Where's a Flu Shot When You Need One?

It's that time of year again. I'm stuck in a time warp, still wishing we were boating on the weekend, when suddenly I'm stuck in bed with the stomach flu. Just when things were starting to settle down slightly, the shop is moved, the longarm is moved, quilt shows are over until next Spring, and suddenly I'm bed ridden.

I spent all of Sunday in bed, unless you count trips to the bathroom to, well......you know the rest. In the mean time, my kids took full advantage and terrorized the house all day. Where was Monte? Why, lying right next to me with the same problem, of course! Which could have been funny, except that it wasn't.

It was all we could do to crawl to the bedroom door every few hours and yell something like "Settle down!" "Go outside and play, NOW!" or "Who left the fridge open?!"

And that big, empty room that used to be filled with a mountain of quilt tops and a certain longarm machine? My kids have mistaken it for a wrestling/tag/basketball/dance arena.

The light bulbs in the dining room/deck/family room area aren't all mysteriously burnt out at once, either. The breaker's just tripped. "Not me" decided to investigate the former longarm power outlet in the floor with a screw driver.

Now, I'm stuck home today with "Not Me," who has the stomach flu. Just when I thought I might get to make sure my longarm still runs. But hey, who doesn't love scrubbing the carpet at 6am? By the way, race car beds are all kinds of fun, except when the driver doesn't make it all the way to the bathroom. Then they're just a great big germ factory that requires lots of disinfecting.

I think I'll find some time to make 5 appointments for flu shots - ASAP.

My Older Sister

Did you know I have an older sister? Neither did I, until now!

If you read my blog often, you already know that possibly my least favorite question in the world is "How Old Are You?" Well, now I have some company, because I'm pretty sure it's now my sister's least favorite question too!

Last night we were both at a house warming party. My sister recently moved back into the area, so a lot of people don't know her yet, and most of them didn't know I have a sister. It seems that the question du jour last night was "How old are you?"

To be more specific, "So you're Mindi's older sister?"

My sister happens to be 3 years younger than I am. Ha, Ha, Ha. Need I say more?

Hey sis, I'll give you my baby face, but you have to take The Hair with it!

Don't Mess With the Mocha!

If you know my mom very well, you probably know that she has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to stupidity. I inherited the same trait, but I haven't refined mine quite like my mom just yet. My mom has. Combine that with a hard and fast addiction to Iced Grande No-Whip, Extra Ice Mochas, and what you get is a hilarious Starbucks story! (Bear with me, it's a long one!)

Over the weekend, we visited my sister in West Jordan, Utah (right next to Salt Lake City). There happened to be a Starbucks especially close to my sister's house, and right on the route to and from shopping and the freeway. The next closest Starbucks was closed for renovations, so we frequented this one A LOT over the weekend. (Every 6 hours or so)

Before we even made it to my sister's house Friday morning, we stopped and refueled on caffeine. It was a fairly uneventful visit to an average Starbucks. Over the course of the next couple days, we visited the same Starbucks several times. After splitting up Saturday for some shopping, my mom told the following story to us at dinner:

While her and my dad were out shopping, they went through the Starbuck's drivethru. The drivethru was backed up with 5 or 6 cars, and as they waited they could see that there were problems. Drinks were passed out the window to several cars ahead of them, and then passed back. Apparently this branch of Starbucks has some trouble keeping orders straight. When Mom finally made it to the window, the guy took their payment card and then verified my mom's drink. The only problem? It wasn't the right drink. By this time, they had already waited in line for much longer than normal. After sitting at the window for a couple more minutes, during which time the guy continued to take orders from cars behind them, but didn't run my mom's card, my mom had reached her stupidity limit.
"Give me my card," she told the guy behind the window.
"What," he replied, obviously confused, "I haven't ran it yet!?"
"I know," says Mom, "Give it back, we're leaving." So he returns her card and my Mom drives off to find another Starbucks.

Later than evening, we decide to head out to the mall to exchange a pair of shoes. Of course, we can't go by the Starbucks without stopping for a caffeine fix. "I hope it's not the same guy," my mom says as we pull up to the menu, where we're greeted like this: "Welcome to Starbucks. How can I brighten your day?"

