Alterra Mornings

Before meeting Eric, I subscribed to the "weekend mornings are for lazing around, staying in bed 'til 10:00, then moving out to the couch when feeling ambitious" way of life. A champion wallower in my time, I could watch hours of VH1 drivel in the mornings before forcing myself to get out of bed and see what else is happening in the real world (or, in some instances, ON "The Real World."0.


Eric has never been the same way. He's a "wake up early, get as much out of the day as possible" kind of fella, which in the beginning slightly annoyed me, but I soon learned to enjoy and fall into step with his bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed outlook toward mornings. 


And so, for the past two and a half years that we've been together, Saturday and Sunday mornings are spent at Alterra, the best coffee shop(s) in Milwaukee. And we conveniently live just a couple of blocks away from two of their locations.


It's a routine and a ritual that makes my weekends feel complete. Wake up, spin a record while getting dressed, grab our laptops and make the trek to Alterra. Once there, we grab our usual corner seat, order our baked oatmeals with skim milk, he gets a large coffee, I get a large Americano and a water. What follows is two hours of Internet surfing and hoping our nemesis, Theater Guy, doesn't grab a table within earshot.


It may seem dull, and a little TOO routine, but I've come to adore these slow mornings sipping coffee and catching up with my Google Reader. We haven't been to Alterra in about three weeks because of holiday busyness, but now that we're back in town for a while, the weekends will now feel complete. And the Americano will make me slightly easier to be around in the morning...