A Starbucks Latte For Voldemort

For many years, I've had a beef with my lover, Starbucks.  As good as Starbucks is at making the Latte, their selection of anything 'refreshing' is sad.  Especially with summer here and LA temperatures are a good 10 degrees hotter than they were in January (the horror!), I really need something to keep me going that isn't the normal coffee on steroids with milk stuff .

I know.  Tough life.  

Yesterday I walked in and a miracle happened:

I saw the Starbucks Refresher.  A green coffee based drink in Lime or Hibiscus.  Who knew green coffee could even be eaten?  Not this girl.

After bantering with the barista, she gave me samples of both to try.  I love both but ordered the Lime flavored one.
They are both pretty low cal (I think my 16 oz. Grande was like 60 or 70 calories) and tasted exactly like a Mojito.  Good stuff.

They've got a little caffeine but not enough to give me da twitchy eye.   I think the caff content is a little closer to Diet Coke or Iced Tea.
Of course, like any Starbucks drink, they are a bit of a ripoff ($2.50-$3.50), but I'm worth it...right?  ;).

Here's the pic of my heaven.  Like always, my name is spelled wrong, but I guess that's my fault for having a silent "T".  Someone's pretentious!    (moi).

That brings me to the next awesome thing I wanted to share.

Ever had someone misspell your name ridiculously?  Like...so far from it's normal spelling, it's laughable?  

So did these Starbucks Baristas.

The website concept is simple:  Post your name along with your misspelled Starbucks cups.
The results?  Amazing. 


Here are a few of my favorites.  

Orderer's Name:  Winnie 

Weenie

Nate wasn't expecting this compliment:

Ace

Latte for Molly:

Pollen

And in the spirit of the last Harry Potter movie coming out...


Orderer's Name:  Voldemort

Baltimore

He-who-shall-not-be-named indeed....  =)

Have ya tried these Refresher drinks?  
Do people always get your name wrong?  Do tell....

Are you a starbucks luva?

This morning, bright and early, I had a blogger date with Skinny Runner and Once Upon A Lime.

It was awesome...I've had kind of a lackluster week (which has made my posts overly sarcastic...my apologies...unless you like them in which case...rock on), and seein' girlfriends is always good.  

Sure, I met these girlfriends on the internet...but that's not too weird these days is it?  =)

I ran for about an hour with the girls, and then Skinny Runner went to go run more miles than I care to think about.  Impressive stuff.  I forgot to take any pics, so I made this high quality collage of what the blogger run might have looked like:

What the blogger run looked like!

No of course their pictures aren't stolen from their blogs!  

Run-wise, I'm still sore from Fontana days, which I guess is ok.  My constantly limpy state of late is giving me a good idea of what it may be to be 80 years old.  

Because of the early wakeup time, I was DYIN' like whoa by the mid-afternoon.  This warranted an extra giant size Apricot Iced Tea from Coffee Bean.  I don't even know what the size I got is called.  Larger than the large.  Ginormous?

Oh yeah...and I got a mini muffin.  Because I'm a sucker for mini desserts.  

Mini desserts + mini calorie content = mini me?

Yes I finished that whole iced tea.  If they had a 64 oz, I'd order that.  

I feel like in most regions of the country, there's Starbucks, and then some competing coffee chains:

  

In SoCal it's SB versus Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.  

In the Pacific Northwest, it's SB versus Tullys and Peets and Indie places with tattooed dudes.  

In Houston it's Starbucks and ummmm...Starbucks?  (help me out here, Texans)
"Edit from original post for the Texans...you're right...there are some awesome mom and pops in TX.  My fav was Agora in Houston because it was just a crazy experience every time. The angry service was just a bonus.  What's the BEST is that most of these places serve booze too!  What's not to love! "

Everywhere's got the McDonald's coffee these days too.  

I love Starbucks, and am not exactly sure why.  I don't think the coffee is all that good, but there is something peaceful and indulgent about walking in the shop.  

Annndd..... their tea is beaten by miles by the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.  

Coffee Bean's got a billion flavors, and the tea latte.  And when I drink their stuff, I'm sticking it to the man (Starbucks) by...purchasing from the slightly smaller man.  

So...are you a Starbucks lover or hater?  

What do you think of the McDonald's stuff?  

Also, if you made it this far, here's your carrot reward:

Living Social is selling two movie tix on Fandango for $9!   It's so crazy because Skinny Runner was just talking about how tickets are hella expensive on her blog earlier today.   And I agree.  I'd take a crappy movie theater for cheap over IMAX and 3-D. 

 I'm not sold on 3-D until they make it 90000% better and I feel like I'm actually IN the movie anyways =).  

Get $9 for 2 movie tix here!

Less Is More? (Mini Sugar High)

I have to apologize that this week's posts will have relatively little about workouts since the evil Boston Marathon coming up on Monday is keeping me from having interesting runs that I can write about.  Instead we will discuss one love of my life...

So I was at the Starbucks again today (I do not spend my days loitering around Starbucks until they tell me to stop harassing the Baristas, I swear) and I noticed the new "Starbucks Petites".

Ok that's a lie - I noticed them the minute they came out at Starbucks and here's why:

I CAN BUY DELICIOUS SWEETS WITH LESS GUILT!!  


They are small, and we all know that very small pastries, just like pieces of cookies or edges of brownies, do not contain empty calories.

Now I am no health nut, but Starbucks totally caught onto my general desert MO:  I'd pay almost as much for a tiny delicious pastry as I would for a giant bear claw.

And these, my friends, are pretty beautiful  (especially you little lemon bundles of joy in the back) :

So this brings me to my questions of the day:  

1) Are you ok spending more for a tiny fancy treat, or are you more of the bear claw kinda girl (guy)?  

2) What's up with the cake pop?  Were these just invented, because I now see them everywhere and they seem to be taking over the world, one bakery at a time!  

Have a great night, y'all!  (Thanks for readin').