Mr. Coffee is a bad, bad man.

I know it's shocking, but I've purchased a few coffee makers at thrift stores, and until last time, I've had nothing but positive experiences. Last time, I got my thrifty pot home and it didn't work.

I'd been burned.

So I reluctantly decided to go to the dark side.

Retail. Because my daily coffee experience is just that important to me.

I bought the cheapest Mr. Coffee model that was available, which set me back $30. This was uncharacteristic, because most of my previous coffee makers had served me well for an initial outlay of $10 or less.

But I deserved it, and Mr. Coffee promised so much.

It wasn't long before Mr. Coffee and I began having problems. There were mornings when I'd get up after having pre-set Mr. Coffee's fancy alarm and I'd find steaming pools of hot coffee beverage all over the kitchen counter.

There were other times when I'd trust Mr. Coffee's attractive no-drip feature which allowed me to pour a cup whenever I wanted in the brewing process, because Mr. Coffee cared so much about my needs.

One too many times, I'd pull the pot out of its warm resting place and would fall victim to a continuing stream of coffee, which pooled and sizzled on the burner surface.

Yesterday morning was the last straw. I'd set things up the night before. The alarm was set, the coffee had been ground, the water had been added. And yet, when I woke up and robotically drifted, bleary-eyed, into the kitchen, I got nothing.

Mr. Coffee wasn't there for me. Again.

Until I turned Mr. Coffee off and on again, and jiggled the handle. Then Mr. Coffee decided to produce.

I'm forgiving, but I have my limits.

So yesterday afternoon, I headed over to Goodwill, looking for something better than what Mr. Coffee was giving me.

Sometimes we get used to what we have, and simply accommodate for obvious weaknesses. But everyone has a tipping point. And once it's been reached, there's no turning back.

Invariably, the quiet discomfort of compromise compels a person to look around, and it's usually stunning when bigger, better, more attractive options can be found without hardly even trying.

Such was the case yesterday afternoon, when I found this super-cool Hamilton Beach 12-cup BrewStation at Goodwill. You'll notice that it doesn't have a carafe, which is probably why it was 6.99. The folks who priced it probably thought it was missing something.

But it's not! This efficient and attractive model provides my steaming morning beverage in a dispenser-like fashion. I simply press my cup next to the recessed area, and it's swiftly and efficiently filled with hot, delicious coffee.

I did a bit of research, and my new coffee friend retails for $60. I bought it for the price of a venti Starbucks and a scone.

My needs are met.

So Mr. Coffee and I are parting ways. Next stop for Mr. Coffee: Goodwill. I'll let that unsavory piece of my history become someone else's problem.

Because I've decided to turn my attention to relaxing every morning on Hamilton Beach.

Time is on my side. Getting back to bloggy basics.

I haven't written for a while, and I'd convinced myself it was because I didn't have any time.

Then I realized that was a bunch of crap.

I'd written every day in June. The Cents and Sensibility project showed me the value of money, and time. Or so I thought.

I've almost finished my fiction project (which began July 5, if you want to start from its beginning), and I'm sincerely enjoying the characters I've created.

But then I stopped.

Partially, I stopped because life has provided so many shiny distractions.

I also stopped because I was overwhelmed.

I had the fiction, and it's been fun. I've also been collecting ideas that are true to the nature of this site, and they've been written hastily on my chalkboard, entered into the Notes section of my iPhone, scrawled on random bits of paper.

Like a hoarder who's faced with a room filled with clutter, I did what most people would do.

I moved into another room, filled with less obstacles.

So like mess to a hoarder, I'd convinced myself I had no time to put things away.

But then I remembered that I like doing this. A lot.

So here's the deal. I'm continuing the fiction, but not in this context. If you want an update, email me (mnb504@aol.com).

I'll be going back to the initial intention of this space, and I have lots of material.

It was exciting today, like opening a present, just thinking about all the topics I've put on the I'll-Do-That-When-I-Have-More-Time shelf.

Because lately I realized that I'm the only one who creates this idea that I don't have any time. Discretionary time, like discretionary income, is by its very discretionary nature my choice. I can carve my free time into any succulent dish I wish to consume.

So get ready for some content, because I have some stuff to say. The scraps of paper, the electronic notes-to-self, the ideas scrawled randomly for future exploration have been put in one place.

I'm getting back to basics.

Because, like my otter pop wall that was so novel and distracting and colorful earlier this summer, I've gained some clarity lately.

Like returning home after a long trip to find that everything's as you left it, it's nice to be back.

Match game at the Lucky Strike.

It's not like I haven't been thinking about these ladies lately.


I've actually done a bit of thinking about why I haven't done an update for over a week.


I think it stems from some kind of interpersonal rebellion. I don't really have to do this; it's a complete elective. I can do whatever I want with the blog. That's what I love about it.


