The choice to be loved

It just happens - one suddenly wakes up and realizes that games are of no interest any longer when it comes to relations with the opposite sex. Or meets somebody and realizes the same. Loving and yearning for somebody's attention and touch is important emotion for our being human, for our motivation to go on... but being loved and cared about is as important for our overall balance. And I dare say this applies both for men and women.
Is it about selfishness? Hell, no! It's about realizing that we are valuable, it's about somebody showing us we're valuable by gentle unexpected care shown in surprising ways and situations. It's about being happy and calm, it's about being loved and choosing to be loved, and realizing that we deserve it. Also, it's about the surprise that arouses inside when we find out all these things in life and in our self...

I saw a quote today which I loved: the three C's in life - making the Choice to take the Chances in life, so that Change happens. If we don't allow it to happen, it may just wait at out doorstep for a while and then leave... Let the change happens and let the ones who really deserve it, love you.
Just like in this very much loved song by Alanis Morisette - 'You've already won me over, in spite of me"... :-)

Warming sips of real life

And so it is... back to reality after three days of travel and leisure, of meeting nice people. Back to e-mails, to pending deadlines and tasks, to people who are away or with little time to spend about others, with even less affection to show about others.
Back to online life, to social networks, to talking about emotions rather than showing them, far from real life and real people with real emotions. How I wanted to never go back! That's my choice for today - more sips of real life... It could even be this as well.

This one is about pure pleasure

Spring has come and gone in Sofia few times in the last weeks. Cold mornings and evenings have been rotating with sunny warm afternoons when one wouldn't like to do anything like working in the dark office, but only enjoy their beer in the park, in the sun preferably. This is the time when the soul opens wide to the other souls around, and welcomes walks in the blossoming city gardens, evenings out with friends, socializing, social drinking, etc.
I was lucky enough to socialize during these weeks with a few friends whom I've never been so close before and some whom I've become very close in the last couple of years. And it was a pure pleasure! Feeling just like what I've felt when touching that wall of stones which appear to be soft :-)
We went out for drinks (not coffee, but a particular sort of wine - Cycle, by Minkovi Brothers, the purple label)
for sushi dinners - especially one of them was in a great great place, with these little origami cuties stretching down along the wall, decorating elegantly the white room and furniture:

We also spent an evening in the interactive video game corner - wow, my first time! and it was crazy:-)

I got drunk 4-5 times in three weeks, but that didn't bother me - spring has come and we enjoyed life as it is... great! And thank you for that March, people - I do love being with you :-)

The importance of being wrong

This blog was started about coffee, but there are some other things in life almost as important as coffee and coffee drinking - these are the choices we make everyday, the choices that in fact are our life. So I will allow myself to deal with them a little as well. This one is about being wrong and is inspired by a great TED talk which you can see here.
If we are to live, and not just exist, we need to make choices and take some action every single day of our lives. But the question that bothered me for a long time now, is how do people deal with the consequences of their choices. Especially if they were about interacting with other people. I've been raised under the philosophy 'try to be always right and the best'. And I've tried. And - not surprisingly - I failed in being always the best and the right.

In the race of making the best choices, with not enough time for healing the wounds in cases the decisions turned out to be wrong, I seemed to forgot that the consequences depended on other people as well... And on the choices they've made, the state of mind they are in. In my own mind they have been puppets whose strings were moved in ways I was able to predict. And believe me, many times my predictions were right (am I not a smartass?), but sometimes they were not - what a surprise! So... with the time, I've started to think about it more and more. And the question was - what have I done wrong? Because - obviously- I was the single maker of these wrong decisions with terrible consequences. Which is exactly what the woman in the TED link above mentions - if we do a wrong step, then there's something wrong with ourselves. This I accepted for a long time, but now I found out I'm asking myself the wrong question. I did what I've decided to do, what my personality and intuition considered the best to do. And that is me, that is the way I'm dealing with my life. No regrets (thanks, Robbie!)
If people react in ways that I didn't expect or predicted, then let it be. Unexpected results may lead us to new perspectives and - for sure - to new choices to make, new relations to develop or approach old relations in a brand new way. If it doesn't work, leave it behind and go on, I'd say (I'm sure a yoga guru would say it in a much better way but that's my blog, and that's my choice of words!). Be open to that and try to face the results with a friendly wink to the people involved. And be tolerant to your own choices. And drink only good-quality coffee. Oops, sorry, I was talking to myself here ;-)

Post-New Year posting...

