Overnight we had what the Weather App on my iPhone 13 mini calls “Rainy conditions”. It poured rain during the night. In fact it poured water through the light fixture in the shower room of the second bathroom upstairs. The amount of water pouring from the light fixture was so great that the small plastic garbage basket in the bathroom proved too small. His Lordship ended retrieving the larger plastic garbage bin from the kitchen as a replacement. We then alternated the two in order to drain the other.
This disturbing event happened around 5:00 am this morning. His Lordship called the overnight service for the estate agency, spoke with a clerk and described the matter. Not long thereafter the son of the owner of the estate agency called to discuss the particulars further. The estate agent advised that because it was still raining there wasn’t anything to be done immediately other than turning off the breaker for the electricity to the upstairs bathroom (which His Lordship did on his behalf). The estate agent (who is a new father and therefore likely accustomed to these precipitous overnight interruptions) advised he would contact the contractual electrician and the property manager of Buttonwood Bay.
Significantly both His Lordship and the estate agent repeated that recently contractual roofers for Buttonwood Bay had been working on the roof in connection with on-going structural repairs throughout the entire compound. Furthermore His Lordship had reported to the estate agent a week ago the presence of water damage on the ceiling of the upstairs bathroom (which area became noticeably spongy during last night’s rain).
The estate agent has since messaged that he has contacted the contractor and Buttonwood Bay. He learned that another unit in the compound experienced overnight water damage.
The weather in Key Largo is both mercurial and extreme. With the sudden reappearance of blue sky and southerly winds after these violent rain storms one wonders what all the fuss was about. Judging by what we have experienced since the beginning of November last, the norm at this time of year is overall pleasant sub-tropical weather, a predominance of azure skies and warm temperatures. What little rain we’ve had is normally during periods of darkness. These volatile and forceful conditions are to be expected when one recalls what a narrow strip of land the Florida Keys are intersecting the Gulf of Mexico and the North Atlantic Ocean. The land mass here is basically at sea level in addition to being tapered. It is easy to imagine the perilous exposure during the late summer hurricane season.
In keeping with the accepted social mandate to confine conversation to one’s health and the weather, I happily report that my overall physical state has improved without the consumption of vast quantities of caffeine as I had recently been doing. His Lordship does however report that espresso has less caffeine than regular caffeinated coffee because the espresso beans are roasted more fully than other beans, which seemingly exhausts the caffeine.
Espresso typically has 63 mg of caffeine in 1 ounce (the amount in one shot), according to Department of Agriculture nutrition data. Regular coffee, by contrast, has 12 to 16 mg of caffeine in every ounce, on average. That means that ounce for ounce, espresso has more caffeine.
Those numbers are simply the USDA’s standard estimates, however. Complicating matters is that a number of factors can further vary the caffeine counts for both espresso and coffee. These include the brand, the type of bean, the type of roast, the amount of coffee used to make a cup, and the way it’s prepared (brewed, French press, cold brewed, espresso machine, etc.). At Starbucks, for example, a single shot of espresso—which, for the coffee giant, measures 0.75 ounces—has 75 mg of caffeine. An 8-ounce cup of Starbucks’ Pike Place medium-roast coffee has 155 mg.
For the past several months on Key Largo I have drunk nothing other than water in the morning. Mid-afternoon I have being drinking cold (decaffeinated) tea with fresh squeezed lemon juice. It is only very recently that I have re-activated my former daily tradition of what I call strong, black coffee (historically identified by two pods of espresso for one small cup). And usually I drank two cups of that preparation, both morning and afternoon. Whether my sensitivities are legitimate or not, I feel that after my withdrawal from coffee over the past three months, my recent indulgences in espresso and regular coffee have disturbed my inner delicacy. Perhaps I am experiencing my own private rain storm. We shall see. I have this morning reclaimed my erstwhile state of perfection. And now, to horse! That is, my tricycle!