But then I remember how nice it felt; the undistracted sense of space I created during the Free Time and Cents and Sensibility projects, and the residual dusting of calm that followed each. 


Like writing every day, I've missed that easy, disciplined sense of calm I'd created.


I don't have long until summer is officially over. And there was a time, not very long ago, that I wrote every single day. These gals are frightfully close to the coast, which is their destination, although I have no idea what will happen when they get there.


Maybe the not knowing is what's keeping me away from creating a conclusion.

Maisie dug through her ample D Cups until she found the collection of bills. Stella was shocked and a bit overwhelmed, not only by having been cornered into a bowling alley bathroom by ex-Carrie Wilder's malevolent ex-husband, but for the sheer volume of money Maisie was producing from her bosom.

"Maisie," Stella said, with a somewhat judgmental, skeptical tone. "That's one hell of a lot more money than we found in that envelope."

Maisie had reached her limit of being treated like she was a dim-witted novelty. She was done being tolerated. She wanted some respect, because she had a plan.

She peeled ten damp $100 bills from her stash of cash.

"Give this to Bob," Maisie instructed. "Tell him we're paying him for helping us fix the tire. You can tell him the money's in honor of Carrie's memory, too. You might throw something into the conversation about how we know what he did in Reno, and we promise not to tell a soul. Wink at the same time, maybe. I've seen my share of Bob and his kind in my lifetime."

She looked into the bathroom mirror, fluffed her hair and dabbed a bit of road weariness from her eyes. "I think that should do the trick."

Money can't buy happiness. Maisie knew that. But she'd lived long enough to know that money can buy freedom.

Stella was speechless as Maisie sauntered from the sink and its unforgiving mirror to the door of the women's room of the Lucky Strike.

"He'll believe you," she said, relying more on intuition than pure knowledge. "I'll meet you at the buffet."

Spokane city limits: Spared at the Lucky Strike.

I wrote this update on the ladies kind of quickly, and haven't gone over it with my editor hat on, so enjoy some stream of consciousness storytelling.


They're so close to the coast, I can almost smell the sea...

"Great story, Maisie," Stella said as she buckled her seat belt. "You were Carrie Wilder's babysitter."

"How in the hell was I supposed to know Bob was married to Carrie, God rest her soul?" Maisie had thought her explanation was flawless. She'd never been good at math, but she knew right away that the odds that their random good Samaritan, such as he was, had a connection to the randomly chosen Carrie Wilder were astronomical.

As astronomical as the odds that Maisie would have a wad of bills nesting between her breasts, which had been acquired quite honestly by playing a game of chance.

Even more uncharacteristic was the fact that Maisie hadn't told Stella a word about how she'd come into the seed money that had been financing their past few days of funeral-hopping.

It was time to come clean.

So as the Dart followed Bob's Impala down I-90 toward Spokane, Maisie spilled the beans.

She told Stella all about her winning streak in Bozeman. She dug into her cleavage and retrieved the bills as evidence, waving her soggy stash like a fan.

For a moment, Maisie thought that shedding light on her secret would act as a form of absolution. But Stella would have none of it.

"He's onto us, Maisie," Stella's knuckles whitened under her paper-thin skin as she gripped the wheel at 10 and 2. She was driving close behind Bob, so she didn't notice there were many more bills than they'd happened across back in Burlington.

So much for full disclosure, Maisie thought. She tucked the wad of bills back into their hiding place.

"We have to go to Carrie's funeral now, or our cover's completely blown." Stella seemed to be thinking out loud. "He knows what we drive, he probably has our license plate number, we have to spend time in Spokane to get this damned tired fixed, and I'm sure he'd track us down."

"Stella," Maisie said in an uncharacteristically calm, measured, rational tone. "It's not like we're bank robbers. It's not like we're malicious. I think what we're doing is very respectful. And you have to admit - there's nothing like funeral food."

Stella could tell that Bob was watching the Dart in his rear view mirror.

Against her better judgment, Stella drove through Spokane behind the Impala, until Bob drove into the parking lot of the Lucky Strike Bowling Alley and Lounge. The letters that spelled out the event of the evening, Carrie Wilder's last big party, were somewhat askew, and some of the words were misspelled.

"It's a meat and potatoes crowd, I'm thinking." Maisie grumbled in chorus with her stomach.

"No tofu on the premises," Stella said. "But plenty of bikers. Welcome to Harleytown."

Bob unraveled himself from the Impala and wandered with intention straight to the Dart.

"Welcome to the dark side, ladies," he said, blowing smoke from lips that were curled into a grin that was raveled with both sincerity and an odd mania.

"Well, who could have predicted this from Carrie!" Maisie said while generating an obviously false sense of familiarity. "I always knew she'd be popular."

