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Start the kettle, go do 5 minutes of seated yoga since I also have joint issues! Then make a full chemex of light roast Ethiopian coffee, and JUST focus on that - the blooming of the grounds, the gorgeous smell, the way the light hits the glass of the chemex as it fills with coffee. Then make a glass of milk with straight up cocoa powder, and an apple and peanut butter. And then sit in my striped wingback chair, with a youtube fireplace going, and check my emails and washington post feed while eating (or, if I am particularly not interested in news or the inbox is tidy (YAHOO!), read a new yorker issue). There's something magical about waking early. I was always a night owl until last year, when I totally flipped. Asleep by 9:30pm without fail.

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Thanks Jessie. Sometimes I wish I was a night owl. Maybe I've seen too many films that make it look cool. But you are right: the early morning hours are special.

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Start mine with 2 large glasses of ice-cold cafe au lait, nenjuu-mukyuu. I buy cases of both "low-sugar" and "no-sugar" Cainz-brand ice coffee at Cainz Home center -- much cheaper but more delicious than what they sell at standard supermarkets & conv. stores. I fill a tall drinking glass 1/3 with one, 1/3 with the other, and 1/3 milk, then top it off with a 1- or 2-second pour of nama cream. Frontal lobe sputters back to life after 1st glass, then shifts to overdrive about halfway thru 2nd. Not for coffee purists, I admit, but plenty of quick energy all the same, with a cool refreshing splash into one's day to boot.

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Are you drinking that stuff even in winter?

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Yes. Guess it's like gasoline: even on the coldest day of the year, works perfectly well to get your car going.

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