Looking up. . .

Although these are not exactly my triumphs, I am still excited that progress is being made SOMEWHERE and this gives me a reason to think optimism is warranted and is making a difference.

1. a friend recently found a roommate after not having one for months and suffering financially because of it.
2. a friend just got accepted into a very cool writing workshop.
3. a friend's art that had been displayed at work got noticed and could potentially make him some bank.
4. our neighbors gave us a free, decent TV.
5. the weather was nice this weekend.


Work has been difficult and long lately, but I am really just grateful for the hours. The good thing about being on my feet for 7 hours at a stretch is that it forces me to eat properly and drink enough water, which I never do when I'm here at home. And I get some moderate exercise.

Work

Laura Innes happened to come into Starbucks tonight (otherwise known as Dr. Weaver from ER). It was very exciting, especially since I very much love the show. . . I was hoping to write something non-threatening and non-attention bringing like, "WE LOVE LAURA INNES" or "LAURA INNES ROCKS" on her cup when she ordered but dammit all, she got a zen tea in a porcelain. She was very nice, very friendly, and extremely thin and petite! They always look so much bigger on camera!

The one thing that has stayed with me through the years was the episode where Romano takes over the ER and the staff actually wants Weaver back so Romano will leave, and when she comes down to check on things someone hides her crutch (so she can't leave). WHICH ONE OF YOU WISE-ASSES STOLE MY CRUTCH?

In other news, the jackass who barked the medium coffee in a double cup order came in again, this time sans awkward racial ramblings on his phone, come to think of it, no phone whatsoever. Which was nice. I was trying to have a conversation with a regular customer that I hadn't seen in a while and so I just thrust his coffee refill at him quickly just to get rid of him and LOW AND BEHOLD, he let me keep the change from his dollar (after the 54cent refill.) Still doesn't excuse his rudeness and social inappropriateness from before. . .

Opposing ends of humanity

Guy who comes in to starbucks, blabbing on his phone, says nothing to me when I greet him but instead just barks MEDIUM COFFEE IN A DOUBLE CUP and then goes back to his convo. As if to confirm this guy is a total douche, the conversation he was having involved doing an racist imitation of some immigrant (I'm guessing, as the accent he was trying to fake has yet to be identified) trying to order something at a restaurant.

Guy was at least 65. Super disgusting and inappropriate.

TIP TO MAINTAIN HUMANITY IN A SUPER SMALL AND EASY WAY: do not speak on your phone when you are ordering a drink at starbucks. Just don't do it. The message you send is that the person (OFTEN ME and the people I work with, so MY FRIENDS) you are ordering from is not worth ending or postponing a call/common courtesy. Ditto this if you are with your child. Your child sees what you are doing and then when your child is 14, they will do the same thing and neglect manners in the same exact way. Your rudeness carries on to the next generation. No wonder the whole world is rude. GET OFF YOUR FUCKING PHONE.



Also:

A cute little family, mom, dad, and daughter (who was probably about 8 or 9) coming in, ordering drinks, sitting at a table and playing cards with each other. I thought this was so lovely and refreshing I about bawled. I'm so happy they came in; people like this give me hope. No ipods, no laptops, NO FUCKING CELL PHONES, just a deck of cards. I love it.

A Day in the Life of the Privledged. . .

Chick with about 4 different COACH accessories, also accessory INFANT getting her large, vegan-ish looking KEVIN SMITH husband (yes, this combination was very odd for me to process, too) insisting that he get someone over to WIPE CRUMBS OFF THE TABLE so that they could sit down. Guess what? The condiment bar comes equipped with napkins! And had the previous table sitter not been JUST LIKE YOU (oblivious and disrespectful) they may have had their messy children, I don't know, CLEAN UP AFTER THEMSELVES!


You would NEVER know there is a recession going on at Starbucks. People buy $5 drinks left and right, sometimes multiple times per day. People load their cards with HUNDREDS of dollars. Then, when I got home and started thumbing through the New York Times (that I lifted from work) I came across the Sunday Style section. Gucci bag for the bargain price of $1989. People live like this?

