Friday, May 14, 2010

Coffee Enema

One of our customers this morning illuminated me and Brenna: coffee enemas are real.

From INeedCoffee.com:

"The most important difference between a saline enema and a coffee enema is the presence of caffeine in the coffee. Caffeine, theophylline and theobromine, combine to stimulate the relaxation of smooth muscles causing dilatation of blood vessels and bile ducts. The effects of having a coffee enema are not the same as drinking coffee. The veins of the anus are very close to the surface of the tissue. The caffeine is therefore absorbed more quickly (and in higher concentration) than it is in when coffee is drunk."

Okay, kids. You have fun with that.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Better Late Than Never...

An overview of Austin Allergies, from the fine folks at Austin Regional Clinic:





Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The Curse

So, this is spooky:

Last October our lovable Italian barista Hannie spilled on his Madone on his way home. Actually, he was only about 30 meters from his front door. The result was a complete break of both his radius and ulna. He had to have the bones repaired with a metal plate and screws (below).


(note: this is the only known picture of Hannie where he's not beaming and/or holding a cocktail)

Then, last March, he touched wheels with Chris (one of two 'civilian' contributors to Pelotaville) and crashed, bending the plate, thinking he'd re-broken his left forearm. Ted Arnold benevolently drove us to have X-rays conducted by the swift and competent staff at the ARC on Far West, who discovered that only one of the two bones had ever re-fused from the original accident. The other had been stymied in a "non-union" connection. Hannie had to have a new plate installed, this time by our friends at Austin Sports Medicine (whom we highly recommend), who by then needed to graft more bone material to fix the original complaint (below).


(note: this is gross)

But wait. It continues:

Last month, our newest barista Mason fractured his left wrist after trimming his seat post and neglecting to re-sink it to an adequate depth (and he was clipped-in when they oversight became known). With 2/3 of the cafe's male staff having injured left wings, things were starting to get odd behind the counter (below).


(note: the mirror reverses the image; M. did indeed injure his left wrist)

But wait. It gets weirder still:

Yesterday, on my day off -- while replacing the decaying subfloor in what shall soon be our new nursery -- after about eight hours of ripping up floorboards and dancing across bare joists and floor beams like a spider monkey filming an audition tape for Cirque du Soleil, I misstepped with a little mud on my shoe and slipped from my purchase, fell, and hit the the floor beams hard on my way to the earth below my house. The kicker: the parts of my body that hit the beams were my shin, my ribs and my left wrist, which is now in a splint (below).


(note: my head isn't quite this big; we were doing 'funny hat' poses directly beforehand)

No foolin'. All male employees of Juan Pelota Cafe have broken, fractured, or sprained their left wrist (at least once) in the last eight months. Even though none of these injuries happened at work, I'm a little scared the place is haunted, or cursed, or both.

But really, I'm just happy to escape with a few bruised ribs, and the fact that I can at least boast -- unlike Mason and Hannie -- that nothing in my arm was completely broken. My bones are tough. I guess that's what they mean by 'management material.'