Happy Fall!

Autumn is never a disappointment. I love every aspect of the changing weather and landscape here in the Midwest. I had the opportunity to drive across the great State of Iowa a couple of weekends ago. Along the way, I saw the gently rolling hills and the magnificent colors of the low-lying vegetation. Even without great stands of trees, the colors of Fall are everywhere and are magnificent. I marveled at the contrast and the shades of yellow, bronze, red, gold, green, and brown. In western Iowa, there are miles and miles of giant white windmills.  They are in clusters together. The effect is somewhat eerie, something out of a science fiction story. I kept thinking about a possible plot while I was driving. This blogger has a good photo. I don’t have a good photo because I was driving and loathe to stop with just me and the girls alone in the car. 

I drove across the State of Iowa because I went to visit my best girlfriend and her 2 girls in Omaha, Nebraska. It was a great weekend – she has a lovely new home and I’m so proud of her.

Half of us here are very sick. I stupidly did not go to the doctor quickly enough this week and suffered needlessly. I’m on Day 3 of antibiotics and I feel ever so much better. Today, I am leaving for a week of SAP training in the Atlanta area. I will be gone for five nights, and will not return until late Friday evening. My husband is a saint and he enables us to both have rewarding careers by picking up solo parenting duties effortlessly while I am out of town.

The little girls in our house have very full social calendars. We have birthday parties nearly every weekend. We are also on an indoor soccer league and looking into gymnastics or karate or something else physical for the kids for winter.

Running: I ran when I visited Omaha, and then again 3 miles outside last weekend, felt great. Then, pneumonia. Cannot wait to get back now that my knee feels better. And I have a physical therapy place lined up in my sights for the next time injury comes around.

Crap-tastic news: Unicare is our small business health insurance company. They are leaving Illinois, which puts us back into the health insurance market and which will definitely mean much higher rates for us. This is a real drag. We are guaranteed coverage if we switch to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois – don’t get me wrong, they have excellent coverage and we actually hated to leave them. However, they have EXTRAORDINARILY high rates in comparison to other plans. To the tune of tens upon tens of thousands of dollars a year more for our small group. It’s a game-changer for us. At the end of the day, though, it’s a price to pay if they get us the coverage we need when we need it — but god forbid one of us triggers a recission for something that we inadvertently didn’t disclose. I worry all the time about that.

I’m off to pack and try to squeeze in a few minutes outdoors on this lovely November day in Chicago!

Starbucks Customer Complaint: No Hair of the Dog, Thank You Very Much

Starbucks tries a new drink called, “Hair of the Dog” to try and attact new customers on the weekends!

On Saturday morning, my husband went to the Starbucks here in our town and ordered a coffee for himself and two chocolate milks for the girls (nothing for me because he knows I’m not wasting my calories on lattes, even if they are skim).  In front of him was a car with a dog hanging his head out the window.  The Starbucks barista was petting the dog; the dog was, as my husband put it, molesting this woman’s hand with his tongue.

Moments later, my husband pulled up and found the SAME WOMAN pouring his coffee.

My husband is in foodservice. He KNOWS how long it takes to properly wash one’s hands to prepare them properly for foodservice activities.

This woman, in no way, had enough time to take her hand from the dog’s face and mouth, go to the sink to lather, rinse, and dry, and assume her position to be pouring my husband’s coffee and touching the lids of the chocolate milks for my kids.

My husband insisted that the woman leave the drinks and go to wash her hands, and then to return and make him new drinks.

GET THIS: THE STARBUCKS BARISTA RESISTED.

The Starbucks Barista actually tried to tell my husband that she had washed her hands in between the dog’s tongue and his coffee.  The Starbucks Manager got involved at this point, after my husband insisted that she leave the hair of the dog drinks in his view while she went to go and take the proper hygienic actions and before going to make new drinks.  THE STARBUCKS MANAGER actually tried to back up what the Starbucks Barista was saying. Read that again: There was actually a point in the conversation where the Starbucks Manager was trying to side with the barista over a suspicion of non-handwashing behavior on the part of someone who is responsible for doling out food.

COME ON, STARBUCKS.

If there’s even the slightest question that someone’s hand has been licked repeatedly by a dog, and then that same person is serving food within moments afterwards, how can you even for one minute question a customer who was rightfully disgusted and requested proof of handwashing and clean drinks?

We are so completely grossed out, I can’t even begin to explain it.

I know that we’re always trying the next big thing in consumer marketing and all, but hey, Starbucks! You can keep the “hair and saliva of the dog latte” to yourself.

Clean Sweep and a Pause

The most important thing below is that I shall not vent privately on a public Internet. I’ve always known this, but I tend to get comfy with my blog and do it anyway.  Maybe I will learn my lesson this time.

Everything else is really great about my blog – tracking running, funny parenting moments, links to other cool stuff that is going on.

This is Complicated

I think that I have to curtail or shut down my blog (again).

The reason being, that social networking has exploded, and again, I find myself twisting my creative writing via my blog with too much personal — I am not capable of keeping an anonymous blog.

However, too much that I blog about is super-personal, and now that you can find my linked in and face book profiles really easily online, thanks to the fact that I’m active on both and that I’ve got an online identity as part of some work-based organizations ….

well, I guess I just haven’t been good enough about controlling myself when it comes to posting here. I’ve treated it more in some ways like a private diary rather than the public blog that it is.  I wouldn’t necessarily want potential employers or other folks who don’t know me well, but who are in a position to judge or influence my life, to get to know me here.  Maybe I could go password protected, but that doesn’t stop the RSS feed that has already been published.

I do know that I need to blog about things – for one, I’d like to start a peanut allergy blog.  For another, I do have dreams of starting a non-profit organization to donate funds (to what, I have not narrowed it down from the short list) in honor of my sister.  I think I can do all of these things with my real online identity, rather than this blog that I keep that’s somewhat of a shadow identity.  I do need to get over some of the need to vent personally online – I can do all of this without being a sort-of secret as far as who I am. 

And as for The Baker, and my kids…well, I should keep them out of the public internet anyway.

If you’ve got bright ideas or thoughts on my thoughts, I would appreciate them.  I wrote this off the cuff, trying to get out my thoughts, not entirely sure I articulated myself carefully or completely.