Literary Bluntness

Tonight another freak stayed on until close at Starbucks. Not a drunk, this time, but some sort of schizophrenic who seemed hostile toward us. He didn't make any aggressive motions or threaten us but just stood outside by the mailbox for a half hour, staring in the window at us and mumbling to himself. After we walked out to the car from the side door he moved around as if to follow us and it was upsetting. And all the way on the drive home I cursed the way he made me feel unsafe and paranoid and judgemental, wondering if I shouldn't move us all home to Olivia or some gated community where everyone has to "apply" to live and interact and where I wouldn't encounter situations like these.

He then took the form of the hitch-hiker on The Twilight Zone, showing up at every corner, beating me to the next block or peering at me from the back seat with his creepy sunglasses on. Or a ridiculously fast running fiend like the Terminator made of liquid metal who could run as fast as a driving car. He became every villain I've ever known, Norman Bates standing above my bed when I was eight, Jason's mother stalking the camp counsellors, Mrs. Danvers in the burning house, Regan backbending down the stairs like a crab; someone whose mission it was to chase me down and get me. He was everywhere and everything horrible.

And I thought of what I would do if he followed me home or if I saw him on the street during day light hours with my kids, or some other alarming situation but then I remembered that the moment anyone questionable takes one step toward my family I become Beatrix Kiddo.

So, what to do about this? I don't like giving people power over my well being. Maybe I can just offer him the largest possible java chip frappucino JUST to stay the fuck away from me. But he'll be in, wanting more, to be sure. No one can stop at just one java chip frappucino. Today it's a frappucino, tomorrow it'll be a sirena espresso machine and a hander at knifepoint.

Some days. . . .

It pains me to complain (no it doesn't) but some days I really wonder what the hell I'm doing.
Working at a place for $8.74 an hour that will not guarantee me any sort of regular schedule or even **begin** to give
me any sort of priority when it comes to holidays and family sickness. . . . JUST so we can have health coverage.

The tradeoff is of course, being insured, having disability insurance, having a 401k and stock options (that are unfortunately both in the CRAPPER) free coffee, and little to no stress from the job itself.

I miss out on a lot. It's annoying.

And what's more annoying is that a national healthcare program would alleviate my need to go outside the home to find employment and leave me with tons more time to do the things I would love to do for a living (sell stuff on etsy, teach piano or violin, teach childbirth education classes, be a doula, and of course write). I'm not complaining about having to work, I really need to be able to, for myself and the family, but sometimes I feel as though I'm trapped in this ridiculous (often dramatic) retail workplace dead-end.

Many days I feel like giving UPS a call (weekends and holidays off).

If I don't get Thanksgiving off I am going to literally set fire to something. Like a starbucks cup.

did i mention. . .

that while very illuminating and beautiful to look at, i really am beginning to loathe full moons?

the chaos around here is 10 times its normal level. the only thing semi-holding things together is that bubby, in effort to secure himself a rubber snake and rubber shark from the rainforest cafe, has been really trying to be good, so his role in this is for once, minimal.

zizzy has 20030404303 fits per day about clothing, changing her outfits, and not being able to get into them properly. SCREAMING fits. she gets super mad and wants my help but doesn't want my help and then gets madder at the fact that she knows that she NEEDS my help. all her clothes are now taken out of her drawers and on hangers. the rest of the clean laundry that i had folded and sorted in a laundry basket is on the top shelf of her closet. i am not dealing with it anymore.


beebins. has not slept in approximately 3 days. the tooth has finally started to ridge out onto her gum line but the thing is, she is not just teething/tired/crazy, she has become the master sleep fighter. kicking and flailing and writhing around like a goddamned SNAKE. i thought the constant sleep interruptions were actually going unnoticed (in and by me) but right after lunch today i had a trademark SPAZ over something small (the telltale sign i have not had enough sleep or am just really really hungry) and i realized that THIS FUCKING SUCKS. she's getting the tylonal tonight, for sure. ugh.

zizzy got all of her teeth without so much as a peep. but this is also the child that slept through the night at 2 months, weaned herself a 8 months, ate every morsel of anything ever put in front of her and basically smiled her way through baby-hood. Oh and spoke in sentences at 13 months too, so if she ever did get upset about something, she told us IN WORDS what she was pissed about.

onto the more interesting items (not really). . .

