A Kiosk Does Not A Coffee Shop Make

Dear Friends -

I am afraid the Del Rio situation is more dire than I initially feared. You have heard me rant about the lack of my favorite chain establishments. No Target - that was bad. No Starbucks - absolutely devastating, particularly since I have practically lived at Starbucks in San Antonio for the last four months (I have even hit several different Starbucks in a single day, as I try not to make a habit out of eating both breakfast and lunch at the same place). I tried to convince myself that being inundated with Starbucks in San Antonio would be enough to carry me through the upcoming Starbucks drought. And anyway, it is true that Starbucks was not quite as enticing this summer, without its Orange Mocha Frappuccino and all (Mint Mocha Chip Frap instead? Isn't that, like, a Christmas drink? I don't get the summer debut). I told myself that surely there were some good local places. I can adapt.

Last week, I went in search of the local places. It began with a search on my iPhone for WiFi locations, as we did not yet have internet at our house. This was much more difficult than I could have possibly imagined. I managed to find only a couple of places that had it. Aside from the T-Mobile store itself, the list was strictly limited to hotels. What did this mean for me? Squatting at the Ramada for four hours. I felt like a damn stowaway, hiding out in their upstairs sitting room at the little desk there. I kept waiting for someone to call me out on the fact that I was not a guest (although I did enjoy their breakfast buffet for two days in a row, just in case I was questioned). I escaped unscathed, but I still felt a little sneaky. Unlike theater hopping in high school, my stealthiness did not come accompanied by the glow of "getting away with it." Instead, I just felt . . . well, sad.

But I was not giving up. I had read months before on a chat site during my internet search of whether a Starbucks would ever make its way to Del Rio that there was some place in the town called "Coffee Now." It's simple. It gets the point across. Local is very often just as good, if not better than the big corporate giant. I was optimistic, especially since the poster had poo-pooed Starbucks and said he was a "loyal Coffee Now patron." So I looked up Coffee Now in Google, found the address, and began my search. Funny thing, though - I went back and forth on the street it was supposed to be on a few times, craning my neck to look at every strip mall I saw. Nope. No Coffee Now. Luckily, the listing I found had a phone number. So I called. You never know how long these things stay in business. A cheerful young woman answered right away. Phew! I asked for the cross streets.

And then I went back along the same road. And then it occurred to me why Coffee Now had escaped my notice. It wasn't a store front. It was a damn kiosk, like those Kodak photo labs in the 80's. There wasn't a seat in sight, not even a couple of folding camping chairs in the parking lot. Instead of Coffee Now, for me this realization was more like "Serenity Now!!!"

Welcome to my nightmare.

I'm With the Band

Back in high school, I was in the marching band, the symphonic band and the concert band...but I wasn't a total band geek...I was also on our illustrious tennis team - state champs for Lord knows how many years in a row and I was part of our school's business program that put me in a lot of AP classes. So I dipped a toe across every type of school group there was - the geeks, the jocks and the academics.

I haven't picked up my clarinet since putting it down my senior year of high school. I haven't really played the piano in years...but I do get excited whenever I see 'Drumline' on TV because it makes me wonder if I picked up the wrong instrument back in 5th grade. The only reason I ended up with the clarinet was because it was discarded several years earlier by my sister when she was thinking of joining the band...she obviously couldn't cut it with the band geeks, so I picked it up, learned it, became rather good (always first seat) and dropped it like a bad habit. There was no way I was joining band in college and in hindsight, I'm glad!

But now - now I actually get to do what I think I was meant to do - bang on those drums via my newest obsession, ROCK BAND! It was one of the only reasons I actually allowed my husband to get the PS3 when I really wanted the Wii. Rock Band is like a step above Guitar Hero and Karaoke Revolution. It's where you can have a group of people rock out on guitar, drums, and sing. I've basically bogarted the drums with my alter ego, Jersey. We tour and unlock more songs along the way. We've already played NYC, Chicago, and Seattle. I'm waiting to get to the place where I'll unlock 'Don't Fear the Reaper.'

I salivate when I think about it - maybe I drool a little while actually playing. But I'm not completely obsessed with it where I'm playing it at all hours of the morning (like someone I know) - but it's definitely fun and since being away from it for the past week, I finally managed to get on it last night and jam for about an hour before hitting the gym. I even have my husband playing along on guitar - but he's very particular about the songs we play - we always need to start with 'Orange Crush' and then we move down through the songs he likes. I guess it's a small price to play if I don't want to play alone.

But I don't mind playing alone. The game is not only super-fun but it's opened my eyes to a lot of music that I was previously unaware of - both classic and modern....for instance, I didn't know what 'Mississippi Queen' was before Rock Band - and guess what? We heard it on a classic rock station while on vacation. And now I love playing it - and not just because it has cow bell. I also learned of another new song that I like and will be downloading to my iPod - 'Maps' by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. So not only is Rock Band fun for adult friends and family, but it's a learning experience too.

