we bought a new coffeemaker today. this makes #4 in the past 12 months. let's recap: #1 we got a free gevalia with a trial membership and quickly decided we the coffee was overpriced and didn't taste good anyway. meanwhile the coffeemaker broke, so we had the company replace it free of charge. #2 while waiting for the replacement to arrive (10 days!? a true coffeelover could never wait so long...) stig went out and bought a black and decker model. B&D? what was he thinking? #3 when the replacement finally arrived we put it on standby in the basement. the B&D had recurring episodes of malfunction, during which gevalia #2 would act as stand-in until B&D decided to start working again. which brings us to coffeemaker #4... stig spent his first waking hour this morning wrestling with both coffeemakers, neither of which would produce any coffee. not good at 5:30 a.m. finally, out of desperation, he sorted through the small appliance cabinet and dusted off the little cappucino machine. it would have to do, for now. so adella and i went shopping for a new coffeemaker tonight while stig was at his class. our final decision was a cute black Mr. Coffee. i was very tempted to buy the fancy Cuisinart $80 model, which would have gone along perfectly with my new plan for buying new things: only buy nice good quality things; stop buying crap. unfortunately the $80 didn't go along with my plan for buying groceries and other important things. so we went with the trusty Mr. Coffee. it seemes like if anyone should make a coffeemaker that works, it would be the one with the word "coffee" in the name. we shall see.... i rewarded adella for her patience during the shopping trip with a visit to the thomas train table at the bookstore. she played a cute little game of peek-a-boo with the train engines as they went through the covered bridge. each engine and car has it's own name, but she calls all of them 'thomas'. there is blue thomas, orange thomas, green thomas, black thomas, and so on... right now the favorite is 'green thomas'. it had been a long and caffeine-free day. almost time to go to bed so i can wake up to test the new coffeemaker...