About Coffee and Coffee Mugs - Part 1

Part of my coffee mug collection

Last weekend my daughter and her husband decided to reorganize their kitchen cupboards to make room for new kitchen items. So my daughter decided to part with some of her coffee mug collection. Now I'm rather partial to both coffee and coffee mugs, so I sat down on the floor and went through the plastic bin holding all those coffee mugs looking for a new home. I picked out 13 mugs to take home with me. Five black and silver Planet Hollywood mugs, one each from Key West, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Atlanta and Ft. Lauderdale. We were vacationing together when she bought the ones from the first three locations, so those mugs have special memories attached. The other two were from cities I've been to, but I wasn't with her when she bought them.

Anyway, just holding one of those mugs brings back magical stories of other times and other places. So I had to rescue those mugs from going to the Goodwill or some such place. I selected a Royal Caribbean mug with dolphins on it, from one of their Caribbean Cruises. I've never gone on a big-ship cruise, but I've always thought it sounds romantic and exotic, so I had to take that mug too. Plus, I love dolphins. One mug is decorated with elephants, there's even a tiny one inside the rim, and is from Busch Gardens in Tampa Bay. I have fun memories of Busch Gardens, so I needed that coffee mug too. And I happen to love elephants.

One mug is festooned with voodoo dolls and says "Voodoo New Orleans." Well, voodoo happens. It's called "life" and it happens all around us and not always the way we want things to go. New Orleans is one of my favorite places, so this mug brings back memories of the French Quarter and Mardi Gras, where my husband and I fell in love many many years ago during Mardi Gras.

Another mug,  from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, says "I Need My Space." That is a definite truth. My daughter and I each bought one of those mugs on one of our many vacations. I still have my own mug from that trip, so I'll just add hers to my collection. Another mug is festooned with brightly colored Las Vegas casinos trimmed in gold from the time my daughter and her husband, then newlyweds, visited us in Las Vegas. Funny thing, we lived in Vegas for years, but I never bought a coffee mug from there. Go figure.

Other mugs are from places I've never been, but the mugs are too cool not to add to my collection. A deep-navy-blue mug with a fish logo from "Mr. Carlos' n Charlie's" in Cozumel. I've never been to Cozumel, but it's on my "I want to go there" list. A black mug with yellow cat's eyes from the time my daughter and her husband saw the Broadway production of "Cats" in NYC.  I've been to NYC, but I've yet to see "Cats."

The 13th mug has a picture of a wild eyed cat and says "So much stress, so little time."  That used to be my daughter's every-day-mug. Maybe by giving away the mug she's giving away some of the stress?  Not likely though, because she works full-time as a CPA and has my three little grandchildren to raise and her marriage to maintain. So stress will always be a part of her life. Welcome to the world of being a daughter and a wife and a mother and, hopefully someday, a grandmother. Yep, stress is a way of life. It slows us down sometimes, but usually motivates us to do other things to alleviate that stress. Anyway, that's another "story" altogether.

So I came home that day with 13 new coffee mugs and my husband groaned. Yeah, he always groans, because he doesn't understand lots of the things I do. His response, "You already have more mugs than you can use." He's wrong about that. When you collect things, there's never enough. He has things he collects too, but not coffee mugs. I quickly rearranged my cupboards to find room for the new additions.

I have a favorite coffee mug that I use most mornings. It's from "The Zoo" just down the road from us in Gulf Breeze. It's a tiny zoo which is always financially struggling to survive. I have mixed feelings about zoos. The animals are confined and would most likely be happier in the wild. On the other hand, most of those animals would probably have been killed and skinned or eaten in the wild long before this, so for many zoo animals it's a choice between life and death.

Sorry, but I'm getting a little heavy here, so bear with me for a second. This zoo is important for a small community like ours. If it wasn't here, many of our kids might grow up never knowing what a real lion or giraffe or hippo looks like. They would only be pictures in books or a film clip on "Animal Planet." Because of the zoo, one of my grandson's earliest words was "giraffe" and he would tell everyone that a giraffe has a "loooooong neck." He also tells how a giraffe has a long sticky tongue when it eats out of your hand. So as I hold that coffee mug each morning I think of my grandson and our latest trip to the zoo.

I'm digressing here, so guess I'd better get back to the subject in hand, coffee and coffee mugs. I thought this would be a simple little post, but I realize now that this, like the giraffe's neck, is a loooooong one. (Read more in Part 2.)