Random 5 for July 14 – Summer, e-mail, failures, stupid people, time flies

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Holy cow! – July is almost half over! How did that happen? We are in a stretch of warm lovely weather. My kind of summer. Ice cream, watermelon and cold beer. (Note to self: remember to get some protein. No never mind, there must be protein in hops.)

Cleaning up – I get an enormous number of e-mails. Daily. Clogging my systems. I started unsubscribing (I don’t remember subscribing in the first place!). One retailer had an “unsubscribe” link but it didn’t work. You couldn’t change your preferences to anything except all flapdoodle junk mail. Grrrr…. I’ve blocked them.

Trying something new – On a recent restaurant visit, my friend tried a new dessert. It was blondies (non-chocolate brownies) with caramel sauce and ice cream. I decided to make it for a picnic I’m attending. I hate to take something without a test run so I made a small batch earlier in the week. Yikes! They were so sweet my toes curled. I’m not a fan of super sweet things and this one hurt my teeth. I pulled out a tried and true recipe to take. I’m not a fan of sweet or caramel. What was I thinking?

Very weird or stupid people – I’ve been using the “order ahead” feature for my mocha lattes at Starbucks and it’s saved me a boatload of time. Yesterday I went in to pick my drink up. First thing that was strange was that it didn’t have a stopper. They always do but maybe they ran out. I picked it up and it was very light. I got to the car and opened it up. Half was gone. I know a barista wouldn’t make a drink like this. My best guess is that someone else picked it up (hopefully thinking it was their drink, I grosses me out to think they would do it on purpose). They took a couple of big slugs (really big!), realized it wasn’t their drink and put it back on the counter. Seriously people! If you make a mistake just ‘fess up. The concept was so disturbing. Silver lining – they gave me two free drinks.

Festivals, pumpkin drinks and winter – We are starting to get inundated with information on the upcoming festivals in our area. We have one in early August for two weeks. One week off and another two back to back. Sometime in there we’ll start to see pumpkin everything. Kids are back to school (ads have started for school clothes) and it’s winter. Boogers. Time is flying.

Here is a picture of my lovely canna lily blooming. So how was your week?

 

67 thoughts on “Random 5 for July 14 – Summer, e-mail, failures, stupid people, time flies”

  1. I haven’t been brave enough to try that order ahead thing yet because of that exact reason. I see restaurants putting food out in a general area for companies like DoorDash — and anyone can just walk up and take a peek, handle the food – or eat it!

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    • What I have done is shorten my timing. That happened when I ordered from home — a 5 minute drive. Now I don’t order more than 2 minutes ahead. We’ll see. I am surprised there is more theft if they leave it in the open.

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  2. Yuck to the Starbucks episode – but nothing like the girl who was going around licking the ice-cream lids and putting them back. Really? I hate unsubscribing to something and you get 1) the “we hate to see you go”; 2) “please tell us why” with a half-dozen choices; and 3) “well maybe you don’t want to unsubscribe to ALL of our e-mails.” It is as bad as surveys. I go on the utility sites once a month when I know the bill amount is there – I’ve purposely not arranged for the bill to go directly to the bank to view there as I think they won’t send the hard copy to the house anymore. But every time I go to DTE (our energy provider), I immediately get a survey asking my opinion about their site. Every. Single. Time. The Canna is beautiful – a real hummingbird magnet for sure. We have horrid weather here – a thirty-car pileup from the second torrential rainstorm in the evening – they were hydroplaning then crashing into each other.

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  3. I know it does no good to complain about the weather but…it is too hot and humid! I have not gone for my walk for the last two weeks. Even going at 7am is awful.
    Yucko about the coffee thing!
    The lily is gorgeous!

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  4. Blondies do tend to be sweeter than brownies. I love blondies, but I know what you mean about something being too sweet. It doesn’t happen to me too often, but when it does: ICK. And I do love caramel :).
    That lily is gorgeous. It’s my favorite color, so it’s bound to be a hit with me haha.

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    • I didn’t know that. I only had a bite or two at the restaurant and I was full from lunch, They were nice looking. There is a part of me that wants to cut the recipe back again and try them is a lot less sugar. You browned the butter first so there was a wonderful flavor. My gut got overwhelmed.

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      • Yes, that makes sense to me. I think maybe chocolate is bitter and that’s why it’s a good mix with sugar (and butter haha), but in blondies you don’t have that natural chocolate bitterness to tone down the sweet. Then when you add caramel to it . . . .

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  5. I’m late to the party on this post, but let me agree with everyone else that your experience at Star$ makes me say *yuck* and wonder yet again about humanity. Also, I hate getting unwanted emails. They make me downright surly. Hope you were able to stop yours.

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    • I’ll never understand people. They could have left it on a table rather than return to the counter. So far, even after “unsubscribing,” many have not stopped. I’ll wait a week and try again, then they are getting blocked.

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  6. I think you’ve just stopped me from, ever using the call ahead at Starbucks. UGH! Even with there new local drive through option, since I stopped working and not in the big city so much, it seems like I don’t hit Starbucks much anymore…maybe with cooler weather.
    You’re right times flying – the sun is already shifting and RC cat sitting in different window seats. It will be pumpkin time before you know it.

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  7. I try not to think about winter ahead and focus on the day. Not that it always works, mind you, but I try. 😜 It’s SUPER hot here. I mean, we’re talking mid-90’s with heat indexes in the 100’s and an alligator in a local pond! I feel like someone shipped me back to Florida while I was sleeping. We’ve seen very little rain, too. Our lawn is turning brown. We’ve had to water our veggie & flower gardens daily. I braved the heat for another outdoor concert on Saturday. Thankfully, right after we arrived, a breeze ushered in some thin clouds that covered the sun and made it tolerable.