The best part of Rock Band is ending a song with a free-for-all where you get to bang on anything and everything and totally rock out. After the song ends, I usually hit my sticks together in the air and start yelling like Garth from 'Wayne's World.' And sometimes, I'll even do that rolling 'r' noise they do when they get excited....so fun!

Summer Fun, Autumn Woes

Don't let the title fool you - after my trip back from Indiana, I am super-psyched for some Fall - football season, changing leaves, Halloween and soup/stew/hot mulled cider season! But I'm certainly going to miss the summer - being outdoors, playing sports, sweating my pants off (maybe I won't miss that too much) and wearing summer clothes - dresses, shorts, tanks and flip flops.

Looking back, I had a really good summer - we had great weather (August was like a preview to September/October temps), great fun and great friends to share it with. Now that it's post-Labor Day and I'm looking ahead to Fall, I started breaking out some of my fall/winter shoes and am quite disappointed with the outcome thus far....tan lines. I was pretty careful with the tan lines this summer - trying to run sunscreen where I might have potential tan lines - but the one place I always forget to cover...my feet. And what are the results of forgetting? Flip Flop lines. Argh.

After being out at the football game this past weekend, with the sun beating down on me, I, again, forgot to cover my feet with sun block and now my flip flop lines are even darker than when I went out to the midwest. I'm wearing my black, double-strap mary janes and it looks like I have two white v-straps coming out of the shoe - HORROR! I'm thinking about what I can do to salvage the look. I'm thinking my only option is self-tanner...although that would require me to put it on my whole leg because what if the shade of the self tanner turns those v-lines darker than what the rest of my leg shade is? I'm sure I'm not the only one that has gone through this dilemma - so suggestions are welcome.

I'm use to tan lines but I'm use to bikini lines - lines that people don't necessarily see when I'm in work clothes. I guess I could break out the hosiery early - but it's still warm enough to where I can imagine myself sweating from having too much on....what is a girl to do with signs of summer past?!

Well - one thing to keep my mind off of it is to think about what November will bring forth...the new James Bond film...wink!

Talking Nonsense

Flying back from Chicago was a real treat yesterday! Not only did I forget to pre-check-in online for Southwest (thankfully we weren't put into the C-group and were able to find two seats together) but after a long, tiresome vacation, I felt so run down and just ready to jump in my own bed and go to sleep!

We had gotten to the airport early because you never know what traffic is going to be like from Indiana to Chicago on a Sunday afternoon....and it wasn't bad. So there was a lot of wandering the terminals for me. I had started feeling nauseous and extremely tired about 1.5 hours before boarding time. It had been about five hours since I had my Cracker Barrel breakfast and Sonic frozen slush so I thought perhaps I might've been hungry. So I started trolling around the food areas to see if anything struck my fancy. It didn't. I ended up having a southwest chicken sandwich from McD's. It did help, but I was still tired.

As Southwest began boarding, this family consisting of two parents and one child came up to the gate. I could smell the child was trouble when he opened his mouth and apparently didn't know how to shut it. They were a Chinese family and the kid was about 10 years old....a rather big 10, I might add. How did I know they were Chinese? Because the kid was speaking in mandarin and I could understand him. I think he thought he was running the family traveling show because he was telling his parents that this was their gate and it was time to line up, etc. His parents didn't seem to mind - I'm sure he's the apple of their eyes.

Thankfully, when we boarded the plane after them, we weren't anywhere near them on the plane, so we got the respite of having to hear him speak. But that gap was immediately filled by one of the stewardesses that took it upon herself to talk for the WHOLE, DAMN flight. We happened to get the last row in front of the drinks storage area and we heard non-stop chatter throughout the flight. Our only break came when they rolled the drinks cart towards the front of the plane to serve....but when she got back, lucky us got to hear about her life story. And all I wanted to do was sleep...silly me.

As we were deplaning, another passenger had made a comment about how 'she sure has a lot to say.' Ain't that the truth. It was time to walk to baggage claim, find our bags, get on the shuttle bus and hop in our car. And wasn't it lucky for us that we happened to be on the same shuttle bus as the Chinese family - I boarded the shuttle first not thinking much of it, praying a little that he had stopped chattering but the second he boarded the shuttle, the kid says (in Chinese), 'These seats are particularly small!' That led me to believe that he made some sort of comment about the size of the airplane seats. I really wanted to say back to him, in Chinese of course, 'Well, you're particularly chubby.' I was so close - it was on the tip of my tongue. Had I had some liquid courage, maybe it would've slipped out - but I bit it back.

Why his parents didn't shush him is beyond me - after all, in his leadership, the kid led them to the wrong bus stop to get to their car....