I hate coffee. I love coffee.

Ow my head hurts because of coffee. Many many years ago I totally eliminated coffee from my diet because of a horrible caffeine addiction. I'd usually only have one cuppa day but if I missed it, or it got later than about 9 am and I hadn't had any, I'd get a raging headache that wouldn't go away until I (1) took lots of aspirin, (2) slept and (3) drank some coffee. So I went through several weeks of vicious headaches and declared myself a caffeine-free zone. And it worked, I didn't even miss it too much. The little caffeine I'd get from other sources, like chocolate, never affected me.

When I started running distances I discovered caffeine gels. That little bit of buzz helped my running by smoothing out my breathing and giving me a kick of energy. Since it was the only caffeine I'd have for the week I'd really get a jolt. That worked up until about a year ago. That's when I discovered how good I'd feel in the morning when I'd have a latte.

I find that lattes are the wonder drink. I wasn't getting enough calcium in my diet and a latte gives me almost half my daily needs. I used to eat yogurt for breakfast but that only kept me full for about a hour; I'm full all morning from a latte so that works well on my diet (yes, I'm still dieting even though I don't really talk about it here). The morning caffeine boost gives me energy for the day. So I started having a weekly latte, usually the morning of my weight watchers weigh-in.

That became a twice-weekly latte. Then 3 times weekly. It's been a Monday-Friday latte, plus weekend lattes, for the past few months and it's officially become a problem. Saturday it just didn't fit into my schedule to get a latte or a cup of coffee, so I didn't have one. By about 10:30 am my brain was getting tight, by noon I had a headache. I ignored it, but took a short nap. It wasn't gone when I got up and I had a headache the rest of the day.

So Sunday morning I got a latte and headache gone. Crap. The exact reason I quit in the first place has become reality again. I'm going to have to decide whether to totally quit again except for long run gels, try to ease my usage back down to just a day or two a week, or live with the headaches. Oh, what to do, what to do. Call me Scarlett, I'll worry about it tomorrow.

The weekend was good, except for that whole headache on Saturday thing. Sandy and I ran Saturday morning on the Lafayette-Moraga Trail. The heatwave we'd been having disappeared Friday night so the run was very pleasant, even a bit chilly. Funny how it went from upper 90's on Friday to about 50 when we went running in the early morning. We only ran 6 miles because I just wasn't in the mood for more. It was nice catching up, hearing about her vacation, planning our next running adventures.

Saturday afternoon I had my class at Article Pract. This was learning how to knit the Temescal Bag, a large felted tote. I finally decided to use some of my stash Cascade 220, in blues and greens. The colors aren't quite true in the picture; the bottom right yarn is greener than it looks, the center yarn is 220 Quatro and has a green strand in it. I ended up taking an armload of yarn outside to my deck to try to see the true colors and I loved how these looked together. Petra showed us how to knit with the magic loop method, instead of the more conventional double point needle method. It took us a while but we finally got the grasp and began our projects. Some of us began our projects a couple of times. Or even more. Every time I think I'm a true beginner I find people who know less about knitting than I do.

Time just sped along; I was shocked when I looked at my watch and realized we'd been there for 2 hours and the class was over! We have our homework; knit the remainder of the bottom and the sides of the bag before the next class when we learn how to do the straps. Our second class is in two weeks; I can't wait!

After class Petra and I went over to Mijori Sushi for dinner. I had been craving real sushi for a while, probably since I didn't have it before my last race like I normally do. The food and the company were good and the saki was enough to give me a buzz. Even with the damn caffeine headache!