Bringing up maybes...

Sarah and I have been doing experiments lately. The world offers so many ripe opportunities to be tested.

Case 1: The competing corner coffee klatches...
At the intersection of Selma and Cahuenga in Hollywood you will find two very different coffee shops - Karma Coffeehouse on the Southeast corner and Caffe Etc. on the Northeast corner. Neither is particularly inviting, but because we shun the popular and oddly-flavored Groundworks down the street, we thought we'd give them a try. Sarah reports that Karma is a very dark, and not particularly scrubbed environment with a vaguely syphalitic hippie vibe. At noon on a Saturday the spacious room was being filled by a single man "in aviator glasses, age of 50 or so, coming down off of something." A double espresso is $2.50. While she was in Karma, I went into Caffe Etc., which on the surface may be the more appealing of the two. It has a clean, glassy, gleaming metallic Euro ambiance, and some rather smart looking coffee machines. Unfortunately, the server had a very unfriendly "why should I care" attitude, bad fake nails, shade of Long Island pink, and a double espresso was a whopping $3.00. Bottom line: The Karma coffee is better - it has a smooth rich flavor with a vague texture and taste of unsweetened chocolate powder. The Caffe Etc. wasn't bad, initially, but once it lost it's heat, it tasted like a cat's rear end.
Conclusion: Karma good. Great espresso is hard to find.
(Follow up: Day 2, a second visit, same server: Karma coffee not-so-good)

Case 2: Meta bedtime stories...
Our friend Jason gave me a great book on the science of sleep. I've recently written an article on the subject of animal sleep and the curiosity mounts. Last night as Sarah was literally falling asleep, I read aloud to her the entire chapter on exactly what happens to the brain as a human slides from consciousness into the first few minutes of sleep. In a query this morning, she reports hearing or more accurately remembering none of it and that she slept "very well."
Conclusion: Sleep is mysterious