Month: August 2008

  • Don’t act like you’re not impressed.

    Just in case you’re wondering, it is possible to make an iced cappuccino.

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  • getting around… and around

    I’ve been meaning to post for a while now, but I’ve been too lazy to actually do it. That, or I have been pretty distracted. There are a couple things I want to say before I move on to the real thing I was going to put on here, first, exactly how lame is it that the Xanga Frontpage blocked out the word penis? Um, hello, penis is not a dirty word. Though, maybe it was done for other reasons, such as they could only imagine what sort of google ads would pop up with the word penis on the page. That would be entertainment. Now I’m really sorry that they decided to star out the word. But seriously, are we a community of 12-year old girls that giggle uncontrollably at the mention of genitalia?

    The other thing is this link: YAWNS. It’s a story about modest millionaires in their 20s and 30s. It’s really inspiring and refreshing, it’s an attitude that has not been embraced or exulted recently.

    Now, on to the main event. Last week I was feeling a little beaten down so I decided to indulge in some good ole fashion coloring with my two-year old and here are the results.

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    This first one is me helping a customer that wants to order a “triple-venti half-caff soy sugar-free vanilla extra caramel macchiato” and I kindly tell her, “That will be $900 please, unless you’d like a pastry?”

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    This is my boss yelling at me. I won’t write out everything it says but basically she yells at me for everything and then precedes to do it herself and if we’re working together, she will always kick me off the espresso bar. Uh, hello I think I know how to make a damn latte.

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    That day I had a horrible headache (probably caffeine withdrawals) and this was how I thought the inside of my head looked.

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    I didn’t actually color this one that day, but I like it because my daughter has these crayons that are Crayola True to Life, so there are like three colors in one crayon and I love to draw with them.

    Sometimes, it’s just nice to experience life simply, like a toddler. It’s so good to be a kid but you don’t realize it until you’re way too old. And now I’m pissed off that the spell checker doesn’t recognize the word penis. What kind of world are we living in? What are we supposed to call it? A wee-wee?

  • Dear misspell-ers around the world…

    ALOT is not a word. I do not know what it means, as it is not in a dictionary. If you mean to say that there is a great quantity of something, you would use two words, a lot. Also, wikipedia is not a substitute for learned knowledge.

    Furthermore, I do not understand the rampant use of abbreviations and purposeful misspellings. Please act like you have at least an elementary grasp of the English language.

    Thank you. That is all.

    P.S. Lawl. Iz onlee kddng? Kthxbai.

  • Not only did God command us not to steal, but I’m pretty sure it’s against the law as well.

    Back in Ought-Three, my sister rented a storage unit to store her belongings while she was working/living in India. The rental has remained in her name ever since and our family has used it to store various things along the way. It’s most recent contents were most of my belongings from my dorm room freshman year, a rolltop desk of my sister’s, and various textbooks/notes of my mother’s from her graduate days. We’ve never been very good at remembering to pay the bill on time or even the gate code, so we’ve had numerous lockouts and threats of auctions but we’ve always retained our property.

    Until today.

    My mom took me over to the unit because it had been in lien (yet again). We were going to buy a new lock and get some of the things from my dorm room, especially bedding, because it was all cute and pink and I thought it would look simply smashing in my daughter’s bedroom. We bought a new lock, they took us over to the unit, removed the company locks, I waited while the employee when to get wire cutters to remove the tag, blah blah blah. She opens the garage-style door and nothing. It’s completely empty except for the cut lock that they removed.

    “So, where’s my stuff?”

    About a week ago there was a number of break ins in that complex, all in the same building (mine!) and needless to say, my crap was stolen. The property manager showed me the video from break in while we waited for the cops and there in the back of one of the getaway cars was my sister’s rolltop desk. Of course we didn’t have any insurance to cover it. What really stings is that it wasn’t valuable stuff, not monetarily speaking anyway. This isn’t the first time that we’ve had something stolen from us and it just sucks. It makes you feel violated and vulnerable all in the worst way. I’m not worried about being compensated or anything like that and I realized that in the grand scheme of things, it was low on the radar of bad situations but why me? We got back to Phoenix very early in May and since then I have wanted to go get stuff from the unit. I didn’t have a gate-key and my name wasn’t on the lease so I was waiting for my sister to take me over there and she had no intention of going. I just feel stupid. I will never understand why people commit crimes. What drives a person to do something so depraved?

  • A quick but no less bitter diatribe.

    Let’s preface this with the fact that I work in a Safeway Starbucks. If you’re not familiar, we have to pay for our drinks, but the money we spend goes toward Safeway Fuel Rewards, after you spend so much ($100), you get a $.10 discount off every gallon of gas on your next fill-up (at a Safeway Filling Station, of course).

    I worked this morning, it wasn’t overly busy but definitely steady. No time to just sit on my haunches. After work, my daughter and I checked out the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile that was parked outside, got our picture taken and of course, a wiener whistle. I wanted to run a few errands and I wanted to be quick about it since my daughter really needed a nap. So, what errands did I need to run? Well, I earned a fuel reward and I needed gas so I decided to go to the nearest Safeway Gas Station, which is not my store but a few miles away. So, I go to the pump first. I put in my club card, my credit card and am ready to fill up but notice the pump hasn’t given me my discount. So, I had to get the attendant to fix it for me. Okay, no problem. Then, I needed just a couple items (4 to be exact) from the grocery store, so I ran inside the store, picked up the items (especially buying Safeway-brand because I get a 10% discount, not much but hey, you take what you can get) and then I brought them over to that Safeway Starbucks (to get my Iced Grande 2= Room Americano) and pay for my selections.

    Holy crap, you’d have thought that I ordered 27 drinks and had at least 50 items to ring up. The barista was alone (hey, the store was empty) and didn’t seem to be very uh, on top of things. I wanted to wring his neck, or maybe just shove him aside, grind my own beans (side note, I bought a pound of the Gazebo blend and I absolutely love this stuff! I’m not much of a drip coffee person, but I am learning so very much about it at my new job and I think it’s amazing), ring up my groceries, and make the damned Americano myself. First off, I had to ask him to put ice in the cup before he poured the shots. Uh, that’s the standard for making an iced Americano. If he was new, he shouldn’t have been alone, so there is no excuse for that. He took 2 years to grind the beans, and I’m not talking about the actual grind cycle, he obviously had trouble opening the bag and then as I was putting my groceries into my [REUSABLE!!] bag, he informed me that he hadn’t seen one of the items and therefore hadn’t rung it up.

    Okay, I’m already ticked off at this point. My daughter starts running off toward the balls (plastic, inflated ones you sicko) and I’m trying to keep her in check while simultaneously trying to tell this kid how to do his job without being condescending, paying for the separate purchase (damn you, Red Baron Pizza!), and not losing it right there and then. And to add insult to injury, my 10% discount would not come up. I could have saved $.68 and now what will I do? Finally, we got out of there to run our last errand and finally go back home. We ran over to the Einstein Brother’s Bagels to pick up a half dozen and a sandwich for me, but it was so crowded that I 86-ed the sandwich and got out of there before my hair started to go grey (from stress mind you, not old age).

    So, now I sit here, ever so more calm than before with my cinnamon-sugar bagel and a glass of ice water. You know, in hindsight, I probably didn’t need the Americano and it’s 225 mg of caffeine, nor the trouble it caused me buying my other items at that particular till. Live and learn they say, but I find way too many people not doing the latter, that poor barista for instance… Someone should tell him not to quit his day job. Or, wait, that he SHOULD quit. Just not me, I don’t want the bad karma but especially not the bad espresso shots.