1. dreamed about joey from work again 2 nights ago. this is getting a little. . . weird. again, not a sexual dream, but the implications of what happened in it are. . . disturbing. we were working at starbucks, i was the shift and he was the barista. then soon, MATT (my husband) comes in and HE's the shift and he's coming in to relieve me and he is going to close the store. so i'm leaving him this massive list of things that need to get done and pretty soon i realize that joey is leaving too, with me. as in, we're leaving together. i don't know if i'm giving him a ride, or if he's coming with me for some other reason or what, but the real issue is that I'm leaving work, leaving all my responsibility on matt, and i'm leaving with some dude. weird.

2. last night, i dreamed about lee gemlich (old manager from northwest that i though was hot). the dream also was not sexual or inappropriate, as far as my dreams normally go, but very random and strange. i was in some sort of detention at the U of M, for something, i don't know what. i think i was supposed to be a grad student. but a group of us were being interrogated for something and some creepy Mrs. Danvers lady was leading the questioning. I was getting mouthy and she was not impressed. soon i see from up in some little observation booth, lee gemlich is up there watching this whole thing. i saw him and wondered what he was doing there, like did he become a professor or something? then he came down because i guess he was the main guy in charge, and he had to get involved. i noticed he was wearing a red coat and goddamned riding boots or something (which now that i think about it, would make sense because he does bear resemblance to the actor jason isaacs who has played the main bad guy in the mel gibson film THE PATRIOT in which he would deffo have had on a red coat and riding boots. . . he is also the actor that plays LUCIUS MALFOY, who i also find intensely hot) and soon HE'S the one questioning me. but when he came down i had to sit down on this weird bar stool and face away from him while he paced around me in circles. the only awkward part of this whole thing was when i suddenly realized he was touching my back, as if to give me a back rub or something.

which, in my hierarchy of wants and needs right now, would rank WAY above sex.

Somewhere in the world there are actual problems. . .

But in the meantime, here are the Starbucks patrons' issues.

1. some ESL dude and his "property" stood at the register and scrutinized the receipt of their FOUR VENTI STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM FRAPPUCINOS (which, after the cinnamon dolce and java chip are the highest priced items on the menu) and asked if we were certain that there was tax on a frappucino. Um, yes we are, and yes there is. Are you even in your right mind to contemplate that STARBUCKS wouldn't pay taxes? That the government isn't on top of that action? Please. 3.45 = $3.78 with tax. FOUR TIMES.
You were okay with paying $3.45 but when it crossed the line to $3.78, suddenly it seemed like it was maybe too steep?
Then as I plop them all up onto the counter asks me ARE YOU GOING OUT OF BUSINESS?!?!?! i said, this store specifically or starbucks in general? STARBUCKS IN GENERAL. ??!?!?!?????!???!??!


2. Pregnant granola south minneapolis chick comes in for her decaf espresso pods and sees that they all expire on august 31. a box of pods holds 12. has a scowling bit of attitude about it all and stomps out. if you have a box of pods that will be sitting around until august 31 then you are not a real coffee drinker anyway and clearly if you're drinking decaf you don't require any sort of quality whatsoever so who cares when it expires?

3. 4 year old child having a screaming fit because he could not have a hot chocolate. . . .OH WAIT. that was MY child. Then refused to walk across the street with leah and continued the fit out on the sidewalk but at least out of earshot and away from my coworkers. how embarassing.

So, full moon then?

Something is going on around here. I am actually HOPING it's a full moon because if my kids are acting like this on their own free will and nothing else we have serious trouble. my GAWD.

