USA CUP: The saga begins

If you've been around events at all, you know that feeling you get the night before everything is set to go down. Every sort of insect is crawling around in your stomach even though you triple-checked your to-do list and battened down the hatches. All that's left is to pray and wait. Tomorrow morning the sun will rise on the first day of Schwan's USA CUP 2009. Over 13,000 athletes will compete over the next nine days, bringing with thousands of refs, volunteers, coaches and fans. I will be in the thick of it with a pencil and a voice recorder. Have I ever been this nervous? Maybe before freshman finals, but otherwise probably not. Wish me luck.

Today I walked across the Sun-Sailor community newspaper plastered all over the blacktop. Right under the sports section, "USA CUP" jumped from the headlines. You mean somebody actually read that media guide I spent hours putting together? Hooray! Sending out information to the working media is like all those hundreds of prayers a person sends out silently every day. You're just hoping one or two get heard. And then, suddenly, an answer floats into your life and lands on the pavement. And you can only smile (even if it is slightly factually flawed).

So, tomorrow. It's coming, and I can't stop it. And of course, I will survive and manage to look back on it fondly, forgetting the ulcers it's given me. I'll be sending out at least 200 prayers tomorrow. Please answer one if it comes your way.

I'm proud to drink Church Basement Coffee

Though I'm not a Lutheran , I am marrying one and I have spent my share of time in the church basement. My favorite is the coffee, so thin you could see right through it if you drank out of a clear mug. Sure, it's caffeine concentration is weakened by the 2:1 (water:grounds) recipe, but how would you sit through church breakfast with five cups of coffee at full strength? I would be wound tighter than a twine string on a wet hay bale.

I have to admit I have taken my love of Church Basement Coffee around the world and back. In France, the only thing you could get me to order with coffee in it was a cafe au lait or an espresso chocolate dessert. Tiny demitasse cups full of steamy tar were politely decline. "Non, merci." Back in the states, working at my summer internship, I secretly make Church Basement Coffee from the office pot. It comes out thick, smoldering and smelling vaguely of sausage (why is that?). I pour half a cup in my mug, add half a cup of hot water and one-quarter cup of cold. Wait 10 minutes, and it's perfect.

I've tried to love regular coffee, but I can't. In college, I would order it from O'Connell's and sniff its seductive scent from my shiny green travel mug. At the end of the paper I was writing, I would still have half a cup left, now chilled and filmed over with what looked like an oil slick. I struggled through my late writing shifts with black tea and copious amounts of water.

Post-college, I've settled into my Church Basement Coffee drinker heritage, and I find I'm proud. Religion has done some terrible things, but in the basement of a quiet town church, women have quietly knit the threads of community over many pots of coffee.