starbucks

I like starbucks, regardless of their tainted rap. I drink their egg nog lattes at Christmas, and their frappucino's and passion tea lemonade during the summer. I enjoy the atmosphere in their stores (especially the ones with the cozy fireplaces). It is a nice meeting place, and usually child free (which is a huge plus for someone who deals with 2 small kids on an hourly basis)
I had a nice coffee date with 2 of my friends today. We sat and talked about husbands, mother-in-laws, dinner, weddings, guitar hero and strangely enough...poop. It was nice and relaxing, and I wish I could do it more often. It is nice to be amongst adults, talking about things other than diego and the backyardigans. I know our conversation focused mainly on kids, family and the nasty brown stuff...but having new voices added to the usual conversations is a nice change.
And you hear some really interesting things when you sit amongst the adults in starbucks. Today I heard a story of a woman who just discovered her boyfriends torrid affair. I then heard the woman she sat with rant about how all men suck. You can't help but raise an eyebrow. And don't judge me for listening (I tried really hard not to) because if they didn't want people to hear, talk somewhere else, or talk quieter!
You get all sorts at these meeting places. The fat women complaining about their weight as they mindlessly shovel a brownie or cookie into their face, washing it down with a full fat latte. The hippie sorts who sit and read. The self-important ones who sit on their laptops, trying to look intelligent, but we all know they are just playing solitaire or looking at porn. The groups of women who talk about husbands and poop, and laugh maybe a bit too loud (this is my group!!). The ones who sit quietly, sipping their green tea or venti half fat decaf carmel macchiato's, while they ponder life and people watch. Of course, then there are the mothers, who take their 2 year old son to starbucks to buy their friends travel mugs for Christmas....the ones who are kindly offered a chocolate milk for the sobbing 2 year old who just bonked his head on the counter.....the ones who stare in horror as their 2 year old throws his chocolate milk on the floor.....the ones who watch the chocolate milk come shooting out of the lid, and the whipping cream come slopping onto the floor in a goopy glob.....the ones who nearly burst into tears while trying to juggle their egg nog latte, the tantrumous 2 year old, the bags of coffee mugs and scones, and the goopy creamy chocolatey mess that just happened to miss her foot by inches. There is always those people....but luckily for starbucks, I swore I would only ever take my 2 year old through the drive through after that incident....at least if he has a fit and spills his milk, it is easy to wipe off leather, and there are no eyes judging me and my kid.....just the smell of fermenting milk in the months to come.