Plans
- Planning to swim with my wife today and tomorrow.
- With the semester going to begin soon, I am trying to have a quiet weekend.
- We are planning to go to Mass on Sunday at the site where we have found the highest percentage of folks from our defunct parish attending. It unfortunately is a bit of a drive, but it has seemed nice.
- I am working to have EVERYTHING I can think of set out and ready and planned for Monday. Traditionally, the weekend before the start of the semester has me feeling edgy and stressed. But, I want to try to avoid that if at all possible. I want to "let go" of the feeling of stress and anxiety, and I think if I have it so ALL I need to do Monday morning is walk into my office, grab my book/markers/pointer.... I can just ignore that Monday morning is coming and not fret, not worry. Keeping my fingers crossed that I will be able to ignore Monday.... until Monday.
- Planning to get a haircut today.... and then I will modestly and gently give MYSELF a small, "neatening" trim to my beard and mustache afterwards because I have the hair cut folks only do my head, not my face.
I feel rather keyed up already this morning, which is why I am going to work diligently to TRY to keep from having the rather unfortunately typical "stressed" weekend before the new semester. I may even forgo coffee on Saturday and Sunday (I should have thought of that this morning, but, I already drank my usual 24 ounces (~700 ml) of iced coffee this morning.
While I was running today, after I listened to the Capuchin Mass and after I finished the rosary, I began thinking about the two primary cuts of pipe tobacco I like to smoke. While there are may different forms in which you can acquire pipe tobacco, the two predominate forms I like are what are called "cube cut" and "shag cut" pipe tobaccos. They both also happen to be the most common types available.
"Shag cut" pipe tobaccos have the tobacco cut into thin, "longish" strands, perhaps an inch or so in length... and when you see a small pile of this pipe tobacco, it does look a bit like a shag carpet. "Cube cut" pipe tobaccos are (as the name suggests) identified by the tobacco leaf being cut into rather "boxy" little cubes, similar in size to rice (albeit similar in length in all directions) or medium-sized couscous.
Both types of cut of pipe tobacco leaf are greatly enjoyable, but I tend to especially find the "cube cut" pipe tobaccos to my liking. For me, I think the cube cut pipe tobacco packs more readily into the bowl of the pipe and is not so "loose" and has a lesser chance of being "spongy" in the bowl when lighting. But, perhaps the most pleasant part of cube-cut pipe tobaccos for me is that when you ignite the bowlful of leaf, there is more surface area of leaf to ignite and the delectable pipe smoke is typically both more dense and thick.... but also frequently just a bit sweeter and more robust in flavor compared to a similar pipe tobacco in "shag" form.
So, even though I have enjoyed plenty of both styles of pipe tobacco, I think that cube-cuts are truly my favorite when they are available.
The above is a beautiful image of a typical look of "cube cut" burley leaf. So, very pleasant and tasty.
PipeTobacco
2 Comments:
I don't know if this matters but when winter hits (you live in a place with a hard winter, right?), it will be difficult to get to the far away parish. Would you then attend a closer one if the weather conditions were nasty? I know nothing about pipe tobacco but I do like a more robust coffee blend although mixed with frothed milk and chocolate in my 16 ounce mocha. John calls it my frou frou drink--not really coffee at all. :)
I remember that feeling of that weekend and thinking about the months of tiredness which were sure to follow.
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