C-o-f-f-e-e

In 5th grade chorus Mrs. Schoenlein made us sing Coffee Canon: (sung to the youtube melody below)

C-O-F-F-E-E!

Coffee is not for me.  

It's a drink some people wake up with.

That it makes them nervous is no myth.

Slaves to a coffee cup,

they can't give coffee up.  

I loved this song; it made me giggle 27 years ago, and I have carried the lyrics (not surprisingly) in my mental lexicon for a quarter of a century (holy shit, I'm old!).  I've taught the boys the song and we teasingly sing it to Mark when he's pining for his coffee.

Now, something you should know about me - if you don't already - is that I'm not a coffee drinker.  I'm one of the very few people that walk the face of our beautiful planet who does not consume the nectar of the coffee bean.  As a tea drinker I still crave my morning cup of Earl Grey with honey and milk as much as the next person craves their latte.  In the afternoons I usually enjoy green tea and depending on the weather an iced tea.  I tried to like coffee my senior year of high school, but I drank crap coffee and loaded it with sugar and milk - yuck.  In my first year of college my dear friend and roommate Caitlin worked at the coffee cart, therefore I got free mochas.  I enjoyed my chocolatey treat and loved the jolt it sent through my body, but wasn't keen on the nervousness I felt, or the loopy stomach it gave me.  Therefore, I gave it up in 1993 and haven't looked back.  

I've always respected everyone's coffee addiction, but at the same time I found myself prideful that I didn't carry the same dependence.  In fact, I've always been somewhat jealous of the coffee drinker.  There is something ritualistic and comforting about stopping for your daily cup of joe.  Stopping for tea is NOT the same, believe me, I've tried.  First of all, no one respects tea, unless you live in England and they have an entire hour designated to the classy ritual.  Secondly, you can't just grab your tea and go, you need to let it seep for at least 5 minutes before you can flavor it with cream and sugar.  Lastly, if you order green tea they put boiling water in your cup which scorches and destroys the delicate tea leaves, not to mention your tongue because cream and sugar, which acts as a cooling agent, doesn't mesh with green tea.  See what I mean, you don't care either, tea isn't respected.  Sigh.  

Anyway, I've been jealous.  Mark walks into his local coffee shop and it's like Cheers, they know his name and his poison without a word from him, which I'm sure is beneficial for Mark since he doesn't communicate well until he has his coffee (love you sweetie!).  

Six weeks ago my life changed.  Mark has been raving about Aussie coffee since we moved to Australia.  He's been ordering something called a "flat white," which apparently they don't make in the US.  One morning while out and about with the family we stopped for Mark's coffee.  I rolled my eyes like I usually do at the pit stop, but when the take-away cup was handed his way I asked for a sip.  Surprisingly, shockingly actually, I REALLY liked it.  It wasn't bitter like I remembered coffee to be, and it wasn't foamy, but warm, strong, and soothing.  I thought, hmm, maybe I should start drinking coffee?  Mark looked at me with a questioningly, sideways glance.  

Then on September 26th the boys and I took the ferry into the city to tour the Opera House.  On our way to meet Mark for lunch I stopped at a cafe and ordered a take-away, regular flat white.  I was nervous as I approached the counter.  What if I ordered wrong, or what if they asked me a question about my coffee choice and I didn't know the answer - like how many shots of espresso, or what kind of milk?  I felt like an underage kid trying to order a cocktail at a bar - they were going to see right through me!  Luckily they made my coffee and handed it over without incident.  I took my first swig and exhaled - damn that was good!  I was a born-again coffee drinker!      

   

Enjoying my first cup of coffee

Shortly after the picture on the left was taken we met Mark for lunch.  I had slurped down my coffee and I felt energized, like my eyes were popping a bit, and I noticed I was speaking more quickly than my brain was able to produce the words, and in general, I felt happy.  Again, Mark looked at me with a sideways glance.  But the bottom line was I felt awesome!  This was a rush!  I felt like Huey Lewis - I found a new drug!

It's just so pretty!

Since then I've been enjoying a flat white nearly everyday.  I don't feel the same jolt as I did the first few times, obviously, but I'm enjoying it tremendously.  I still wake-up to my morning cup of Earl Grey, but go for the coffee in the afternoon.  I also let Parker order for me now, since he knows, "Mommy likes regular flat whites, and Daddy likes skinny flat whites.

Australia wins in the coffee department, I'm told.  The jury will remain out on whether I will continue my love affair with coffee once returning to the US.  Will I be able to find a flat white anywhere but in Australia?!  We might just need to live here forever for the flat whites alone.    

How do you feel about champagne?

