thursday night smackdown

So on top of everything else, I’ve come down with the cold that ate New York. Or rather, the cold that deafened New Yorkers’ already selective hearing with its hacking cough and trumpetlike snoring, and drowned the city in unctuous, sticky mounds of mucous from the never-ending supplies in our sinus cavities.  Yesterday I slept more than the dog, and the dog sleeps 23.5 hours a day.

Hyperbolic?  Never!  THIS IS THE WORST COLD I HAVE OR WILL EVER HAVE IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.  See, even caps weren’t enough; I had to use BOLD. BOLD.  Think about that.  And then, if you are still healthy, go out and buy a little something special for your sinuses.

What’s more, I dropped into Dr. Crazie this morning.*  The off-label guinea pig med I’m on seems to be working, although I need more of it.  She doubled my dose and wrote me a new prescription for when the current bottle runs out.

Now, this pill comes in a variety of dosages; it’s not as though it is available only as a single mega-pill from which you must painstakingly chip your desired daily amount using an ice pick and apothecary’s scale.  I’m already taking several small pills daily, so I assumed that the new prescription would be for a larger dose.  WRONG.  It is for the SAME tiny dose, and this means I will be taking SIX PILLS A DAY.  And not six pills at once, which would still be relatively straightforward: two pills three times a day.  Because I am not a square enough person, and need to be rendered still more uncool by being forced to carry a little plastic day-of-the-week pill container around.

All this is prologue to the true purpose of this post: Carafes.  Because when you take pills like I take pills, it behooves you to keep a carafe of water on the bedside table to facilitate the swallowing.  Also, it makes you feel more European than using an old Nalgene from your niece’s ex-boyfriend’s archeological trip to Alaska.

Carafes!  Are you excited yet? I know I am!  Be grateful that I am sparing you the many poodle carafes I found on eBay!  I am not kidding!

*She treats MY craziness, she is not herself crazy.  That I am aware of.  Although I suppose her overly removed and icy demeanor could be read as overcompensation, not that I am suggesting anything.

I did, at first, think about picking one of these babies up from Target.  Think how efficient pill-taking would be: you just roll over, pop the pill, stick your head under the spigot and open the tap.  You’d hardly even have to wake up to do it. It’d be kind of like those Attachment Parents who co-sleep with their babies so they can breastfeed in the night with minimal waking up, except much, much more ghetto.  Plus, it would only be a matter of time before the dogs learned how to drink from the spigot, and then it’s all over.

Then I thought about doing a total 180.  This heavy, cut glass number from the stodgily-named Table and Home makes me want to hire a butler, or perhaps a young British boy named Pip or Neville.  “Neville, my fruit liniments please!  And do put down the sash, you know how the spores drift in and worsen my consumption.”  But again, it’s only a matter of time before the dogs learn how to manipulate Neville as well, and have him stealing the car to take them out for pork chops.

What I need is realism:  A simple container that will hold water and ideally has some kind of lid to keep the tumbleweeds of dog hair from blowing in.

All of the above, from CB2, Three Potato Four and POSH Chicago, respectively, fit the bill.  Crate and Barrel also had a simple model not unlike its younger CB2 sibling, but they don’t have a picture I can save and upload here so they LOSE. I hope they are happy.  The CB2 and POSH models have cups that double as lids, and the POSH version is helpfully labeled as being “From France!”, so I suppose it will enhance the feeling that I’m at an inn in Provence more so than its competitors.  The Three Potato Four version, however, has a rubber seal that is maximally dog-hair repellent, a plus.  (It also comes from the makers of the Zen Koan bird and pear mug.)

It is possible to get simpler still.  An erlenmeyer flask is a nice industrial chic carafe, and since it’s borosilicate lab glass the chance of you shattering in into eleventy-billion tiny shards when you grasp blindly for it at 4 in the morning is virtually nil.  (You’re going to want to tag this page, because you’re never going to hear the phrase “industrial chic carafe” ever again unless you watch Top design, which I hope you don’t.)  A simple stoppered bottle eliminates the need for a cup altogether, and it doesn’t get much more classic than a standard 1/4 liter Italian wine carafe (though this does fail the tumbleweed test).  These three also share one other critical characteristic: cheap as shit.

The fourth, while not cheap as shit, is simple in only the way that something designed by Scandinavians can be.  It comes from Scandinavian Details and not IKEA, which hopefully means it is not assembled with balsa wood pegs and will last longer than 4 months.

But maybe you don’t want classic or economical.  This ceramic jobby from one of the Crafty McCraftersons over at Elsewheres is cool looking, seems easy to grab, and has not one but TWO CUPS that serve as the stopper.  Ergo:  No tumbleweeds, and you and your gentleman lover can pop your tranqs in bed together!  Love, it is truly in the air.

Perhaps you are more of the lady lover persuasion, but your bed is currently cold and empty?  Soothe yourself with this porcelain pitcher available at ShopFosters.  I’m not sure how you get the water in, nor am I sure how you get it out, but I do know that it looks like you’d be drinking from a boob.

If you like a little more danger with your decanted liquids and have an extra three thousand dollars burning a hole in your “2008 Carafe Fund” – and who amongst us does not – why not try this alarming model, dubbed “The Strange Decanter,” at right?  It has a fascinating antler-esque shape, and looks as though it will dissolve back into a pile of sand should your hand come too close to actually touching it.  Also, did I mention that they cost several thousands of dollars?  Because they do.  Cost several thousands of dollars.  For a decanter.  Made of glass, which, when you think about it, is nothing but sand, which is available in mass quantities for free all over this great planet of ours.  But in this form: several thousand dollars.

Sorry, I got stuck in a loop for a minute.

These last two, from Canoe and NapaStyle, were chosen purely on the basis of their resemblance to internal organs.

So readers:  Pick my carafe.*

*GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER.