A little coffee with your drink

Welcome to Seattle where everyone, including their mother, loves coffee! My office building has three Starbucks, and there's always a line in any one of them no matter what time of day. This morning I really needed a caffeine fix so off I go to guess which Starbucks is the least crowded. Boy did I guess wrong! There were people ahead of me picking up coffee for their office -- Grande Vanilla Latte, Grande Chai Latte, Grande Latte with no foam and extra hot, Pomegranate Fruit Drink, etc... Not a single drip coffee or Americano in the bunch. It reminded me of the scene in L.A. Story when everyone at the restaurant ordered espresso but with something a little different from everyone else. I know anyone who's ever stood in line at Starbucks, Tully’s, Peets, {insert any corporate coffee monger}, you've already heard what you may think is the most pretentious coffee drink ever. After the 15th drink, I thought I was going to have a cow but luckily they exclaimed that they were done. They left Starbucks joking that they should bring a marker next time to put names on the drinks. Snarky assholes! They didn't even have apologized for making everyone wait for their coffee.

I love coffee like everyone else but I think people are getting out of hand with ordering specific coffee drinks. Starbucks is enabling people to become coffee assholes.

overheard at delaurenti's deli counter today

tourist wearing Buffalo Bills polo shirt, eyeing deli meat counter: Excuse me, do you have any blah-blah-blah (I didn't catch what he said) ham?

DeLaurenti's deli counter guy, blankly: No, what's that?

Bills fan: Wild Boar from Sicily or Corsica

Deli guy, even more blankly: no

Bills fan has nothing further to add to this, looks down & walks away.

Not sure why I even remember this kind of stuff or why it strikes me as funny, but I do and it does. I have my doubts the guy would have bought any, and that he was just trying to show off his advanced level of ham-sophistication, though he apparently forgot that kind of ham is illegal to import to the US.

I learned that when I was in Spain. See--I'm pretty ham-phisticated too! or maybe just ham-fisted? ham handed?

Next topic: here's another way ze Germans are celebrating the World Cup. First wild bear seen in Germany in 170+ years - QUICK - KILL IT!

Can there be anything cuter?

Jim and I had the pleasure to have Bonzo stay with us for the weekend. We stopped by Kris's house while on a walk. Bonzo just got groomed and Kris couldn't resist taking a few pics.

Record Breaking Ball

Who knew there was a world record for largest ball of rubber bands? There's a guy in Medford, Oregon who's hoping to break the current record holder, a 3,120 pound, 5 foot tall rubber band ball. Check out his MySpace page to donate to his cause. The ball is up to 563 pounds.

If you didn't know, I have my own rubber band ball which I started years ago. It's been so long (plus I'm bad with dates) that I don't remember when I started it. Check back later to see the size of my ball. It's no where near 3 foot tall but it does have a mean bounce and will leave a bruise if it's thrown at you.

Final TCB Vocab

I finished the Inner Circle almost 2 weeks ago but have been lax at blogging lately

Here are the final 2 words I learned from it (he used them in the same sentence):

senescence n

1. the organic process of growing older and showing the effects of increasing age [syn: aging, ageing]

2. the property characteristic of old age [syn: agedness]

climacteric n.

1. A period of life characterized by physiological and psychic change that marks the end of the reproductive capacity of women and terminates with the completion of menopause.
2. A corresponding period sometimes occurring in men that may be marked by a reduction in sexual activity, although fertility is retained.

Kitty-Cam

Here's a link to a National Geographic video short about cats and mice. They strap a camera onto a kitty, and set it out to go hunting mice. Spoiler alert -- don't read this if you don't want to know the outcome! Cat 1; Mouse 0.

I'm squeamish so it's pretty disturbing (though educational) for me.

Irene's Reading List for May

Saturday by Ian McEwan
Death of an Ordinary Man by Glen Duncan
Wicked, The Life and Times of the Wicked of the West by Gregory Maguire
Veronica by Mary Gaitskill
No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

Carl Everett update

Everett a model citizen in Seattle -- so far

My favorite quote from the article: "I haven't had problems anywhere -- except Boston," Everett said. "Really didn't have problems there. They had problems with me."

Not to sound too much like a HS yearbook quote or anything here, but...as Eddie Vedder sang on Riot Act's Cropduster:

I was the fool because I thought
I thought the world
Turns out the world thought me

It's about a guy realizing he's the one who's 'off', not the rest of the planet

the point here? I have no idea. I've always liked that lyric & Carl's quote made me think of it