Coffee Crankiness

I’m finally starting to hear some good news! Yesterday when I called in to see what the status is of my new power chair I was told it's done and in shipping. That means it maybe at Reflection Medical today or the beginning of next week! When I told Rick, my rep there, that I really wanted the chair in time to go to my niece's graduation next weekend, he told me if there was anything left to be assembled when it got there, he'd make sure it was done so I have it in time. SQUEE!!!

I’m really ready to have the new chair to move around the house and get out of the house. I'm starting to get cabin fever and I do notice that is really starting to tax my personality. I mean that I'm crabby. Things seem to bug me and set me off much quicker than they have in the past. For instance…


I scrap project life a little differently than everybody else. I journal a few lines about the day every day and when I scrap it I add photos if I take them or other random things that add to the character of the days. For the past two years I done my pages in quadrants with each day getting a quarter page. This year I’ve changed up a little bit and I'm doing a 2-page spread for each week, putting the journaling bits on one page and assorted supporting visuals in block form on the other page. Here's an example of what the 2-pager looks like:

I don't post my project 365/52 layouts in the forums or anything so I don't keep track of exactly what elements from what kits I'm using. BTW, I also use images from the Internet, which is completely legal under fair use since I'm not profiting from the use of publicly distributed material. But that explains why I don't have credits listed under my week 11 layout. If you scrap and you see anything about that layout that you just HAVE to know where they came from, drop me an email and I'll see if I can get that info for you.


I showed week at 11 as an example but I am caught up all the way to the present. That is, I’m working on scrapping week 19 today. Part of weak 19 was Mothers Day, My comments for Sunday included that the kids asked me to text daddy at work and ask him to bring me home a fat free latte from Starbucks for Cat-Moms Day. It was a wonderful latte that the kids gave me but I didn't take picture of it. So to include an image representation of that wonderful latte on the page for week 19, I did an image search for Starbucks latte. I found myself irritated by, in my crabby brain," idiots who are irritated for the sake of being irritated." No, I don't miss the irony of that statement. But this is my blog and therefore I'm irritated buy things that are REAL.

Starbucks is very good coffee to those who consider it very good coffee. If you don't consider it very good coffee don't buy it and shut up and let people who consider it good coffee enjoy it as good coffee. It is not necessary to create or forward, because you don't have the mind or talent required to form and promote your own opinion, cute little anonymous memes to place yourself in some place of authority to belittle people who have a different opinion than yours. Free trade agreements and corporate decisions to obtain materials and labor from outside of the US make pretty much everything some percentage of not an American product. Nobody is a bad person for choosing a product that they like because the cup is manufactured with materials from outside the country. You are not a good person because you choose to invest your money in other products with portions made in another country.

Also anyone who is so terrified that there might be something in their coffee or anything else that they get at a restaurant has no business ordering anything already made. In America restaurants are required to supply nutritional information and ingredients for food that they serve. You have a choice of asking for it, not giving your business to establishments that don't produce it without asking or not caring about the content of items that you consume. If you choose to consume products with high sodium or lots of sugar, fat or artificial flavoring that is your choice and you are NOT a bad person for making that choice. The only person that you potentially harm with that choice is yourself and that is only a potential harm because every person is different and every body reacts to different things is differently. In moderation or even in excess, you may very well be harming no one at all. If you personally have made the choice to not consume all product you are NOT a better person for attempting to insist that anyone else should be just like you.

Finally, Starbucks is a product sold for profit. If it was overpriced, it would fail. From the consistent lines I've seen when I've been in a Starbucks, it’s not failing. There are many people who like Starbucks coffee who consider it to be very good coffee and not overpriced. Many can afford to drink Starbucks coffee every day and they do. There are people, like me, who consider Starbucks coffee to be very good coffee and something I choose to have as a treat, even a couple of times a week. There is NOTHING wrong with that. If the coffee you prefer is less expensive there's nothing wrong with your taste either. But to criticize Starbucks and belittle their customers for their choice is wrong. It makes you sound either jealous because you'd like to be drinking Starbucks coffee or just a judgmental idiot.

Again I do realize the irony of judgmentally calling out judgmental idiots.


See what I mean about grumpy? I think maybe next weekend on Saturday I should see if I can get Tori and Rina for an hour, carjack the van from David and the three of us can go to Starbucks. hehehe


I know this has a lot to do with being stuck in the house. As we head into all of the major political crap it brings out the absolute ugliest of people. I try to stay away from Facebook, which is rich and political poison, and I try to avoid TV news. I like reading the paper because then I can ignore the political stuff. We're not a country that's politically polarized. We've become a country of selfish individuals, at least the loudest people are selfish individuals. But that includes everybody that forwards “Information” without verification or context. That's also known as gossip and that's been dangerous since the playground. Personally my opinions and my political opinions are not necessarily the same. Oftentimes they are, but when I think of casting a vote or encouraging someone else to I can't think about just me. I'm voting on issues or candidates to represent an entire constituency that I'm part of. What might be perfect for me may have devastating consequences in general if it becomes a law. The political process might be smoother and less violent if people could step out of their own egos long enough to realize that they aren't alone. None of us are.


I’d better stop now before my cyber coffee shop becomes as empty as the Folgers crowd wishes Starbucks was. Have a great day and be kind to everyone - you never know how long they’ve been cooped up!