The Big Promise!

Things are finally starting to go my way at Starbucks! Last week, Buckys closed up shop one evening to retrain the staff. I guess competition is heating up in the coffee market and people are going elsewhere for a cheaper, hotter latte.

The new "promise" is ... Your drink should be perfect, every time. If not, let us know and we’ll make it right.

Well, you know I'll be taking advantage of that. I know I have a custom drink order, but it's not that difficult. Grande, soy, chai latte, no water, no foam, 200 degrees, and filled to the top. It's very specific, and I'll let them slide on the foam, I just want the drink hot and filled up. I hate it when they leave like 2 inches of space cause of the foam. Most of the time I get a hassle over the temperature. It's not dairy, it won't curdle. Heat that soy up!!!!

Anyway, I'm very happy about the new customer friendly attitude. In fact, I got an apology the day after the training. A new barista at my local apologized for giving me attitude about not wanting to make the devil's hot latte.

It was nice to be acknowledged and the free drink coupon didn't hurt either!

My Amber Alert

Time is of the essence and my folks are on it.

Yesterday I had to go out on an assignment after lunch. So, I drive home and then have a coworker pick me up so we could go shoot some photos. Well, my folks decide to pull a pop-in on me ... I guess they expected me to be home since they saw my car in the driveway. They come into the house, the dogs are barking, they call out for me, no answer. Then they check the garage and see the scooter there, they think they see my handbag on the dining room table, and then the wheels in their senior-moment heads start spinning.

Where's kim, where's kim?

They call my cell phone a couple of times and no answer. Now they're really freaking out, they go outside to see if I'm face down in the pool, they check the bushes around the house ... they decide I must have been abducted.

Good thing they decide to call my cell one last time, AND I actually hear the ring and pick up. They were quite relieved to hear my voice, cause the next number they were dialing was 911. For real.

Why would they think of abduction first!!! They never even thought (1) call kreg at work, (2) maybe she went out with a friend, (3) maybe she walked some place (4) anything other than abduction! They're nuts!!!

See, the pieces of the puzzle are coming together.

a haiku for hellga

with your thunder thighs
you destroy your opponents
fierce viking hellga

we got one!!!!!

we've been having raccoon problems. big problems, like the coons using the pool and hot tub for their own private poopoo parties. it's friggin disgusting. how many times can i super-chlorinate the pool. i don't want to catch some kind of raccoon poo disease. we tried to deter them from going near the pool by putting up the baby gate. that didn't work... they just slip underneath it. so we've had to resort to trapping them. well, after catching our cat twice, we finally got ONE. i was really happy that the trap worked and that the raccoon will be relocated to a less suburban area (well, that's what the pest guy said). anyway, i'm feeling kinda guilty cause when i went to take the picture of the raccoon i could see he was pretty freaked out. i just hope he likes his new home and i hope his family joins him too!

super soup!

i'll write more later about my awesome veggie tom yum soup.

LOST

I just saw the preview for LOST season 4 ... AND I can't wait!!!!

Get this widget!

Down the drain

I don't know what's worse septic problems or plumbing problems? Both suck. I'm leaning toward the latter at the moment, since i just had black pipe slime covering my face!

vegan mac-n-cheese

i love mac-n-cheese and i make a pretty good vegan version. i wanted to try my recipe in a gratin dish and it came out awesome! to make this mac-n-cheese extra delish, i opted for a quattro fromage and added a fresh bread crumb crust, topped off with a sprinkling of paprika! mmm, so good. it made quite a nice friday night supper, plus it was just the right texture considering i had dental work earlier in the day.

well, the mac-n-cheese lovefest came to an end pretty quickly.

the next day, while enjoying my mac-n-cheese leftovers, my freakin temp filling pops out!!! right in the middle of a scrumptiously cheesy bite. the dentist instructed me to eat soft foods. i stuck to the plan, got screwed and couldn't even finish my mac-n-cheese.

drink, drank, drunk

two holiday parties, four beers later.

nuff said.

Enter the dragon!

my tofu has the worst breath today. we couldn't quite figure out what it was ... kreg thought "turnips" but then it dawned on me ... tofu was eating roasted garlic earlier in the day. (ok, it was me, i gave it to him.) and boy, did he have the worst garlic breath ever!!!

"einstein" bagels, not so much.

i brought back a fun-filled treat to my workplace today. yes, bagel day has been reborn.

i thought a bagel might bring a little joy to our downtrodden staff. who doesn't like a bagel, right?

apparently quite a few likey the bagel and quite a few likey the free bagel. the kickoff was a success despite my monetary loss.

things i learned today:
1. bagel shop employees do not separate the everything bagels (and they polluted the whole bag! who wants a garlicky cinnamon raisin!!)
2. some people think we live in canada (had quite a bit of foreign coin in the till)
3. people are messy (way too much cross contamination between the cream cheese and the jelly)
and finally
4. some folks could care less about stiffing their fellow coworkers - it's not a free buffet, losers.

i'll continue with getting the bagels but no more top shelf schmears!!!

about lattes

so what's with the latte in the title of my blog. well, here goes.

is it so hard for my buckys to make me a tall soy chai, no water, no foam, 200 freakin degrees?

apparently it is!

the baristas give me a hard time every time i order (which is at least 3x a week).

they seem to have a problem with the extra, extra hot soy. they claim if you steam it past 180 it curdles or the taste changes. umm, it's not dairy ... so no curdle. and if i like it that way, i must like the taste.

so, please give me my scalding hot latte and let me worry about burning my mouth!

another thing that chaps my ass is the fact that it costs extra to get soy milk and then they don't fill the cup all the way. umm, there's a lid on the cup ... so fill my drink UP! it's not gonna spill.