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At 8:30 this morning, I scrounged the 'net, desperately searching for something as fun and special and awesome as yoga that I could pull out of my ass in roughly thirty minutes. Lo and behold, that movie megagoogleplex I swore to never enter again after last year's fiasco were starting the "Free Family Movie Cattle Call Trampede-a-thon" this very day at 10 AM. And what movie were they showing? Curious George, which Clara Jane still hadn't seen.

This time, I didn't tell her where we were going. Not when we had less than an hour to get ready and stake a place in the theater, instead of getting turned away with $14-worth of concession stand crap already purchased, like last year.

No ma'am. This time, we were firmly in our theater seats with $14-worth of concession stand crap (well, two bottles of water and enough popcorn to create Ethanol to fill my truck) a good twenty minutes before the movie started.

For the last few weeks, Clara Jane hasn't exactly been fond of me. In fact, our relationship has been a bit strained. But let me tell you, all it takes to get back into the good graces of a 3-year-old? Curious George and her body weight (38 pounds) of movie theater popcorn. In Clara Jane's world, I once again rule.

After the movie we went to lunch with some friends, as we tend to do more often than not, while my house packs itself for next week's move. That's right. Next week. HOLY FUCK!!! Anyway, it was at lunch that Clara Jane, a good little monkey who's always very curious, made two discoveries via her curiosity:

1) That little monkeys who remove their shoes can run their bare feet through yogurt that's spilled on the floor, then suck the yogurt off their toes, and

2) that a curious little monkey can slip her big spoon into my coffee mug, slurping up Madagascar vanilla coffee with sugar, cream and cinnamon a good three or four times before it finally registers in my tired little mind that, HOLY SHIT, CLARA JANE'S DRINKING MY COFFEE!!!

To be 100% honest, I'm surprised it took her this long to have her first slugs of coffee. Not surprisingly, she liked it. A lot.

I think I was about her age when I discovered coffee. First it was from those wonderful Brach's coffee-flavored hard candies that came in beautiful 1960s gold wrappers emblazened with a Mod red and purple coffee cup design. My God, I loved those candies. I had them damn near every time I saw Granny Viv. She always had them stashed in her purse, pockets, and in every room of her house.

It was Granny Opal, my dad's mom, who introduced me to the real thing. I was older than Clara Jane, but not by much. By my estimate, I was around six or seven. Granny Opal boiled her coffee, poured it from her cup into her saucer so it could cool enough to not set fire to the inner flesh of her mouth, and would dunk either doughnuts from Papa Jake's or oatmeal Archway Cookies into the sludge. And it was divine. The massive amounts of liquid saccharin she added only made it even more delightfully bittersweet.

I don't think it's any coincidence that I stopped growing shortly after a childhood spell in which I spent a lot of weekend nights with Granny Opal. As a child our family doctor predicted I'd be a tall adult, since I have really tall women on my dad's side of the family. The fact that I was five feet tall by age nine was a bit of a tip-off, too.

How tall am I today? 5'3". Why? Drinking Granny Opal's boiled-black coffee every other Sunday morning during my prime growing years.

Could be worse. I could have been smoking Tareyton Cigarettes with her, too, but she wouldn't let me. Granny Opal drew the line at coffee, doughnuts and Archway Cookies as being a nutritious breakfast for an elementary schooler. Besides, developing a taste for coffee was worth sacrificing a few inches.

I hope Clara Jane feels the same because if today was any indication, she's going to be very, very curious, and very, very short. And hyper. Very, very, very monkey-doing-headstands-in-the-coffeehouse hyper.