When backpacking around Europe I cherished the freedom of anonymity, and the clean slate that came with each new city and/or country.  You met people on a train, in a hostel, or at a coffeeshop called Hill Street Blues where you told your life story over a Heineken and J.  The freedom to divulge your true colors and life experiences was always at the surface liberating you from formalities and small talk.  I still claim some of the most wonderful and real people I've ever met were the ones I spent no more than 2 days with while backpacking.  Of course the setting of Cinque Terre, Amsterdam, or Prague helped master these beautiful experiences in all of us.  Nonetheless, starting from scratch and making friends so easily was refreshing.  Meeting and making friends as an adult, without a backpack, not so refreshing.  The formalities and small talk are a part of the awkward courting game.  

Fast forward 15 years and the Abramowitz's were fully immersed in the Marin County community.  I hadn't been faced with the challenge of making new friends in years, decades really.  In Marin going to the grocery store was turning into a social engagement.  A brief park outing turned into a playdate with five other moms.  I was surrounded by tremendous friends, and friends of friends.  Feeling lonely was not an emotion I had experienced in quite some time.  So when we decided to jump ship and head west into the future I knew making new friends would be something I needed to broach.  

When we landed in Australia nearly 10 months ago I was anonymous.  Not as anonymous and care free as my days in Europe, but there was a clean slate paving our way that was both scary and exciting.  I had never stepped foot in this country, let alone this hemisphere.  The anonymity was palpable.  I knew no one other than friends of friends I'd exchanged emails with, and thankfully I felt I had a few friendships ready to bloom, but I'd still never met these people.  At the grocery store I was lonely.  I missed Trader Joe's and all of the people I saw while shopping there!  In Coles Supermarket I wandered around with a confused look on my face gazing at all the different products.  I wish I had known someone because then I could have asked, "How many kilos in a pound?"  I could have remarked, "This stick of butter is massive!"  "Why does all the cheese say 'Tasty' on the front?"  To put your mind at ease I now know there are .45 kilos in a pound, and a US stick of butter is approximately 113 g which is about 2/3 an Australian stick of butter.  And all the cheese says 'Tasty' on the front because 'Tasty' means 'Cheddar Cheese'.  But it was confusing, and I was alone!

So here I was anonymous and alone!  I appreciated the new and quiet of this country after my busy and boisterous Marin life, but I also missed my Marin girls like CRAZY, and I was feeling alone.  It's in my Steph nature to need people, to need girlfriends, so...how was I going to meet people?  How do you make new friends?!  Do you walk up to random mums and say, "Hi, I'm Steph, I just moved here!"  All of the friends I've made in the last 15 years have been through a mom's group, or a friend of a friend, or through some organized, communal group.  Here I was in another country starting fresh and all I had to go on was that I had kids to hopefully segway the friendships.  My backpack had long been laid to rest, and I didn't have the liberating 2 day city/country stint giving me freedom and voice to approach randoms in a coffee shop.     

Not to worry!  Along came Renate.  I spotted her across the courtyard at Manly Village Public School and immediately knew we could be friends (it was friendship love at first sight), but how was I going to forge a friendship without any "moves?"  Like some sort of odd mum dating ritual I positioned myself near her at school pick-up one day.  Luckily she looked as lost as I was.  I made eye contact and displayed my puzzled, bemused look hoping we could commiserate on the chaos that is pick-up at Manly Village.  We briefly chatted about the seeming anarchy of Kindy kids at pick-up and that I had just moved here and knew nothing and no one.  I wanted to ask for her number, but I lost my courage as I found Parker in the mayhem.  I smiled and said, "Well I found him, hope to see you around."  Fortunately Renate was more bold and followed me out of the courtyard and said, "I'm somewhat new here too, do you want my phone number if you have any questions, or do you want to grab a coffee sometime?"  I wanted to hug her.  She took the plunge and chased me down and I got her digits!  We made our first date for the next week.   

It was kismet at the start.  We bonded immediately and joked about the process and weirdness of making friends as adults.  During the 'making friends discussion' Renate said the most tremendous, fantastic thing - I will take her comment to heart and use until the day I die - she said, "What I really need to ask any potential friend or acquaintance is, 'how do you feel about champagne?'"  In that one sentence is embodied everything I stand for in life, and it made me putty at her feet.  I knew we would be lifelong friends.  

Since that fateful day, as our little ones played on the beach and we discussed bubbles, we've passed many a wonderful night and afternoon together enjoying the bubbles and making fun of each other's accents.  With Renate's friendship my anonymity began to fade.  I started meeting her friends and then I became closer with our neighbors and so forth and so on.  Now I have a social calendar and I see the process of becoming immersed in a community as an inevitable.  One, or at-least the Abramowitz's, cannot live anywhere without seeping into the community.  Now to be clear, there is no way I'm going to be leading a non-profit down here, or even joining the P&C (Aussie's PTA), but I find myself getting involved and being able to call on more than one friend when having a rough day, or wanting to hit the beach with the kids.  I feel so fortunate to have met so many special people in such a short amount of time.  Maybe it's my new moves; and that is I ask, "How do you feel about champagne?"