I know that Bubby dropping his nap completely most days and now going to bed on his own has made for a turbulent transition phase but it's beginning to get ridiculous the way his behavior pretty much turns into the worst ever come 4pm every day. I keep telling myself to be patient and each time something random and ridiculous happens I say to myself IT'S THE SLEEP, IT"S THE SLEEP, HE CAN"T HELP IT, IT'S THE SLEEP. IT WILL GET BETTER. . . (hopefully). but still, there are only so many screaming tantrums ON THE FRONT LAWN IN FULL EARSHOT OF PRETTY MUCH ANYONE ON THE EAST SIDE OF LYNDALE AVENUE that I can handle.

also. I left the lawn chair cushions outside in the massive thunderstorm last night as well as THE DIGITAL CAMERA.
nice work.

I am feeling very crampy and full of PMS which again, I am not used to, have no patience for, and really despise.

Tips at work have been horrid, the idea was proposed last night it may be because of a certain newly hired employee. I don't have any time for that, either. I have come to rely on a good weekly $70 and it's getting less and less each Monday that comes around. Sometimes I wonder if there would be any market for teaching a personality class, or HOW TO BE TACTFULLY SOCIAL WITHOUT BEING ANNOYING 101. . . I mean, I realize that I am decades older than most of the people I work with, but I don't think that simple people skills are things that you should have to wait to possess until after the 20s, SAY HELLO, GET THE DRINK ORDER, TAKE THE MONEY, TELL THE DRINK MAKER. WISH THEM A NICE DAY AND MOVE ONTO THE NEXT ONE. TRY TO SMILE AND/OR MAKE EYE CONTACT. IF THEY ASK YOU A QUESTION, ANSWER IT QUICKLY AND CORRECTLY. IF THERE IS A LINE GOING OUT THE DOOR, SLAM A RED BULL AND MOVE THOSE FUCKERS ALONG.

I have the hell weekend in front of me, close tonight, 7am tomorrow and 8am on sunday. The man upstairs probably won't be happy that I still haven't made it down to annunciation to give him, mary, and jesus christ a shout-out but apparently, people on the weekends need their half-caf grande inside a venti nonfat 172 degree no foam 2 and 1/4 splenda lattes. i don't think this is right either, but the family needs health insurance. So until Obama and Clinton set us up with a national healthcare plan, I remain.

Banned

The kids are banned from Starbucks for probably a good couple of weeks.
Mia had a complete LOUIE over the lemonade not being shared today while I was picking up my MEAGER tips. . . Quentin completely and totally instigated this and egged her on the whole time so really I was madder at him than at her.

ugh.

Complaints: Third Floor

yes. well, I wish I had a more positive blog for the weekend but I'm feeling very foul (wretched, as cher in clueless would say).

a. working during the mornings on the weekends has its good points but i am starting to get "the bitchiness." contempt for the coffee (latte, cappucino, frappucino) drinking public is starting to seep into me. when i am at the bar during a morning rush and i hear a ridiculous drink (in my book, ANYTHING with a customizer or modifier) (which will account for approximately 80% of all drinks made) I automatically get irritated and really just want to wad up the paper cup with the annoying drink written on it, crush it into a ball and WHIP IT TO THE CURB.

I GOT YOUR 2 SHOTS REGULAR 1 SHOT DECAF 2and 1/2 PUMP OF VANILLA HALF SOY HALF NONFAT LIGHT FOAM ONE-HUNDRED AND FORTY DEGREE LATTE **RIGHT HERE**.


b. father's day: i go out of my way to get some requested trout at kowalski's, decided that by itself is not enough, throw in a $30 starbucks gift card, and try to stomach the mushy piece of fish i got and then want to throw everything to the curb (literally) after a ridiculous jessica alba comment.

now that i think about it, i'm sure beatrix kiddo (were she real) would never worry about being upstaged by younger, thinner, prettier girls. you know why? because BEING BEATRIX KIDDO IS ENOUGH. end of that.

