No worries, Nora. I'm starting to think that it really a much larger issue, now that is real for me, than I was aware of.

All the urban Buffistas are probably going "Dude, check out a calendar!" right now. "This thing is not new!"

I've been pretty much cranky for 2 weeks now.

Maybe you should be using those coffee coupons more, huh?

I'm addicted to chai, which seems to be easily gotten from Starbucks, but I'm exploring other options. However, when flying, it's a small steamed whole milk with half a shot of vanilla before I get on the plane.

That's true about Europe. I realized that in The Netherlands (which I know best since Bro lives there) other countries are like states here in distance, so one sees trucks on the highway from Italy and Belgium and France, rather than Oregon and Vermont, etc. Amd they DO do that in stores.

However, there is always a weird internal judgmentalism we don't get to see. My SiL is Dutch and apparently people from Friesland are considered yokels to the rest of Holland. A Frieslander would get funny looks in an upscale store in Amsterdam, because they would be assumed to be too broke to shop there.

However, when flying, it's a small steamed whole milk with half a shot of vanilla before I get on the plane.

If I hope to sleep, my preferred pre boarding beverage is a double shot vodka tonic.

silly people, the only thing you drink while flying is water.

Maybe you should be using those coffee coupons more, huh?

Then I could be a jittery cranky person and let out a shriek every time someone knocked on the door and then yell at them for startling me! (caffiene makes me very, very jumpy, but not any more alert.)

But my new stress telescope is making me happy. I keep throwing it at the wall, the door, my officemate....

silly people, the only thing you drink while flying is water.

that's usually what I drink once I'm in the plane, but a pre-flight cocktail is very soothing and sleepy making. Just one double shot though.

I have mixed feelings about Starbucks. On the bad side, I've always figured it lessens the market for old-fashioned, funky independent coffee houses, kind of like the Walmart of the coffee world, though recently I read something that suggested that's not the case--that they serve slightly different markets, and that business often improves for indepedent places once a Starbucks enters the neighborhood. And Starbucks needs to improve its product offerings--what kind of coffee house doesn't offer Italian soda, I ask you? And the one I go to every week needs to bring back those yummy cupcakes they had before Christmas, because as it stands their chocolate offerings suck.

As the above makes obvious, I'm far from a Starbucks avoider. My writers group meets weekly in one, and, you know, it's a nice place for it. Which is the main thing I like about them--they're great all-purpose public lounges/meeting spaces, and essentially free, though I'd feel guilty about using their space without buying at least a little something. And as corporate citizens go, they're pretty good, treating their employees well and all that.

I knew I'd turned into a Seattlista instead of a Philly girl in exile when I started feeling proprietary pride in Starbucks and Costco and, while I don't love Microsoft, allowing that the Gates Foundation spends its money well.

A Frieslander would get funny looks in an upscale store in Amsterdam...

Yeah. Social class is really alive and kicking in Europe. Not that it is dead in the States. The cues are just different.

THere's a gas station across the street from where I work that might have coffee.

I live on the edge of the Upper Magazine Coffee District, though. Onne block from my house, there's a PJ's, 5 blocks away is a CC's, another block down is another PJ's and if you keep going you pass Whole Foods (which has a nice coffee bar), the Luna Cafe and finally you reach Starbucks. We were pretty surprised when Starbucks moved in, I didn't think anyone would go there rather than one of the local places, but it's still open so I guess I was wrong.

The Lower Magazine Coffee District has all that plus a Rue de la Course.

I don't have a pre-boarding beverage of choice. Besides guzzling a bunch of water because flying dries me out.