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Those of you who have spoken to me recently are aware of the wee levels of stress that are arising from my current move out of Florence.
While my destination isn’t back to Calabasas, recent developments lead me to think twice.
(Swipe over to read the secret text spoiler!)
But the school’s Sept. 3 opening, on the leased campus of a former school in Calabasas, will be accompanied by a whiff of controversy. Some of its teachers are members of the Church of Scientology, and it will use teaching methods developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
Any Calabasas kids know where it’s going to be? My guess is either off Mureau or Mullholland… SUSPENSE!!
Like Keith Olbermann.
Jason Bateman. (Way to go, Donnie Bateman!)
David Cross.
And the Arrested Development movie.
Mooooo. Veeeee.
I am so proud of my wordsmith!
Yep, still a coffee brat.
On my last post, the good people at WordPress included at the bottom some links to “Possibly Related Posts.” Generally, I have ignored these things ad initio, but one caught my eye as it spoke to one of my biggest Barista Pet Peeves, the self-proclaimed “Starbucks Illiterate.”
Now, it shall be duely noted that I love people and have hope for everyone to attain new knowledge daily wherever they may roam. It’s the beauty of getting up off your bottom each and every morning and embracing a new day. You’re never quite sure what kind of fun and fantastic things you may learn. Even if it just from reading a Starbucks menu board, or a menu board of any food service location you may frequent.
That being said, I’d like to express to all “Starbucks Illiterates” that roam the land to please don’t stress and don’t fret, for the answer to your fears and woes of ordering just a cup of coffee is no more than 10 feet from your face and if you are reading these humble words have already completed step one of becoming fully fluent in Starbucks. You’ll be ordering a “Tall Latte” or “Grande Caramel Frappuccino” in no time. Promise.
For you see, step one is nothing more complicated than recognizing letters to form words. It’s so simple, even a five year old does it. At Starbucks. All the time.
No longer will you have to plague your Barista with questions such as “What’s a Medium?” or confounding orders like, “Extra Large Mocha Frappalatte” or “Biggest One You Got Strawberries and Cream Frapp.” The answers and options that you seek are presented right in front of you on the beautifully set up and clearly written menu board. Drink names, sizes, prices are all there. There is no need to rack your brain for something that you might think makes sense any longer. Starbucks is one step ahead of you and has provided you with the resources you need to know what you want and order it well.
It will be much, much more comforting when you realize that you don’t have to hope and pray that we are going to magically concoct that pastry you just made up off the top of your head, or know what you mean when you throw together five or six words at random from the menu board to create something that you’d never want to drink, ever, I promise.
It’s not that I don’t appreciate and respect the journey that everyone embarks on to become fully Starbucks literate, but I believe in my deepest hearts of heart that with some ABC’s and Tall, Grande, Venti’s, you’ll be out the door with your Tall Vanilla Latter in no time. Because lets be real. You don’t really want a Super Size French Vanilla Cappuccino anyway. It’s a warm vanilla milkshake and hence The Worst and you don’t really want the calories anyway, do you?
P.S.- Don’t EVEN get me started here.
Stephen often teases me about being a brat. Which I admit to and I tease him back. Because he’s one, too. That being said, I’d like to offer up a confession of yet one more facet by which I am a complete and utter Brat.
So last night officially marked the grand finale to my career as a Barista for Starbucks Coffee Company, and this morning, my first full week of being a one job kind of lady.
I feel that there are a lot of odds and ends that go along with this sort of responsibility of being a working woman in a quasi-professional office. Certain expectations to uphold and others to ignore. One of these expectations that I made a brief effort of adhering to this morning was the concept of community coffee. You know exactly what I’m talking about and that is the morning tradition in any workplace to hover around the coffee pot, making small talk while waiting for the pot to reach a point where it is acceptable to pour yourself a cup of sweet morning addiction and then head off to your desk to play on Wikipedia. The past few mornings I’ve worked here, I’ve foregone the community coffee as I have had time to share a french press of Kopelani with Stephen Chase. However, this morning my selfish need for shut eye kept me in bed longer than I should have been and a fresh press was just not in the cards. “That’s fine,” I figured, “I’m goin’ native,” and I picked up my coffee mug and toted it into the break room like I was one of them and had been doing it for years.
The aroma wasn’t as inviting as I like, but I didn’t think much of it and poured myself a heaping helping while discussing weekends with a woman whose name I have yet to master. Upon returning to my desk I took a long sip of the contents of my mug and didn’t know how to react.
You see, when you are a Wee Barista and attend Starby’s School, they make you try one of the “Other Brands” to see how it in no way compares to the “gold standard” that Howard Schultz has created. Dirt, coffee flavored water, bitter, bland. These are just some of the varieties of slander that they encourage you to present at this tasting. And yes, they’re true, but my skeptic brain thinks that they must have done something to it. Like nuke it, or re-brew last weeks grinds, or whatever. There’s no way anything can taste that awful. There’s just no way. Well, as it happens, I’ve been spoiled rotten by Starbucks Coffee, even if they *do* over-roast their beans (I agree, they do). But it doesn’t matter. I’ll take burnt, over-roasted Fair Trade Blend (a blend that Starbucks no longer sells in their retail stores and for DAMN good reason. It very well may have been The Most Disgusting Starbucks Coffee to ever be roasted and sold under the sun.) over Folgers any damn day of the week. If this was the only coffee I knew to be in existence in the world, I promise you that I would wish never to wake up as it would be The Worst Part of doing so.
You sit on a throne of lies.
So, thanks, Starbucks. Your coffee may not be the best, but it’s damn better than this crap and right now, I’d do just about anything for a “Fresh every ’30’minutes” Pike’s Place.
I think I’m going to officially come out as being a coffee snob and start bringing my mini-press (courtesy of Bride-to-Be Kellie Davis!) and some Kopelani (Addicted.). Don’t hate.
6/14/2008
Quickly, quickly…
But I wanted to say hi from the desk of my new job at the library 🙂
Stay Tuned, Gumshoes.
6/2008
6/2008
6/2008
SeaBabble, Part II 