What's in YOUR wallet?

I recently became the proud owner of the Starbucks Gold Card – free with the purchase of way too many exorbitantly priced coffees.  And here’s the really nifty part of Gold Card status – the starbuckies gold card automatically “reloads” from your credit card whenever it falls below a set dollar amount.  [otherwise known as every 3 days for me.]  

Now that I’m using this card for all my SB purchases, the Mother Ship has complete visibility to about 30% of my discretionary spend.  They know what time I drink my coffee [hourly], what city I am in [Nasvhille?  Baltimore?  Philly? ....no wonder this bitch needs coffee] and which food phase I’m going through [how many meals in a row can I eat oatmeal at?]  If I ever go missing, I think Starbucks would be the first to notify authorities.  “She hasn’t had a latte in a day and a half, please send help right away.”

I have to admit, however, given the treasure trove of data I’m supplying SB on my caffeinated consumerism, the Gold Card perks are kind of skimpy.  After 15 purchases, I get a free drink.  A  free drink?!  I mean….that’s nice and all…. but I’d be getting the drink anyway.  I want something EXTRA for my super-special, gold-card self.  If this were airline status – I’d have my own line at Starbucks and I’d be offered a free cocktail when I sat down.  I would especially like to jump ahead of that woman who ordered the extra-hot grande nonfat 4 pump upside down carmel macchiato.  I guess the nonfat and carmel cancel each other out??  [I’ve been informed it’s no different than my order of Diet Coke with my fries.]

You used to get a free pump of syrup with every drink [again…..meh].  But SB discontinued that perk.  I guess the cost of a teaspoon size squirt of sugar [that must be subject to the biggest volume discount in the history of the world] got to be too pricey for Daddy Starbucks. 

I have to say, though...the linkage to the credit card is a little more visible than those cash transactions.  I think I liked it better when I couldn’t see how much I was spending at Starbuckies. 

Big Bad Wine Test

In order to work at our favorite local wine bar, the employees are strongly encouraged to pass a wine test.  And this isn’t one of those fun wine tests where you end up with a nifty little wine buzz at the end of it.  No….this is the Big Bad Wine Test [and it feels suspiciously like a geography test].  But at least the company mandate doesn’t extend to the accounting staff.  [I can tell you which wines are profitable, isn’t that enough?]

In the interest of helping my co-workers, however, I have compiled a few helpful hints for the Big Bad Wine Test:

Q:  Where does Chablis come from?

A:  Europe [and technically – you’re not wrong]

Q:  What flavors do you detect in Sauvignon Blanc?

A:  Cat piss.  [People actually say this one.  I think it’s akin to saying a beer tastes like cow farts, but people mean it as a compliment! ]

Q:  What flavors do you detect in Chardonnay from the Loire valley? 

A:  Chocolate covered banana. [I don’t think chocolate covered banana is correct, but as long as you’re going to fail this test, you may as well have some fun……and “cat piss” is already taken.]

And here are more helpful hints:

• When asked what flavors you detect in any given red wine – go cherry.  In a white wine – go green apple.  [And if you’re not sure whether Chablis is a red or a white – then you may score the same on this test as I did.] 
• If you get in a real pinch, think of your favorite Slurpee flavor and answer with that [Super Sour Cherry, Mountain Berry Blast, Grapermelon] as a descriptor [the proprietor expects a LOT of overlap between her assistant sommeliers and Slurpee lovers].  Just tell the boss it’s a Gen X thing and she wouldn’t understand.
• If you’ve ignored all of these suggestions and find yourself close to passing the test – then go for the Hail Mary of all flavor descriptions….fennel.  You get points for style, spelling and sophistication.  If there’s even a TRACE of fennel in that bitch, you are going to PASS.  

 I don't know why they all don't ask me for help.

Election Night

Ahhhhh, Election Night…it’s like prom night for us nerds!  [And my date is Rachel Maddow.]  That’s  right – a whole night of seeing which poll was right and trying to get retweeted by Maggie Haberman.  [Nobody else knows who Maggie Haberman is, do they?  Please see previous nerd disclaimer.]  An evening full of twitter, blogs and MSNBC.  That’s right...I said MSNBC…. After all, if Democrats are doing well, I want to revel in it.  If we’re losing, I want to delude myself as long as possible [which is where Chris Matthews comes in].

Nights like this may be why I moved to California [I mean in addition to Blondie, of course.]  Election results start coming in at 5 p.m. out here.  Which means I can watch history being made and still be in bed by 9 p.m.  I have the whole evening mapped out according to poll closing times.  Did you know you can vote until 10 pm in Iowa??!  [Of course you didn’t know that, because you have legitimate hobbies – like human interaction.]  Iowa’s plan may be great for democracy, but it is very inconvenient for those of us trying to declare the next President of the United States!

