Several years ago, I was on a suburban commuter train in warmer weather, and I overheard a man who claimed to be a psychiatrist, a big man festooned with silver rings and bracelets, sweating in a suit, talking with an incongruous companion, a tattooed young woman in a skirt. He told her he sometimes worked in a clinic where there were currently 20 men claiming to be Jesus. O.K., I thought, sure, right. Nice round number. I've heard that joke. The man and the woman were just getting acquainted. Perhaps it was a blind date of some sort. He told her how he would never greet patients on the street until they first greeted him, so as not to violate doctor-patient confidentiality.

And she asked about his rings and bracelets, and he told her that he loved silver, that he had shelves and shelves of it, but that he had to spend a lot of time caring for it, that it was interfering with his social life. He would put a big white towel on his lap and watch TV while he cleaned it.

His patients would sometimes ask him what he was doing that night, he said, and he would answer, "Polishing my silver."

If the young lady was perplexed by this, she did not let on.

I thought of my parents' silver, tarnished, in a box in a closet, and wondered if I should ask him if he wanted to buy it. But I was sort of hanging on to it in case the monetary system collapses. You never know. This was not long after 9/11, so apocalyptic thoughts were in the air.

On that train trip, I had my folding bicycle, and had been exploring possible towns to live in north of New York, in Westchester County. I had ridden down through several, on a bike path, and along the river, before getting back aboard the train before dark. I imagined us raising our daughter there, commuting into the city every day. The towns seemed pleasant enough, but a little too "Mayberry RFD" crossed with "The Stepford Wives." (Let's stipulate that is a terribly unfair characterization.)

On the way up, a different man had had an altercation with a Metro-North conductor. He had tried to sneak some of his kids on board without paying. He seemed a little buzzed. The conductor threw them off the train at the next stop. From the station platform, in front of his small daughters, the passenger cussed the conductor out, called him fat, a stream of vitriol that lasted until the doors shut again and we were moving.

I can't say for sure, but that might have been the day I decided I didn't want to move out of New York City. Something caused me to write this all down afterward, and I recently stumbled across those notes, a form of time travel.

What do I do at night, when work is done? I don't polish my parents' silver. It's still in the box.

High-end culinary coffee tends to be marketed in specifically political ways. The goal may be to make the customer feel virtuous, or at least more at ease. Maybe buying a particular batch of beans will help the environment or a third-world economy. (There is an ideological divide, even in coffee, between free traders and those who advocate fair or direct trade.) When I hear "Rwanda," I think of the 1990s upheaval and genocide that left that African country in ruins. So I was curious to see this bag of beans and decided to give it a try. Rwanda's coffee industry was nearly destroyed in that era, but now is undergoing a resurgence, thanks to a chain of cooperative farms and efforts to provide simple economic tools, like bicycles. Name: Cider Currant Spice Origin: Nyakizu Cooperative, Byumba Provence, Zirkana, Rwanda Roasted: Jan. 6. Purchased: Jan. 10 at Café Grumpy, 224 W. 20th St., Manhattan, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. Description: Bourbon, grown at 1500 - 1900 meters above sea level. The Pour: Quite tasty. It is a light and frothy mixture, more spice than cider, I'd say. Perfect for a snowy holiday day in New York. There's no overpowering aftertaste, and it goes down smoothly. Coffee tasters call it a "bright" cup, and I'm starting to get a sense of what they mean by that. I could drink this all day, and I just might. There was not a lot of information on the bag, although I found references elsewhere to the Nyakizu Cooperative, established in 2006. Here's a reference to the 2007 batch from this same cooperative:

The coffee, an Arabica Bourbon, is grown in rich, volcanic soil at a relatively high altitude and holds onto it’s milk chocolaty tones even when roasted a bit dark. Each cup I’ve pulled has given me god-like shots, heady with crema. Other reviews I’ve read recommend the bean more for press coffee than espresso, as there is a bit of a sharp edge to the pulled shots. With a touch of velvety steamed milk, I thought the sharpness wasn’t a problem, but others might.

I wasn't picking up on the chocolate or the sharp edge with this roast, and I thought it worked fine as espresso. But here was another review:

When I first tried this coffee the blackcurrant rushing through with a light and gentle acidity. Underneath there is a hint of floral with a thick creamy body with a really clean and sharp aftertaste. I personally love these coffees in the filter and french press, a wonderfully complex coffee.

I'll have to try this as a regular filtered mug of coffee. The second link above also includes a lengthy history of how the genocide affected the coffee trade (many of those with specialized knowledge of the industry were killed). Specialty coffee sells for four times as much per kilo as regular old coffee, and with direct trade, the farmers keep more of the profits. I don't mind paying more for a good cup, and the marketing works: I get to feel slightly virtuous about a habit that is -- let's face it -- an indulgence, a luxury.