    Gross about your Starbuck’s drink. Good thing you figured it out soon enough.
    Your canna lily is gorgeous.

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  8. It must have been the late 60s when mom discovered a recipe for blondies – they were a fantastic hit with the family – rich, chewy, and, yes, I suppose sweet – she made them often after tha. I don’t recall the toes curling, but then, my tolerance for sugar was very high in those days.

    So much for saving time at Starbucks, eh? Hope this is one time experience!

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  10. I can’t believe it is the middle of July either ~ the holidays will be here before we know it. Once I start back to school (in 10 days – yikes) I usually go to Starbucks as my Friday treat. I have thought of ordering ahead, but I am usually there by 6:00 a.m. so there really isn’t any benefit for me since hardly anyone else is there. Your experience has confirmed my decision. I can also relate to your email problem. I have way too many ads coming in and I need to take a minute and unsubscribe. The clutter is so annoying!

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    • At 6 a.m. you don’t need order ahead. At 8:30 you do! (or at least it’s helpful!) I ordered ahead and my drink was untouched. Normally Mondays are slow but it was busy today! You’re back in school in 10 days? Yikes!

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  11. We’ve been stuck on banana nut bread. I cut the sugar by half because it’s so sweet. Made two for the grandkids visiting last week and had to make another one this afternoon for us. Sorry about your coffee. I don’t drink it but still…some people!

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    • If we have a good fall (and we often don’t) September and October are wonderful with the kids back in school and people where they belong! As to the drink, if you’re going to steal it, steal it! Don’t drink have of it and leave your cooties for someone else.

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  14. I just got back from a week in Hawaii (Kauai), and it was lovely. Still, it was nice to return to the perfect 70 degree summer weather of NW WA and a slower schedule.

    Love your canna lily. Shame on the person who drank from your cup and then didn’t fess up. But Starbucks sure knows how to do customer relations. Kudos to them.

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  20. Ewww on the “1/2 drunk” drink order.
    Glad you got some freebies out of it.

    I celebrated a birthday this week . . . by eating a “ton” of fun stuff.
    Not blondies. They are too sweet.

    Found a decent Gluten Free bagel ~ Canyon Bakehouse. Yay!

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    • Friends tell me there are good gluten free choices these days. Back 10 years ago, I had a co-worker with celiac disease and most of the gluten free stuff tasted like cardboard! Happy birthday (even if it’s slightly late!)

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  21. Not to rain on your summer parade but there are only 70 days until the official arrival of Autumn. The latte story made me gag. Who does stuff like that?? Yeah, I’m with you, overly sweet with caramel…ick. Give me chocolate or give me death. Here’s to a terrific week that includes hops protein and properly made lattes. Cheers ☕️🍺

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    • I’d like to have seen the person who did it. I would have given them a talking to. It’s a good thing that I took it back. Someone else would have blamed SB and thrown it out. It was on a Saturday which is more crowded. I’ll be on my guard from now one.

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  23. Your lily is gorgeous! Summer its flying, although we still haven’t had very warm weather on the coast of SoCal. Hot weather everywhere but the coast, perhaps because we’ve had more fog than usual. Probably from all the melting polar ice. Very depressing.

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  24. Pizza has protein in it if ordered with the right toppings so you would be double good! Your canna lily is a lovely color. My week was quiet… ShortsSandalsNoSocks left Wednesday for Anchorage! I have been turning the Bose up listening to smooth jazz and Glen Campbell and eating all the things I usually don’t eat. The quiet has been nice but I wouldn’t want too much of it!

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  25. I thought of you while at an airport Starbucks recently (no where else to stop) – it was so busy and chaotic I walked out! I wished it had been a better experience but …. oh well.

    and I’m with you on the subscription emails – I had something like 700 of them in my “promotions” folder of Gmail (Gmail sorts it for me, which I appreciate) — DELETED – ugh

    Have a great Sunday!
    MJ

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    • The emails were so much a problem on my desktop which sorts out spam but my Kindle and cell phone were jammed with junk. If I tried to find something it was difficult. I’ve cleaned them all out.

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  27. What a lovely lily! One time when I did a Starbucks order ahead, I walked into the cafe just as a guy picked up my drink and walked out. The barista stood there with a perplexed look on her face. “I asked him if his name was Marie,” she said, “and he acted like he didn’t hear me. Just took the drink and left.” I hope he chokes on it, I thought. I didn’t get a free drink out of it, but then it wasn’t as yukky as your experience. Time does fly. One of our cats is on a course of antibiotics (UTI) which makes time seem slow as we mark off each time we mix the drug with her food and then wait (with fingers crossed) for her to finish eating all of it. But before you know it, she’ll be back at the vet for a follow-up and hopefully a clear urinalysis. Time flies and drags at the same time 😉

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    • I’m a little afraid to use the order ahead now. They put the drinks at the same counter where the in-store orders go. Easy to pick up the wrong one. I’ve seen people do it and put it back because it can be hard to read the name without picking up. Your cat experience reminds me of the time I had to get a urine sample from Jake, my old cat. He reliably peed at 4 a.m. and 4 p.m. Other than that it was a crap shoot (no pun intended). I missed the 4 p.m. one (actually I didn’t but he kicked litter in it and it wasn’t good) but caught the 4 a.m. one. I had to be careful to put a deli cup under his tush and not bump his goods (that’s how the litter got kicked in the first one). Ahh, Jake and I had good times. He was diabetic for 9 years. We went through a lot together.

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