It's funny, the things you think about when you're on a liquid diet. A cold liquid diet, too, for that matter.

Now, I'm someone who enjoys a good cup of coffee – particularly a Venti Vanilla Latte from the local Starbucks (it was just yesterday in my neighborhood where the mention of the name Starbuck conjured images of Dirk Benedict on Battlestar Gallactica). Or a nice, hot cup of English Breakfast tea, with a dollop of honey and a splash of cream. Or even a nice, hot cup of soup.

So, on a cold December day that left a chill all the way to my bones – as Decembers in the part of the Pacific Northwest that do not border Puget Sound can – I was without anything to drink that was warmer than my own body temperature.

I quickly abandoned thoughts of raising my body temperature. There's no way I could make myself hot enough to qualify for that latte, anyway.

Have you ever noticed that, when you go into a theater, you can smell everyone else's popcorn? How it makes you hungry – how you can almost taste the salt and butter on each kernel in the guy's bag in the next aisle? You almost have to buy yourself some popcorn just out of self-defense.

But it's worse when it's the smell of coffee, and you can't touch a drop. That coffee aroma latches onto your nostrils and physically pulls you toward the waiting carafe. I thought for a while there that I was going to have to wear a straight jacket. Not that there aren't people who think I should be wearing one of those on a daily basis.

So here I am, on a Wednesday evening, walking down memory lane while watching a documentary on The Smothers Brothers and their battle with CBS censors, without having a single, solitary thing to warm my chilled bones.

I will now pause while everyone says – awwwwwwwwww.

More soon.