In order to pass the time, I will spend the evening rooting for Senate races until the networks call the presidential race in Ohio - which may very well be a week from Wednesday.  [Although I read that Fox News plans to call it at 10 pm…and wait for the supreme court to reverse it.]  Seriously, I’ll be spending the evening playing big ballot bingo with 33 senate races. 

The existential question for the evening:  If Richard Mourdock loses, will he think it's God's will? 

POS

You may have noticed I am blogging about Blondie’s new wine bar endeavor.  After a couple of taxing months, isn’t it good we can [nervously] laugh about it?  Or I should more accurately say…. isn’t it good my carefully negotiated blogger’s agreement allows us to laugh about certain things that shall not include the staff, customers, or menu. 

Which brings us to the point-of-sale (i.e., cash register) system at the bar.  If you’re in the trade, you call this the “POS system”.  [If you’re the designated bookkeeper you call it “the important part”.]  Blondie’s POS system is an app for the iPad!  How cool is that!  It’s so cool.....my iPad disappeared [just when I was getting good at Boggle].  The servers just have to be sure they’re ringing up real customers and not the ones on my Farmville game. 

But the greatest part of this POS system is it’s on the web.  So those of us keeping score at home can….well….keep score at home.  Log in any time of the day or evening and see exactly how many tickets are open and who is ordering what and how much she can afford to pay the bookkeeper.  But Blondie thinks this interest is like spying on her.  Silly girl – accessing the footage from the shop cameras is spying on her, the cash register stuff just lets me stay involved, which allows me to help in a number of ways: 

• I can correct her whenever she gets a key statistic wrong.  “No – I think it was five bottles of the barbarella that you sold, not four.  By the way, what IS a barberella?” 
• I can offer helpful hints:  “I’m surprised you didn’t suggest a glass of the mongrano to table 32 since they liked the vilosell so much” [she REALLY likes it when I also make wine recommendations – armchair sommelier] 
• She’s not the only one who gets to know the customers:  “Was that Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton at table 14?  Nice champagne – what were they celebrating? “
• And I can keep an eye on things.  “That table of 1 sure drank a lot of wine with dinner.”  [Oh  yeah, I forgot I was at the wine bar for dinner tonight.]

I am a little worried, however, that my login ID may be deactivated before I can check on today’s events. 

Silly Season

I never thought I would say this, but will this election just be finished already??  That’s right….will the presidential election and the Titans football season just mercifully end??  [I did NOT expect this fall to be so joyless.] 

Maybe it’s because Obama is no longer winning by 9 points over humanoid Mitt Romney.  Maybe it’s because I get more emails with presidential campaign solicitations than I EVER got on Viagra or Nigerian lottery winnings.  Maybe it’s because I don’t even know what we’re arguing about on Benghazi.  

But whatever the reason, I…the person most responsible for sky-rocketing political blog click-throughs…. am ready for This.  Election.  To.  End.  Then at least I can get back to wine bar bookkeeping. 

As we get into the last few weeks of the various congressional campaigns, here is just a sampling of the really critical issues we are debating out there:

• In the Missouri senate race [which really has to perform somersaults of impropriety in order to push “legitimate rape” off the front page] Rep. Todd Akin described Claire McKaskill as a dog.  While Senator McKaskill was with her dying mother.  First…..you are quite the charmer, Mr. Akin.  Second, I pay pretty close attention to politics and Claire McKaskill is NOT the Senator I would liken to a canine.  After all, Senator Joe Lieberman and Droopy Dog were separated at birth. 
  
  
• In the Connecticut Senate race, former World Wrestling Federation CEO [ummmm.....shouldn’t we get to stop right there??] Linda McMahon describes her Medicare position: “Here’s what I’m going to say on this issue today. In terms of reforming and revising Social Security and Medicare, I really will not talk about specifics until we’re in a bipartisan way in Congress.”  First of all, who talks like that?  [Being “in a bipartisan way” sounds a LOT like an unwanted pregnancy - which seems like a subject Republicans should just stay away from].   Second, what is it with the current uber-trend where we voters are told not to worry our pretty little heads about all those really complicated issues going on in our country?? 
  
  
• In the three dozen political blogs I read each day [no wonder somebody’s AP checks to wineries are all late], the authors are struggling to come up with new and exciting ways to reference the states they cover.  After all, there are only so many times you can say “the Senate race in North Dakota”.  So bring on the references to the Roughrider, Peach Garden, and Flickertail State.  [the Flickertail State??  I did not make that up!]  I had to look up which state was the Mountain State....and I. Was. Born. There.  We need to end this thing before I am on a nickname basis with all 50 states. 



• And the most obvious reason we need this election to be over? Real TV networks continue to interview Donald Trump.  Need I say more? 

Honestly – at this point I think the winner would be whichever candidate promised to suspend any and all usage of “and I approved this message”.