Creative Writing - Week 1

Well, I have no idea if I did the assignment well, but I kind of like the little story I created (partly fiction and partly non-fiction - as if they'd get up before 10 AM.  Ha!).
The question was: You have one free hour to yourself.  What do you do?
I was supposed to use lots of concrete details and sensory details to describe the situation and the minimum number of words was 250.  I exceeded that by at least 100%.  Let's hope my teacher is understanding of being a blabber-mouth.

One, Stress-Free Cup of Coffee

I have finally dropped my husband off for work and returned home to my sleeping teenagers.  There’s no school today, so I decide to forgo the usual breakfast mayhem and let the kids sleep in.  What do they have to do today, anyway?  We were just planning to clean and put away Christmas.   That can wait for an hour.  I could use an hour of quiet and relaxation.  Usually, by the time the kids leave for work and school, my ears are ringing from the music in the bathroom and the “Where’s my shirt?” questions.  I live for the moments of peace and quiet.

I look over at the sink, piled with dishes and sigh.  Nope.  I’m not going to do those, either.  That’s Mikey’s job.  “I wouldn’t want the poor bugger to be bored,” I think with a wry chuckle, “He’ll be so thrilled to have something to do.”

I walk over to the coffee maker to start the coffee.   I don’t usually drink coffee at home so it takes me a while to gather all the stuff together.  The coffee we have is whole bean and has to be ground.  I wonder where that grinder is.

I begin to dig through the cabinets to find the coffee grinder.  These cabinets are a mess.   They’ve got baking pans in with pots and pans, and what is the cat’s bowl doing here?  I start pulling things out of the cabinet while I stand on my head and feel all the blood rush to my brain.  Finally, I locate the grinder and put all the pots and pans and cake pans and pie plates back into the cabinet.  Of course, the grinder had gotten pushed to the very back of the cabinet.  Nothing is ever easy.

I plug in the grinder, dump the coffee beans into it and push the button.  The grinder does its job and I pull the lid off to put the grounds into the filter.  The sharp, pungent smell of the fresh ground coffee breaks through the musty smell of the dirty dishes in the sink.  It pierces the fog of my morning thought.  Mmmm…  This is going to be so good.

I draw the water, pour it into the reservoir and hit the "on" button.  The coffee pot begins to make its chugging and popping sound indicating that it’s working, thank God!  I use it so infrequently that it's always a gamble.
I sit down at the computer and bring up my email and read “The Writer’s Almanac” and check to see if any of my friends have written to me this morning.  Nope, it’s all spam: 

“Buy a new bra from Lane Bryant!”  

“Save 60% with Groupon!” and 

“Come see Mr. Jones at The Book Loft, where he’s signing his new book!” 

The bold letters scream at me from the little box on my iGoogle page.  I delete all of them and hear the coffee pot sputtering and spitting in its efforts to expel the rest of the water I put in, turning those last few drops into life-restoring, brown, caffeinated water, otherwise known as coffee.  I have a friend who once remarked that she believed that Juan Valdez (you know, the Columbian Coffee guy) should be canonized because he brings the dead to back to life every morning, right in her kitchen.  The coffee smells divine.  It smells like home.

I close my laptop and walk over to the counter to pour my coffee, only to realize that there are no cups clean.  Really?  Yes.  I turn on the hot water and wait for it to get warm for what seems like an eternity.  After I wash a nice big mug and pour a nice cup of hot coffee, I add a generous helping of fancy coffee creamer and sugar to it.  I take a sip and let it warm my tongue and sting the back of my throat.  Man, that’s good coffee.  I breathe in the smell of the Irish Crème laced perfection in my mug and sigh contentedly.

Turning to the living room, I look for a spot to sit among the piled up laundry and school books.  I have to set my mug down and move some laundry back to a basket so I can sit on the couch.  I get caught up in the task and before I know it, I have cleared the whole couch and separated Michael's laundry from Celia's and ours.  I have to remember to have the kids take this all upstairs and put it away.  

Finally, I have a spot to sit with a book to visit with some long-lost literary “friends” and relax for the last 15 minutes of my hour alone.  I sit back and grab another sip of my coffee, which is now the perfect drinking temperature and relax back into the couch with a smile.  Thank God for this hour long break.