A simple cup of coffee is all I want.

I'm staying at my sis-in-law's house in Montecito for a day or two of R&R. It was all R&R with the swimming pool, the gym, the steam shower, the feather beds. That is, until (cue music - dunh dunh duh) I just wanted a cup of coffee this morning.
Meet the Jura Capresso Impressa Z5

What the hell am I supposed to do with this? . Well, I can tell you, I'm not impressa at all. There are more knobs on this damn thing than my double oven at home (you can't even see the top of the machine). And four spouts, one with a cord hanging off it. It's WAY bigger than a bread box. Just a simple cup of coffee is all I'd like.
Filtered water? CHECK.
Coffee beans? CHECK.
Plugged in? CHECK.

I searched drawers for the owner's manual. Surely it came with one of those. This is, after all, the same sister-in-law who had the dub-dub-dub-dot incident. No luck, but I did find a menu for a tasty Thai restaurant on Milpas in Santa Barbara. And an odd drawing of something that claims to be Pee-Wee Herman, and, while cute, looks nothing like Pee-Wee. My kingdom for a scanner so I could show you what I mean.

I even called Mad back in Ohio to see how to operate this foreign machine. She had a dentist appointment this am and hasn't gotten back to me, so I am obviously on my own.

Oh wait! It's doing...something. Flashing the red digital readout for the correct time. Well, I already know what time it is. It's time for me to have a cup of coffee!!!!! I finally got the lights to respond to me by pushing buttons, and it claimed that it was ready. I put my coffee underneath three of the spouts (I want a BIG cup of coffee). All of a sudden, the light changed from coffee ready to rinsing. And then it spit out about 2 Tablespoons of some curiously greenish hot water into my awaiting cup. I don't know what it is, but I sure ain't drinking it. Not even with sugar in it.

Obviously, I threw it in the sink, rinsed out my cup (what was making it green?) and placed my cup back where it was. The light came on (for the inside of my cup, perhaps because it is afraid of the dark?) The machine started to make noise. I pushed the button that denotes a big cup of coffee.

Lo & behold, I finally got coffee. It filled up my cup halfway. It's a good thing that I had my "one cup" underneath both spouts, because liquid is coming out of both of them. Except it is leaving an interesting film on the top of my coffee.

As I was doing this, I was also searching for the owner's manual on-line. Care to guess how many pages it is? 35 pages. That is to make coffee. I feel like John Travolta from Pulp Fiction when Vincent Vega and Mrs. Mia Wallace are out at Jack Rabbit Slims and Mia oreders a $5 milkshake. Vincent has to try it when the waiter (Buddy Holly) brings it to the table. His statement is priceless: "I don't know if it's worth $5, but it's a pretty f-ing good milkshake".

Now the red digital light read out says "coffee ready - filter change". I wonder if I just unplug it and plug it back in if it will stop flashing red lights at me. The only problem with that is that Madelyn reads my blog, so she is going to know it was me who didn't change the filter. I couldn't even imagine how to do it, or where the filters would be.

So, as I sit here, sipping my coffee finally, I have to admit, it's pretty f-ing good.

Except I can't find the sugar. There is some of that Stevia stuff, but I'm wary. Oh wait. Remember the cheesey-cake incident? I think I should stop looking through the kitchen. Right. Now.

Madelyn just returned my call. She told me there is a back-up coffee press in one of the cabinets. She also said that the filter is changed on the monster, but she doesn't know how to make the message go away. I'm going to unplug it and see if that works.

I think my back-up coffee plan is going to be backing up to The Coffee Bean and ordering a coffee for my second cup. It's really much less stress.

Care to take a guess as to how much this machine retails for????? (no googling)


AHA! I think I know what I was doing wrong. I don't have clear glass cups. That must be the problem!

I'm off to Coffee Bean. Have a spectacular day!