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Jake is not impressed.

You see, Steve and I bought a new coffee maker a few weeks ago and as much as you might think our coffee choices and Jake’s happiness are two separate issues … surprise, not so much.

Steve drinks a lot of coffee. I love a good cup of coffee, but can’t stand anything bitter so I tend to drink a lot of tea. When we stop at Tim’s, I drink tea. At work, I drink tea. In restaurants, I usually drink tea. But on Saturday and Sunday mornings at home, I drink coffee. I love my weekend coffee, which Steve always makes. He makes the best coffee — at least he did until a couple of weeks ago. Now, I’m sorry to say, he makes the second best coffee (sorry Steve, but you know it’s true).

We were visiting my brother and sister-in-law in February and they made us coffee in their new coffee maker, one of those single cup brewers that take K-cups. For those who have never tried this manna from the heavens, K-cups look like overgrown coffee creamers and they have ground coffee and small filters inside. With just one cup each, we were hooked. For about three weeks, I thought about that coffee every day, several times a day. When someone mentioned coffee, I could almost taste it. I’m not sure I didn’t dream about that coffee. And I think Steve was just as bad.

So a couple of weeks ago, off we went to buy our new toy. Since then our coffee consumption has increased … a lot. The first few days were really bad, but it has now calmed down a little. Still, we use that coffee maker every day, whereas we used the old one mostly on weekends.

How does all this affect Jake, you ask?

No more Tim’s runs. Most weekends, Steve would run into town and get coffee or we would stop at Tim’s while we were out shopping. It just wouldn’t be right to stop at Tim’s and not get Jake a Timbit, so he was still getting his treats on a regular basis.

Then came the coffee machine and now we make our coffee at home, so his Timbit consumption has dropped off almost as drastically as our coffee consumption has skyrocketed. That’s probably a good thing, but our boy just isn’t convinced. Jake is all about his belly, not his waistline.

Oh well, it’s just another reason to be anxious for riding season to get under way. In the meantime, where did I leave my coffee cup?

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My husband broke the rules this weekend and I’m so glad.

The dictionary on my computer defines a rule as an explicit or understood regulation or principle governing conduct within a particular activity. I say so what?

I believe that every now and then it’s okay to break the rules — maybe drive a few kilometres over the speed limit (just a few) on a clear day when there’s no traffic, maybe eat a piece of cheesecake or an ice cream cone when you’re supposed to be watching your diet, maybe let your Cairn terrier have a second Timbit just because it’s a big day.

Steve has a rule that you can’t put your motorcycle on the road in the spring until there have been five good rains to wash away the salt and sand. It’s a good rule, perfectly sensible since nobody wants a lot of salt getting all over their bike and in its engine, and sand can be dangerous especially in a corner. Perfectly sensible.

But it’s damn annoying when the weather gets warmer and the sun is shining. It might not be quite so bad if everyone played by the same rules, but it gets really, really maddening when you see other riders out on the road or zipping by the house while we’re stuck waiting for Mother Nature to clear the path. Good rule or not, after a long winter, it just seems unfair.

My poor husband just couldn’t take it this weekend. Apparently it’s one thing when other riders get out there early in the spring, but quite another when I get on the road before he does. Hee hee hee!

It’s time for another one of those confessions of mine and this one is bigger than cheesecake or an extra Timbit. I have a new bike!!! (Note the three exclamation marks — I’m pretty excited.) I traded motorcycles, upgrading from the Kawasaki Vulcan 500 that was my starter bike to a new ’09 Vulcan 900 Classic. Yay for me!

The warmer weather was both an inspiration and a concern over the last couple of weeks. Once I decided to trade, I had to wait for my new bike to be ready. I bought it at Freedom Cycle in Halifax, the same place where Steve bought his a few years ago. That left me checking the forecast about 10 times a day last week (I can tell you they don’t change it that often), because I had to take my V500 to the dealer and bring my new bike home. It is March after all and I was hoping for a short heat wave.

We did the big switch and it was fantastic — a great chance to bid my old bike farewell and then get acquainted with my new ride. Steve followed me in my car just in case I wanted him to spell me off if I got too cold (I’m thinking really just in case I would let him drive my new bike. I did let him put it in the garage for me when we got home — you’re welcome, Steve. Don’t be sad, I’ll let you take it for a spin soon.)

It was just too much for him. One rain or five, salt or no salt, the weather was warm and he had to go for a ride Saturday afternoon. The rule had to be broken.

Thank goodness. I couldn’t wait to go for a ride with my boys. Switching bikes was really just about transportation, getting from one place to another, but Saturday afternoon was a time to ride. We headed down to Chester and took Jake for a walk (or actually I think he took us) at Graves Island. Then it was back to Mahone Bay for a Tim’s stop, on to Lunenburg, through Riverport to Bridgewater and home.

It was a perfect afternoon.

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Okay, it has now officially started.

All it took was a couple of days of sunshine and slightly warmer temperatures and I’m now pining for the road — the wind rushing by my face, leaning into the curves, exploring new places and seeing the scenery.

And I think Jake is feeling the same way. He’s been spending a lot of time in our front window lately, staring out towards the road, his chin resting on the windowsill, that tongue out just enough to let us know he wants something. How long will it be until we can get back on the bikes and go — a month, six weeks, sooner, later? I really hope it’s soon.

