coffee house date unknown fotog:Grey Villet

 With your tiny Eee, wireless internet, Joni Mitchell on the speakers, and sumantra ground roast wafting in the air, you want to sit and sip Dunkin Donuts’ coffee in Starbucks.

Pay careful attention, you will need a large bag, luckily extra large totes and manbags are on trend this spring:

a. wait in your car for a reasonable Starbucks line. Park where you can clearly count customers. This is a line where there aren’t too many or too few people. In a medium sized store for your city divide square footage by the number of baristas normally working and multiply by .05. Head in when that magic number has been reached.

b. Be careful to place your stylish tote over one arm covering the hand holding your Dunkin Donut cup. Please note the bag should not be too stylish as to cause a fashion spectical, resulting in a coffee treason.

c. Order a bagel toasted and request extra time to decide on the drip (this should buy you 4.2 mins). Chat up your favorite barista for 1.5 minutes and when she’s not looking grab a grande cup behind the bar.

d. walk over to the coffee bar where you would normally doctor your drink. Empty Dunkin donuts coffee into Starbucks cup. By this time your bagel is probably done. Ask for a plate. Sip your coffee and smile.

e. Head over to the couch to enjoy.

Comeback Girl, what was the purpose of this post you ask? Well, grasshopper the recession is exposing brands who once could only tout “the experience” over the actual product. The whistle over the actual stuff it was made of.

How has the recession changed your perception of value? What are your recession proof guilty pleasures and splurges? Where are you still blinded by the bells and whistles?

New Mexico Starbucks

There is no greater espresso love than the one I have for Starbucks. I know I’m a java freak. When I took this picture this morning a woman asked me why. I adore how Starbucks architecturally fits into many landscapes, even a New Mexico One.

There is a guy who has gone all over the country taking pictures of starbucks. (i found the site. I can’t believe its still up. Dude has been doing this for a long time.

Comeback Lovelies, in order to make a serious comeback you gotta have passion. Something that wakes you up. Something that sustains you. Sweet inspiration.I was having a conversation with my mother tonight. She’s made one of the biggest comebacks possible, and that’s kicking a late stage cancer in its @ss almost three years ago. But she seems uninspired to me, even when I tell her she has a testimony. But her story isn’t my story. And everything really comes in its own time I suppose. My biggest fear is dying with my song still left in me. 

My passion: preaching the gospel of do-overs in love, life, money, and self-awareness.

My inspiration is in this order: nature, work, writers, coffee and shoes (all compliments of my iphone with the exception of the Algonquin Round Table). Lastly but never “leastly”, I am totally inspired by Ryan Leslie’s “Makes Addiction “video. I swear I watch this video at least once a week.

butterflies @ the national arboretum

orchids

signaling

by Al Hirschfeld (Algonquin Round Table)

starbucks

Jimmy

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ix5dicdL7c]

I must confess Comeback readers, that your favorite Comeback Girl loves coffee. In fact she lives a stone’s throw away from Starbucks.

And for all you neurotic comeback kids who like your espresso at just the right temperature, exact number of  shots, portions of foam or lack thereof, and placement of shots (I’m an upside down kind of Girl), there’s a blog to make your early morning orders and personality seem  …well boaderline and crazy as hell. Her name is Barista Brat  http://baristabrat.blogspot.com/. And she even does her posts in customer/barista prose: with the customer always sounding like a ….ummm…dumb ass. But a reflective one. As in, I ask for my drink to be remade sometimes.

I’m sorry Barista Brat but if Comeback Girl is paying $4.25 for her cup of joe (triple, breve, upside down, extra whip, no foam, “please mark the cup over the forth box where the shots with breve stop and the whip starts”, 103 degrees —caramel machiatto”, I have to have it my way and err on the side of psycho nut customer.