Bottomless mug of goodness

It's no secret that I love coffee.  My grandfather is at fault for my addiction; he started giving us heavily milk-and-sugared coffee when we were old enough to drink from a mug without spilling.  Along with the coffee he would give us a slice of squishy white bread for dunking - the truly poor Sicilian substitute for biscotti.  In college I stopped using milk, but the vending machine coffee at the library desperately needed sugar to be palatable.  After college, even the sugar went; I happily drink it black now.

In spite of my rather frequent stops at Starbucks, I'm in no way a coffee snob.  My mom was all about the instant coffee - made in a percolator on the stove with the inner workings removed.  After years of drinking that, my tastebuds toughened up.    The only coffee I'll turn down now is that which is either too strong, or into which the grounds have been allowed to drip the after-oils of the brewing process turning it bitter.

This is my new favorite coffee mug.  In typical fashion, I found it while Christmas shopping (two for them, one for me...).  But it is irresistible.  The colors are a tad brighter than in the picture, a soft robin's egg blue and muted lime green.  It holds a whopping twelve sixteen ounces (the "official" size of a cup in most coffee maker instruction manuals is four or five ounces) of caffeinated goodness.

As a left handed coffee drinker, at least at work and at the home desk, I see this side most often.  It's a reminder that, as wonderful as coffee is, it's not the prime source of goodness in the universe.  The other side?  See for yourself:

A not-so-subtle reminder that the coffee shouldn't be the first thing to pop to my mind in the morning.