"Oh no," groans my mom, while my sister and I bust a gut laughing. "Maybe he won't recognize me. But really, how many people order an "Iced Grande, No-Whip, Xtra Ice Mocha?"
Then things go from bad to worse, as he proceeds to repeat our order over the speaker incorrectly. Already, my mom's stupidity meter is going off as she reorders the drinks, and my sister and I continue laughing. Finally, we get our total, $11 and something.
When we make it to the window, the guy opens the window and says, "$12.53, Oh, wait, did I say something else?" At this point, if there was any way my mom was going to be forgiving, now this guy doesn't have a prayer. Hasn't anyone told him that messing with the iced no-whip mocha with xtra ice is life threatening?
"Yes, you said something else," my mom says, and now we're all laughing harder.

Then, the guy asks, "Were you here earlier? Did you drive off?" which sends Jami and I into even more fits of laughter.
"Yes," my mom admits, and then the guy wins stupidity award of the year as he asks, "Can I ask why?"

My mom gives the guy her ultimate death stare and replies, "If you have to ask why, then I'm not going to bother explaining it to you." This leaves him speachless with his jaw on the floor.

Really, there's only so much stupidity one can take. But now the story gets unbelievable, because the next thing this guy does is bring us all WHITE iced mochas. My sister ordered a white mocha, but mine and my mom's are supposed to be regular mochas.
"Those aren't WHITE mochas, are they?" demands my mom before he even makes it to the window. See, we can tell by the color that they aren't right. It comes from years of Starbucks addiction.
"Uh, uh, no, I don't think so," they guys stutters. But alas, they are. So we're forced to wait even longer as he has the girl remake our drinks. Apparantley he was too traumatized to finish, because he dissappears and the girl brings our corrected drinks to the window.

The next morning, Sunday, we stop by this same Starbucks on our way out of town to head home. This time I'm driving my car, and Mom's in the passenger seat. "There's no way it'll be the same guy," we're thinking. But when we get there, we hear "Welcome to Starbucks. How can I brighten your day?"

This sends my mom digging through her purse for the new sunglasses she had purchased the night before. "Oh Lord," she says, "Put your window visor down." As if this guy isn't probably already on to us since we ordered "Iced grande no-whip mochas with xtra ice."

We make it out of the drive thru without a scene this time, although I do have to repeat my order twice, the second time very loudly and slowly. After we got our drinks, I had the urge to tell him that he could rest easy, we were headed home for good.

I don't know what the problem was at this Starbucks. I have never received such bad service so many times at one branch. I have also never had such bad service and not been apologized to or given a coupon for a free drink. Around home, there is an occassional glitch and our drink is wrong, or too slow, and we always get a coupon and apology. I'm not out to get free drinks, this only happens about once a year, and it's usually not even bad enough to require a coupon. They give them out anyways, which speaks to their high customer service standards. However, this particular West Jordan Starbucks doesn't seem to know about this policy. Perhaps they forgot to close for training a couple of weeks ago?

Road Trip!

Oh, I've been such a baaaaad blogger!!!! Missing 3 days in a row, what was I thinking? Well.....I was thinking ROAD TRIP! I was really thinking road trip all week last week, but I had to keep it top secret since the point of the road trip was to surprise my Sister and her husband by crashing my nephew's 1st birthday! Yes, it's true, not even 700 miles can keep us from coming over uninvited.

My girls love their Aunt Jami, and I couldn't keep it a secret from them. They were diligently making lists of what they were going to pack as early as Monday. So, come Thursday evening my family of 5, plus my parents and my brother, left Deary at 7:15pm and headed for Salt Lake City! I was super prepared. I'd been to Walmart that afternoon and picked up a double screen portable DVD player, plus 5 new movies, snacks, and MP3 batteries for Bailey. There was no way I was going to be stuck in a car for 11 hours with bored kids!

It actually took us 2 cars to get there, so we took radios to talk to each other. It was like a comical version of the Griswald Family Vacation with a little bit of Smokey and the Bandit thrown in. (Without the wood paneled station wagon and dead Grandma, of course) Although, there might have been a dead Grandma if that West Jordan Starbucks employee had brought his gun to work.....more about that later!

We drove all night, and after hitting morning rush hour traffic on the edges of Salt Lake, we finally arrived around 8:30am. Hopefully they were happy to see us, I guess if they move and forget to send us their forwarding address we'll know why! It was a short but fun trip. I even managed to lose a pound despite eating burgers, pizza, birthday cake, and an unGodly amount of Starbucks!

We drove home Sunday, it took all day and was much worse than the drive down. The kids were AWAKE this time, making it more difficult to keep them occupied. By the time we arrived home, Monte had informed me that he would not be returning unless it was by plane. I must say, I agree, although I think he was just chomping at the bit to get home in time to watch the season premiere of Ax Men.

So, back to the schedule here! I will be working on catching up today. Watch for more posts soon!