Sunday events

1. I worked for 3.5 hours this morning. I planned on finishing at 1030 and then leaving to go to church at annunciation, which is across the street from Starbucks. ONCE AGAIN I chickened out and ditched. I just think I really need someone to go with me the first time. I have no clue what to do, nor do I know anyone who goes there save for my former boss from Northwest Airlines, MICHAEL, who ironically was the one whose name was on the termination notice fed-exed to my house 2 weeks after I quit going there. And I'm guessing that if I was going to run into anyone there, it would be him, being as I see him every time there is an Annunciation Community Event AND going into Kowalski's with his kids yesterday. One day I am going to have to face him and probably say things; I am wondering if it will be as uncomfortable for him? At least he was nice to me while I was there.

now for a bit of venting. i'm not **that** uptight about what is about to follow, but sometimes it gets old. i do very much love my job and i'm very happy to have it. HOWEVER:

2. I have a great new idea for Starbucks. Well, MY Starbucks, anyway. It's called, "THE MODIFIER ON THE CUP IS BROKEN" game. Here's how it works: Starbucks has 4 hot sizes. Short (8oz), Tall (12oz), Grande (16oz), and Venti (20oz). 3 iced sizes. tall (12 oz), grande (16oz), and venti (24 oz). There are several drink options to choose from. Brewed Coffee, Mistos (au laits), Lattes, Cappucinos, Americanos, Mochas, White Mochas, Caramel Macchiatos, Espresso Macchiatos, Frappucinos, Syrup Flavors, shots of espressos, and teas. You can have 2% milk, skim milk, whole milk, soy milk, or half and half in your drinks. Before ordering at my starbucks, customers have to sign off that they have read my Starbucks manifesto:

1. brewed coffee is filled to 1/4 inch from top. if you request room for cream it goes up to 1/2 inch from top. i am not giving you any more or less room than that. if you ask me for a bigger cup (such as ordering a tall size coffee in a venti cup so as to DROWN it in cream, you are not really a coffee drinker you are a dairy masquerade-er. GROSS.) YOU GET NOTHING. if you ask me for ice cubes YOU GET NOTHING.


2. Lattes are made by putting in the espresso shots, then steamed milk, then 1/4 inch of FOAM. do not say "FROTH" in my presence. If you say the word "FROTH" i will throw a milk pitcher at your face. You may not specifiy "no foam" because the latte COMES with foam. It is how a latte is made. If you don't like foam, YOU DON"T LIKE LATTES. Do not specify the degree of milk temperature. All milk temperatures are steamed to 160 degrees. Nothing more, nothing less, unless you are getting a mocha or white mocha where the milk is steamed to 170. If you like extra or not-so-hot, YOU DON"T LIKE LATTES. Do not specify any different number of syrup pumps when you are ordering a flavored latte. 2 for short, 3 for tall, 4 for grande, and 5 for venti. (6 for iced venti). If you want more or less then YOU DON"T LIKE FLAVORED LATTES. Also. If you specify 1/2 pumps of syrup (even though you are not allowed to specify ANYHING OTHER THAN THE NORM) you're getting the milk pitcher thrown at you, again. If you even think of asking milk options to be mixed, you will get the milk mixed, IN THE PITCHER, WHEN I THROW IT AT YOUR FACE. Mochas come with whipped cream. White mochas come with whipped cream. Frappucinos come with whipped cream. If you tell me "no whipped cream," guess what? YOU GET NOTHING (and the whipped cream cannister guess where?)

3. Do not ever EVER try to pay with anything larger than a twenty dollar bill. If I see anyone come in (before noon) with a $50 or a $100 bill I will rip it to shreds, put it in a milk pitcher and throw it in your face.


HAVE A GREAT DAY!!!!!

On Second Thought. . .

A little over a year back, I wrote a bit about Olivia and really seriously wanting to move home because I basically had no sense of home, belonging, or community here in Minneapolis. Much in our lives has changed since I wrote that rant, but today I completely reevaluated my position on that, mostly due to my morning shift at Starbucks.
There IS a sense of community here, I just never saw it until this year. The morning crew and crowd at Starbucks are an amazing group of people. They come totally just to hang out with each other, drink coffee, and gab. I've only been working mornings on the weekends for a month or so, but already many of the them know my name and a little bit about me. I guess it makes sense that I missed Olivia the way I did for so long when I consider that this vibe was completely absent when I worked in the Edina Starbucks.

I feel good about this. I still miss Olivia sometimes but this somehow feels right for me, now.