"Cut the act, grandma," Bob said. "You ain't foolin' nobody. Not even me."

"Oh, Bob," Stella had to think faster than Maisie, faster than the Dart would need to fly as soon as there was an obvious exit strategy.

"Let us have a moment with Carrie, and then we'll go, Bob." Stella remembered the wad of cash tucked nicely between Maisie's ample bosom. "We do have a contribution to give, if you know what I mean."

Bob wasn't born yesterday. The ladies owed him a little something for fixing their tire, he thought, and part of him wanted to think they were on the up and up.

It was a very small part.

"Well why didn't you say so?" Bob was suddenly more affable, less defensive.

He must have been a dream to live with, Maisie thought.

"God rest your soul, Carrie Wilder." She wasn't sure if she said it or thought it.

"May I welcome you both to the Lucky Strike - Carrie's home away from home," Bob said with a flourish.

They stridently walked into the Lucky Strike, not anticipating its darkness or the resonant sound of pins falling.

They headed straight for the ladies room.

"Dig deep, Maisie," Stella said before either of them could reach a stall. "Hand Bob a few of the bills you have tucked in your bra and we'll be good to go."

So much for pursuing the simple pastime of sampling the funeral cuisine of the northwest.

As Maisie searched through her simple but complicated makeshift wallet, she realized that tonight, they'd have to pay for dinner.

The wad of cash could prove to be what spared them.

But Bob was waiting right outside the door, so all bets were off until they found their way out of the Lucky Strike.

The Art of War. Friends and enemies make interesting bedfellows on the road to Spokane.

It seems it's becoming increasingly difficult to move these ladies along. I keep finding interesting characters that require so much more time than I'm currently allowing this summer fiction project.


Because, despite this freaking HOT Labor Day, fall is right around the corner.


I can hardly wait.


I've mentioned before that I'd like to wrap up this summer fiction project. Because I'd like to get back to writing about topical stuff.


But I love what I've started here, and I can keep it going with an audience of one. And like the season, I'll move on.


This project has come to represent my summer. And this summer has been like a good friend who visits and goes away before you want them to. It's been like an abrupt end to a new romance. It's seemed like a reluctant goodbye.


Like anything that has no discernible end point, this summer fiction is hard to shake.


Who says it has to?


We're so close to the coast. This Feast may be digested by the time we have our first frost.

"How's about you ladies follow me," Bob said as he sauntered to the Impala. "I know exactly where we're going."

"We wanted to get freshened up, so how's about we meet you there, Bob?" Stella was feeling a bit ambivalent about the Carrie Wilder memorial.

"Ain't no skin off my nose."

Bob was curling himself into the Impala when he paused, then squinted at the women.

"So how's it that you know Carrie? I was married to her for a whole long time, and I never heard her mention no Stella or Maisie."

Timing is important. And there was a pause, long enough to be noticed, between Bob's question and Maisie's answer.

"We're on our way to the coast. We bought a Spokane Review to pass the time in the car, and I noticed Carrie's name," Maisie said it all a bit too quickly. "Carrie's passing came as quite a shock. I recognized the name right away."

Maisie thought Bob looked to be close in age to her children, who lived on the coast. She quickly came up with a story.

First, she manufactured a tear. "I was Carrie's babysitter way back in the day. She was such a precious child."

Bob snickered as he lit a Marlboro. "You must not have known Carrie."

This was disconcerting, because both Maisie and Stella caught wind that Bob was a bit more intuitive than they may have first thought.

Sometimes the best response is no response.

And other times, nothing is the last thing you want to say.

Bob noticed the missed beat, and he could sense that something wasn't quite right. He might be dumb, he thought as he revved the engine, but he wasn't stupid.

And he knew Carrie.

She lived up to her name, straight out of the gate.

Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer. Bob understood the Art of War.

"Follow me," Bob said.

It seemed almost like an order.

Neither Stella nor Maisie felt they had a choice.

Stranded near Spokane: Something wilder this way comes.

Today I'm integrating a bit of an update with a bit of fiction, so I'm all caught up on both for a bit.

The garden has reached a peak in productivity, and I have more supply than demand, at least when it comes to zucchini.


I hand-grated a crap-ton of the z-weed, and it just keeps coming.


I'm not disparaging zucchini. It's a multi-function veg. And it can be frozen, so we'll be feeding from the zuke trough for a while. 


And when it comes to my wall of color, let's remember what the Otter Pop wall looked like when the summer began.

That color defined our summer.


The Feasts, the heat, the random socializing, the constant activity, the silence, the college prep, the reality, the fiction, the letting in, the letting go, all added a complex, interesting web of shades to summer. 


But the season is conspicuously softening.


The wall of pops has taken a turn.

My wall has faded, not unlike this summer. But it's all good.


