today— and there was my coffee.

Why did they never resume my subscription?

I sent a little email and then ordered the ground coffee.

Hopefully my coffee will be better soon.

Margaritas and cat noses

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I might be pushing too hard.

I did (I think) 105% on Sunday at work, 105% yesterday and woke up stiff and with my right quad tight and spasms in my calf. I only did 93% today, but I feel better now. And the dip in numbers had more to do with some chaos in the warehouse versus my cerebral palsy issues.

Regardless, I must admit I was a little relieved yesterday when my fitness coach Andrew from Apex Training postponed my workout.

The teenager proposed going to Applebee’s for dinner, her treat, as she didn’t feel like cooking. She also demanded I order a cocktail as I think she wanted to make sure I drifted off to bed as early as possible. (8 p.m.)

The teenager loves Applebee’s— for a child raised in all sorts of Mom & Pop restaurants where we often knew the owners, she certainly loves her boring old franchise Applebee’s.

I realized that if you took any item with chicken tenders away from the menu, you’d lose more than half the meals available. And if you didn’t want bacon on your hamburger, you had three choices: the quesadilla burger (which we got), the plain old burger and the Beyond veggie burger (which was $14 and came with nothing but lettuce, tomato and pickle).

Boring.

The quesadilla burger was a mish-mash delight (I chose my margarita for the artificial Latin theme) but had to be eaten with a knife and fork.

When I arrived home, Opie and Fog (two of our personal cats) joined Khloe and Louise (foster cats) and Nala (Goffin’s cockatoo) and Yo-yo (parakeet) in my room for the night. Fog tries so hard to be Louise’s friend— and she is slowly (after more than a year) getting braver and more confident.

Louise (left) and Fog (bottom right)

Finally, for those that are wondering… I ruptured my tendon in my ring finger April 15 and had “mallet finger” and a cast for nine weeks. My specialist released me July 25 and expressed his disappointment that my finger was still a little off.

My finger after a ten hour shift August 15 — four full months after my accident.

I use my hands so much at work, so I still splint at night. I must say it feels like and looks like the finger is getting stronger and straighter every day.

Exploring Cerebral Palsy with Tylia Flores

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I had the great opportunity to have a FaceTime chat with the kind and personable Tylia Flores yesterday. In embracing the voice of the younger generations, I am learning about myself. Read more at Parisian Phoenix….

If any of you read my personal blog on my website, angelackerman.com, you may know of my quest over the last two years to learn more about cerebral …

Exploring Cerebral Palsy with Tylia Flores