Dear Kid,

It’s National Coffee Day.

By all rights, the banks should be closed, all offices and schools should be off, and tickertape parades should be held in celebration.

Wait. Cancel the tickertape and confetti. That might get in the coffee. Eww.

Birds are singing. Lattes are being poured. And all over the world, people are gradually becoming sufficiently caffeinated.

Happy sigh.

You already know my most important thoughts about coffee: Make good coffee. Drink it. Be human.

And you know that the Cincinnati Coffee Festival is coming to Cincinnati November 11 and 12, 2017 (shameless plug).

But did you know:

Coffee was the first food to be freeze dried. And yes, it’s a food.

The largest “cup” of coffee ever brewed was 3,700 gallons. That’s a lot of coffee.

You know the wonderful scent of a freshly opened bag of coffee? It might be fake scent. Some companies (include Dunkin and Stbx) use faux coffee smells to convince you to come in, stay longer, spend more. And that same technology is often injected into bags of coffee to, um, “enhance” your bag opening experience. (And I don’t care. I love the smell of a freshly opened bag of coffee.)

In England in the 17^th century, women were forbidden to drink coffee in public. Who’s sipping now, huh?

A tall Starbucks coffee has about 7.6 times the caffeine of a can of Coke and more caffeine than a 12-ounce can of Red Bull. Go easy, young grasshopper.

Coffee grounds are environmentally friendly slug repellant.

A third of the tap water Americans drink is consumed after it makes a trip through the coffee pot and becomes liquid gold (by which I mean coffee). But the liquid gold euphemism works, because coffee is second only to oil in being the top traded commodity.

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a cantata inspired by coffee addiction. Ahhh, Bach. (Serious extra points if you get that one.)

The oldest cat ever was Creme Puff, who lived to be 38 years old and died in 2005. The owner fed her coffee, bacon, eggs, and broccoli every morning. This is not a recommended diet for cats. Or people. Or turtles. (Have you ever seen a turtle drink coffee?)

Happy National Coffee Day.

Love, Mom

For those extra-devout among us, Radar O’Reilly said, “Ahhh, Bach” on M*A*S*H. Great episode (weren’t they all).

Dear Kid,

It’s official. We the People have lost our collective minds. We have crossed the line. Stepped over the invisible barrier. Gone a bridge too far.

We have pumpkin-spiced everything that should be and a great many things that shouldn’t.

I love fall. I love the cooler temperatures. I love the changing colors of the leaves. I love pumpkin-spice flavor.

But perhaps there should be limits.

A friend of mine recently asked (on Facebook where people answered) for fall recipes that weren’t pumpkin spice. I thought she was over reacting to the season.

No, no, my friend. If anything, she understated the obvious. I just somehow missed the memo.

Until I went to the grocery store last night. And almost passed out from pumpkin-spice variety overload.

What’s next? Pumpkin toothpaste?

I thought I was joking. Buzzfeed thought I was joking (great little blog on things that should never be pumpkin-spiced here).

But Amazon took me seriously.

I need to go lie down for a while.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

It’s Book Lover’s Day again!

Once upon a time, members of congress pretended to read (these days, they don’t bother reading anything with more than 140 characters). And since their assistants needed somewhere to hide while pretending to research problems, they built a library. (Some experts argue that the real reason for the Library of Congress is that it was the one place in the capital where Congressional members couldn’t talk loudly.)

Founded in 1800, the library behaved itself nicely for 14 years or so until the British torched the Capitol building (which was where the Library was at the time). You already know about the Capitol being burned down because you’ve seen the movie Olympus Has Fallen. The fire destroyed over 3,000 books and caused the Librarian to revoke all British library cards.

Thomas Jefferson offered (and by “offered” I mean “sold”) his personal collection of 6,487 books as the foundation for the new library. This gave congress the opportunity to fuss about what kind of books should be in the national library and where said books should be housed. It was a lovely fight at the time, but compared to today’s squabbles was really only a blip of a disagreement. (“Blip of a disagreement” is the technical term for a squabble that happened in the past and resulted in something actually being accomplished.)

Some of my favorite books. DearKidLoveMom.com

Blah, blah, architects, blah, blah, funding, blah, blah, construction, and on November 1, 1897, the Library of Congress opened its new doors to the public and was called “the largest, the costliest, and the safest” library building in the world. Because what public project doesn’t want to be called that?