I was anticipating wrapping up my summer fiction right about now, but life's distractions have gotten in the way of writing as much as I'd like. 


That's just an excuse, really. We all volitionally prioritize the way our world spins, and I'm no exception.


So I'll try to wrap this fiction up soon. Every entry has so much more I could add. I love the ladies, I relish the time I get to write about their zany septuagenarian antics, but I do miss writing about other stuff. 


So once Stella and Maisie find their way to the coast, I'll get topical again. No personal projects, no social experiments, no fiction for a bit.

But until then....

Bob turned on his best How Can I Help You face as he ambled out of the Impala toward Stella and Maisie and said, "seems you two lovely ladies are in a bit of a pickle!"

Stella had begun to unload the very full trunk, in search of the spare tire. Maisie chatted it up with Bob, and Stella may have looked busy, but she was listening.

Something smells like snake oil, Stella thought.

"Can I get a little help here?" Bob may have had mobility when it came to his Impala, but he was in low gear when it came to actually doing anything, Stella thought.

Maisie began unloading the trunk with Stella, and eventually they found the tiny spare, as well as a device that lifted the car enough to change the tire. They couldn't find the tool they needed to take the tire off the Dart. Neither knew what this thing they needed but didn't have was actually called, but of course, Bob knew right away. "Let me see if I can round one of those thingamajigs up for you lovely ladies," Bob said as he sauntered to the Impala.

He returned with exactly what they needed. Uncharacteristically, both women thought, he got straight to work, and back to talking. Stella and Maisie were nothing if not good mannered, so each would occasionally offer up a Really!, a Your Kidding! or a Mercy, that sounds awful!.

Maisie and Stella had told Bob that they were going to Spokane to pay respects to the lovely but deceased Carrie Wilder, and they had to get to town in time to clean up and settle down for an evening of contemplative remembrance. They had to say something. Why lie?

But the ladies didn't do much of the talking.

By the time Bob had changed the tire, he wasn't the only one who felt in need of a shower.

Regardless of his missteps, despite his troubled times, Maisie thought, Bob had a good heart. He'd done such a thorough job on the tire, and his stories added a dash of naughty, underworld spice to the afternoon.

"So Bob," Stella asked, "How far away is Spokane?"

"Well, well, well, Stella," Bob said in a measured tone. "We're just outside Liberty Lake. You can practically taste Spokane from here."

When Bob said taste, Maisie remembered Carrie Wilder. They were so close, and she was getting hungry. And curious.

But it was apparent that, not unlike many of his stories, Bob wasn't finished.

"I know you got yourselves a shindig you're headed for in Spokane. Remember when you told me about Carrie Wilder? You going to her funeral?

I'm heading for Spokane, too," Bob said in a measured tone.

"Carrie was my ex. And I'm ready for a party."

Dead stop. So close to Spokane.

Let's move this story along, and stop it at the same time.


Everyone needs perspective from time to time.


Such is the case with our intrepid travelers. One step forward, two steps back.


But I don't want to get ahead of myself...

After a good night's sleep and some perspective, Maisie and Stella's sites were set on Spokane.

One step closer to the coast.

They were so close. One city closer to their destination.

Palpable ghosts flew behind the Dart as they left Missoula, fresh from the memory of Bozeman.

They were motivated.

But like anything unsavory, like a bill that's overdue or questionable diagnosis that requires further testing, they didn't anticipate the blowout.

It was lucky, really, that Stella was a cautious driver. She felt the thwap-thwap-thwap sound of the tire before she and Maisie heard it.

They were so close to Spokane when the tire blew; so close to unlocking the mystery of Carrie Wilder, so intent on leaving the past where it belonged.

Way back there in Bozeman.

"What in the living hell is that sound?"

Maisie said it as Stella felt it.

"I think we have a problem." Stella didn't show her worry.

They came to a slow crawl, and they both knew, without saying a thing,  they'd be sidelined for a while.

Their lack of movement was unsettling, but necessary.

Maisie did what she did best. She feigned a certain desperation by the side of the road, as Stella worked to unhook the flattened tire from its very firm resting place.

That's when Bob drove by.

Bob was a drifter. Some might say he was unsavory.

But Bob didn't drift past the Dart.

Stopping was reflexive, really. He understood what he had to give. Bob was no savior, but he knew when his services were needed. He had a car, and these old ladies were obviously struggling.

He knew what it was like, to struggle.

Bob's was a much more humble ride than the Dart. His Impala was taped together, literally, with the duct variety, and a prayer.

But at this point, Bob seemed to be in a better place than the two women he saw by the side of the road.

Admittedly, he was an opportunist.

But there was something genuine, something sincere that compelled him to stop. These two old women seemed to need help.

And Bob was in a position to do just that.