Me and my Starbucks

I am so with the future Princess of Monaco, who said in a recent interview with Tatler, the British society magazine, that she longs for a Starbucks to open in Monaco.
I hear you, loud and clear.
I am a Starbucks aficionado.  My poison:  a venti vanilla latte with skim milk.  No, please do not use the sugar free vanilla ... don't even think it.   I allow myself one visit to Starbucks per week on Wednesday mornings en route to work. I stop at the Giant, a supermarket, which has a Starbucks.  (There are three Starbucks within a 2 second radius of each other near me.) 
The barista was about to make the usual when my eyes spied the menu board:  the holiday drinks are back ... PEPPERMINT MOCHA!!!   Venti skim milk.  No whipped cream! 
In warmer weather -- and it gets hot here in the summer - I might allow myself a second visit to Starbucks for my signature drink: the Marlene Frappacino.  I invented it .  Vanilla Frappacino with chocolate chips ... yummie. You won't find it on the menu board, but a barista can create it ...

On Saturdays, I treat myself to a coffee at the Seattle Best cafe at my local Borders Books.   A large vanilla latte with skim milk.  Iced in the summer.  The baristas know me well .. nearly everyone at Borders' knows me well.   I was browsing through the new books, and one of the baristas came over and asked me "which drink did I want with my vanilla."  I smiled, and he went back to make my vanilla latte.

Seattle Best is owned by Starbucks.  In this coffee-cravin' area of the USA, local coffee shops thrive and prosper, despite Starbucks (which can also be found in Barnes & Noble.)

Now about that rumor that Starbucks won't send coffee to the soldiers in Iraq -- it's NOT TRUE.  http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/starbucks.asp

When I travel outside the US, I do not go to Starbucks because I like trying local places.  When I arrive at Heathrow and walk out of customs, the first place I see and walk toward is Costa Coffee.  I get a large vanilla latte with skim milk!  Cafe Nero, too. 
I will say that if one needs to find a public loo, Starbucks and McDonalds are the places to head to anywhere in the world ... clean and safe ...  No Starbucks in Serbia (yet), but Costa Coffee is there (yea).  I also had a wonderful Vanilla Latte with skim milk at Coffee Dream in Belgrade.

The people who believe this must be Republicans, especially the Tea Baggers.  I won't call them Tea Partiers because they insult true tea parties - with Damask table clothes and matching napkins,  bone china tea service and silver trays for the cakes and little sandwiches.  Earl Gray tea.  Milk.  1 lump of demerara. 
It is true, dear readers.  A good portion of the American electorate is un-ED JU-KATED!  Tea baggers don't care about facts  or using their brains.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/how-obama-saved-capitalism-and-lost-the-midterms/?hp

PS: the Rally to Restore Sanity was great! 

PPS: Dear Santa, I love Starbucks gift cards ... perfect for my stocking!

Here is a link to an article about Charlene's interview.  Tatler does not put its material online.

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20439004,00.html