While recovering from the food misuse during the four free days around New Year's Eve, I even managed to think a little. And - oh, so surprising! - the thoughts were about summarizing what has happened to me in 2010 (and the two years before it) and how it has changed me.
Luckily, I avoided the resolution part! I know it's always fake, people cheat themselves. As changing is not a one-time action, you can't just decide and become a new person. It is a constant effort, non-stop paying attention to all your decisions, each choice you make, еach line you say to others, each look and shoulder shrugging... But at the end - you are who you become after you've done all the choices and took all the decisions - right or wrong. You just need to make the best out of the mistakes you've made.
Why I've started thinking about these things on the morning of Jan 2? May be because I've met during the holidays friends who have reached happiness in life although life has been tough on them. They have tried again and again, fell and stand up again, got drunk and sober afterwards, got lost and found themselves, lost loved ones, have been betrayed or cheated...and still, these (non-)ordinary people have found their happiness and achieved their main goals in life - would it be love or family or enterprise..They found themselves. I'm proud of them! Cheers!
Here is some support to my idea by a well-known thinker - enjoy it!

How is cappuccino prepared?

Today I was asked a question I haven't heard for a long long time. And hoped I would never hear it again, but... I did. The question was: How would you like your cappuccino - with espresso or not? I was shocked and remembered the times when the market (including all cafes and bars) was flooded with those instant cappuccino drinks with different flavour - nuts, vanilla, etc.

They lacked any taste, but had great ad tools promoting them all around the city and even on the same table where they've been served to the innocent clients.

And then, during that dark period, I had to ask every time if the cappuccino is prepared with espresso and milk or poured out of a plastic package... it has become a habit for few years, and now that I've forgotten about it (as obviously enough clients have shown some taste for life and quality by boycotting those artificial things), now I was asked the same question in a neighbouhood patisserie which otherwiseI like for my Sunday brunch coffee with or without friends. Hope it will not happen soon again, or I will be seriously worried about the future of coffee lovers in Sofia.
For soothing their souls' pain, I publish here pictures of cappuccino and coffee with milk prepared in a nice way - according to my standards, of course ;-)

Le Pettit Cafe - a tiny French place in Sofia

This morning, still sleepy on my way to the office, I was dragged to a secret silent place in the heart of Sofia - on Patriarch Evtimii Blvd, near Dunkin' Popa.
Called artistically 'Le Pettit Cafe', this cafe is so tiny, elegant and so perfectly designed and maintained that I couldn't go with my usual grumbling about service, chairs, mug size, milk, etc. and kept my mouth shut. The girl behind the counter was very friendly, she even closed the door and stopped the freezing morning air from spoiling our little 'siesta' with a cup of coffee with milk and croissants.
Let me tell you about the coffee - see, I'm back to the purpose of that blog from time to time ;-)
The coffee was of some Arabica type that smooths the tongue and is strong but mild at the same time. The only thing I didn't like was the small cup ... I dislike small cups and espresso served the so called 'Italian way' - literally 2 sips able to awake a bull. The croissant was great! even better than those sold at OMV, which I adore.
As my little new discovery doesn't have any website or other promotion tool online, I will try to attract you to its products - puffy fresh cakes, biscuits in jars and organic tea. And great atmosphere - furniture in 'French province'-type style, in white and dark wood colours, and music - also French, and the white cupboard here.

Cosy is the word! I'll go again to sit at one of the three tables in the room ;-)

P.S. Oh, and no smoking there - welcome non-smokers and mothers with young children!