The LoC currently has more than 164 million items on more than 838 miles of bookshelves. This means you are unlikely to be able to read all the books there. That’s probably ok, because you are unlikely to want to read all of them—especially the ones that have “extra boring” stickers on their spines.

The Library also has other collections including maps, recording, photographs, sheet music, manuscripts, books in braille, comic books (seriously), and telephone messages (not seriously).

FACT: The smallest book in the Library of Congress is “Old King Cole.” It is 1/25” x 1/25”, which (in case you weren’t sure) is crazy small.

The Gutenberg Bible, one of the treasures of the Library of Congress, was purchased in 1930. The 15th-century work is one of three perfect copies on vellum in the world. It will not surprise you to learn that you are not allowed to check it out.

Happy Book Lover’s Day. Go read something.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Happy Friday! And Happy International Beer Day!

Didn’t know it was International Beer Day? Then it’s a good thing you have me.

There are three major classifications of beer: ales, lagers, and (if you’re a college student) beer-in-the-hand (which beats the kind that is more drinkable but more expensive).

Pay attention. There will be a quiz at the end.

Ales have been around forever (and by “forever” I mean back before women knew it was acceptable to punch a man who yelled, “Bring us some ale, wench!”). Lagers have only been around for a few hundred years.

Ales are fermented at relatively warm temperatures for short periods of time, while lagers are cold fermented for longer periods of time.

The primary types of ale are pale ale and brown ale, but within those categories are bitters, milds, IPAs, nut browns.

Lagers are the world’s most popular beer and the primary types are pilsners and dark lagers.

Then there are stouts (with a dark, coffee-like taste), porters (happy to carry your luggage for a tip), and malts (light to full-bodied with hints of caramel, toffee, and nuts).

Prost!

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit and Happy August.

It seems (to me) appropriate to use a lot of capital letters as we head into the a Month of Transition.

August is a Month of Transition. That’s why it has 31 days—to give us one extra before we pop into September (you’re reading this on the internet therefore it must be true).

We’re transitioning from camps to home to college. We’re transitioning from the looser structure of summer to the more rigid structure of the school year. We’re transitioning from shorts every day to shorts only on the weekend. We’re transitioning from summer sales to back to school sales.

There is a whole new crop of freshmen heading off to college this month. They face the same excitement-nervousness-happy-terrified-wonderful feelings every freshman faces. More importantly, their parents face the same excitement-nervousness-happy-terrified-wonderful feelings every parent faces.

News flash: kids get over it faster than parents.

Second news flash: parents generally know we’ll all get over it sooner or later.

Third news flash: we all get to experience it for each big “new.” Moving into an apartment, going off to an internship, joining a sorority or fraternity, getting a job.

Mega news flash for parents of college kids: they are much better at sharing the not so good news and the scary than they are at sharing the good stuff. Which is to say, they’ll sometimes contact you when life isn’t so great and sometimes forget to let you know they’re still on the planet when the happy happens. Unless they’re the kid who only tells you the good stuff and suffers in silence with the more difficult things.

Mega news flash for kids: we want to hear all of it. The good, the bad, the ugly, the wonderful, what you had for breakfast. (Ok, ok, you’re independent—you don’t have to share breakfast unless you want to. Just eat something. Coffee by itself is insufficient.) We’re thrilled that you’re having new adventures and new experiences and we want to know all about it.

Because we love you.

Happy August.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Today is Yellow Pig Day! Remember what that means? Neither did I, so click here to reread about it.

It’s also Peach Ice Cream Day! Know what that means? Know what that means? Go eat some peach ice cream and think about it.

Most importantly, it’s Global Hug Your Kids Day.

I think Global Hug Your Kids Day is a great idea. Hugs are important. Hugs are essential. Hugs are calorie-free chocolate.

But you are not here and that makes it more difficult to hug you. (And by “more difficult” I mean impossible.)

This presents a celebratory dilemma.

I could suggest you give yourself a hug for me. Not a terrible idea, but certainly not one of my best.

I could text one of your friends or co-workers and ask one of them to give you a hug. That would work better if I knew how to contact one of them. (I wonder if it’s too late to rent a skywriting plane…)

I could wrap a hug in plastic and mail it to you, but a) that doesn’t seem very satisfactory and b) it won’t get there for a few days. Next!

I could write a blog letter and post it online. Oh, wait, I already do that.

Or maybe, I can send you a virtual hug. Just tell you how much I love you and that I wish I were near enough to hug you in person.

Virtual hug, coming your way.

Love, Mom