The descending levels of hot coffees

Yesterday I wrote about very hot coffee. What happened was I was having a fire in the backyard with my wife and I put some cold press on the stove in the house to warm up, but was talking so excitedly about Disney World that I forgot about it and the coffee got very, very hot. Over the several dozen hours it took this scalding coffee to cool down I watched it pass through many stages of heat levels. And I thought "I would like to describe these descending levels of heat on my blog." So I sat down to do so, but a very different, though not totally unrelated, blog post came out instead.

This sort of thing happens to me all the time. In fact, it is very much in danger of happening to me right now unless I wrestle this whole blog post back to what it's supposed to be. But, before I do, imagine if you made dinner and sat down to eat it and it turned out to be something else! Like, you sear some salmon and serve it with papaya salsa, wild rice, and delicately sauteed snap peas, but as you start eating it you realize it has become Penne with wild mushrooms and a Caesar Salad. This is me and blogging at least three days a week. This is why I try not to get too attached to my original concept. I try to enjoy rolling with it. "Oh, penne, then!" I say. "How delightfully lemony!" But sometimes I keep in mind my original plan and try again the next day. That's what I'm doing now, except a really huge unplanned appetizer (this whole discussion) somehow worked its way into everything, and now I'm a lot less hungry.

Nevertheless here is my descending levels of heat for hot coffee beverages:

10. So dangerously hot it is not safe to be in the same room with it.

9. So terribly hot that you know you can do nothing about drinking it, but you can now gaze longingly at it.

8. Totally undrinkably hot, but you can start to pretend it isn't too hot, and you can blow hopelessly on it and marvel at the heat you can feel just by being in close proximity.

7. Still too hot to drink, but you can't take the waiting anymore and so drink a badly calculated sip and burn your tongue horribly on it and suffer for two days.

6. Too hot to drink, but only causing minor burns if you carefully slurp the drink in small airy bits into your mouth.

5. Really hot but not burning and makes you feel immensely satisfied that you have the power to drink such a hot liquid.

4. Hot/warmish everything is perfect in the world on a cool day.

3. Warm but not warming. You start to feel nostalgic about the earlier thrills of its heat.

2. Warm, I guess. I better hurry and finish this before it's too late.

1. I think there is a shred of warmth left in this cup or it wouldn't still register on my scale of descending levels of heat for hot coffee beverages. Nevertheless I am only finishing the drink out of a sense of duty and take no pleasure in it.