Two mornings in one day

Today, I've had two mornings in one day. One in pitch darkness and one way past my regular wake-up time.

Last night, my husband came to visit us and because I was under the mistaken impression that there was no coffee in the apartment (I remembered that before England-ing more than a week ago, Dr. S had mentioned that she was taking the Puerto Rican café I gave her as a present), my husband and I decided to get up at 6 a.m. so we would have time to go to The Village in search of his coffee and some breakfast.

I walked the dogs in pitch darkness and by 6:30 my husband and I were on our way to The Village guided by my again-mistaken impression that the coffee shop there opens before dawn, like most coffee shops do in the city. That the village coffeehouse is not Starbucks was evident since it was nearly 6:45 but the place was totally dark and there were not only no signs of human habitation but no signs either of intention-to-open-soon.

We realized that having no coffeehouse that opens before 7:30 is one of the downsides of being out of the city. Thus, my poor husband departed without having his morning coffee, which is as necessary for him as fuel is to his motorcycle.

"It's alright," he said, trying to assuage my dismay. "I'll stop at a McDonald's on the way to work and get coffee."

Poor man, I thought, having to have fast-food coffee because of my rookie-village-inhabitant mistakes. I felt even worse when I came back to the apartment not only to find that Rusty had been barking God-knows-for-how-long to register his protest that we both left him behind, but also that Dr. S did have a tin of very nice-smelling coffee in the tea cupboard. Oh, well.

What could I do with a day that started that way other than get back in bed and hope that a second waking would make the day less silly-mistake-prone?

I did just that and it was 10 a.m. by the time I got up from bed, much more rested and ready to give the dogs their second walk. But now it was plain daylight and a bit more warm than what the low 40s had offered several hours before.

So far, I've made no other stupid mistakes (or any mistake that I know of) and I've had many productive hours of working on class planning and dissertating. I have to say that I like the days, like today, when I get to have two mornings in one day.