I’ve been thinking about some of the road trips we took last summer, particularly about our trip to PEI and Cape Breton. There was one day that I remember when we rode along the north shore of PEI. It was one of those days — it was sunny and warm, with a bit of a breeze and it was like we didn’t have a care in the world. We weren’t going anywhere in particular. We were just going to see what there was to see. The theme parks were all crazy busy, we could see the cars jammed into the parking lots from the road, but we didn’t need their rides — we had our own.

We stopped in North Rustico for a late lunch. It was a little fish and chip place by the side of the road beside the water. The food was great and they had picnic tables so we could set ourselves up and settle in, which is exactly what we did. Jake had a few nibbles and some water, and probably a bit of my fish. (Jake loves fish. I think he’d walk over hot coals for tuna.)

It was just a perfect summer day. After we ate, we wandered along the water. There were even ospreys in a nest overhead.

That’s the kind of day I’m waiting for.

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Is the world really small or is it just full of coincidences?

I wonder about that sometimes, especially when we travel and meet people we know or at least people who know people we know.

Our RoadDog is such a people magnet that we end up chatting with a lot of strangers. It doesn’t seem so unusual to bump into people when we aren’t far from home, but when we’re hundreds of miles away I often ask myself “what are the chances?”

Steve and Jake and I stopped at a winery while we were touring around P.E.I. last summer. Actually, we passed the winery, had a brief chat on our radios about how nice it would be to have a bottle of wine at the cottage we were going to stay at, turned around and went back. And by the way, we ended up buying two bottles of wine — a red for Steve and a white for me. In our defence, we were going to be staying at the cottage for several days, but I digress.

I went inside first to scout out my choice while Steve waited outside with Jake. Then Steve went inside, supposedly to see if he agreed with my choice, came back out to tell me he wanted a red and disappeared back inside to make our purchases.

While he was doing that, Jake and I were wandering around the beautiful grounds around the winery’s store. In the distance, I could see the grape vines and beyond that the ocean. It was a really pretty place.

Two couples rode in on two cruisers and asked me to take a photo of them. Actually, they invited Jake into the photo as well and we ended up chatting. That’s how I discovered that one of the men is an uncle of an acquaintance. That led to further discussions and so on. They were lovely people and we ended up spending the rest of the afternoon with them. They led us into Montague and pointed out the road to our cottage. Then they took us to this incredible diner. It’s just like something out of the fifties. Cars drive in and flash their lights and a carhop goes out to take orders and later returns to deliver them. It was a bit surreal and the food was fantastic.

We ate at a picnic table and Jake had a great time with his new friends. All because we stopped to buy wine. It was good wine too.

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I think I owe our dog an apology. Actually, I think maybe Steve and I both owe Jake an apology.

For the past 17 days, our house, even a big chunk of our lives, has been all about the Olympics. I’ve referred to myself a number of times to family, friends and co-workers as an Olympic addict and I think most of them thought I was kidding, but I really wasn’t. From Day 1, I was hooked.

Steve and I are both very patriotic to start with, Steve probably a little more than me. We are both proud Canadians, proud of our country, our flag, our people and the essence of what it is to be Canadian. Maybe that’s why we were addicted, with Canadian athletes competing on Canadian soil.

But even before the opening ceremonies, I was there. It was partly the news person in me, wanting to see how everyone dealt with the death of the Georgian luger just hours before the big kickoff. But those opening ceremonies got me. I was up until 2 a.m. watching to the end. I think the following night it was 1:30 a.m. when we turned out the lights. Over the past few weeks, we haven’t had a lot of sleep. To be honest, we haven’t had enough sleep. Yet, somehow, the Olympics kept us going. Like so many Canadians, we watched with awe and pride from Alexandre Bilodeau’s first gold medal to Joannie Rochette’s courageous bronze to the men’s Olympic hockey gold. ( I was just about to head to the kitchen for a glass of wine, unable to take much more, when Sidney Crosby finally found the back of the net for that win.)

I even sat in our living room wearing my red Olympic mittens for the entire third period of the women’s gold medal game. It was a promise I made to my stepdaughter who was there in the stands in Vancouver for that win. I couldn’t be with her (jealous though I was), but I could wear my red mittens and be with her and the rest of Canada in spirit.

Throughout it all, Jake has been bewildered and somewhat ignored and if there’s one thing our RoadDog doesn’t like it’s being ignored. We didn’t neglect him exactly — we fed him, took him out, took him for a couple of walks in the park, treated him to a few Timbits, even managed to give him a bath one night (I’m sure he just loved that, boy dog that he is). We played ball with him in the living room, but I think he sensed our distraction since we occasionally stopped to stare at the TV.

He looked at us as we watched at that noisy electronic box night after night. He jumped to attention as we occasionally shouted about what was happening. But mostly when 10 or 10:30 p.m. rolled around, he just wanted to go to bed and we just weren’t co-operating.

Oh well, it’s over now and I’m both glad and sad — glad that our lives can get back to normal, at least as normal as they ever are, and sad that those 17 days of wonder have passed. I’ll apologize to no one for being a patriotic Canadian, except maybe our RoadDog.

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