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Cheers to you from Starbucks – Coffee shops 2008, #30

Image by Earl – What I Saw 2.0

Caught up with Earl at his apartment before he had to go to work, and we had some time to hit this Starbucks across from the Towsontown Mall where he works at Teavana.

This is my favorite flow of humanity coffee shop, and we were able to score two stools at the window counter, facing the sidewalk and the parking lot beyond.

Towson is an interesting semi-urban, semi-university, semi-Baltimore County county seat, and it has a lot that is very real about it, especially on a pedestrian scale. Right next to this shop is a Smoothie King, a pizza shop and a supermarket; right behind it is what I think is the best Record and Tape Traders, next to Ukazoo, a very nice used bookstore that I hit pretty often.

People come and go here for a lot of reasons and at a lot of speeds; some are coming here on purpose, others as a quick stop on their way to somewhere else they’d rather be. There is no drive through, but for many it’s a driving through.

When we went in, there were two people where we’re sitting in the shop, and they were finished and left as we were ordering. Some people came in a got a coffee and went and sat at the bench right in front of this window. Others were waiting out front until someone came by that they knew, either on purpose or by accident. A few others flowed in and sat at one of the three tables behind Earl, to his left, and one person orbited between friends inside and outside.

I guess I like it so much because it’s a place to spend some time with Earl – maybe it’s our Adult Subway? – and because when I’m there I’m part of the flow and separate from it at the same time.

When we walked in and up to the counter and began to order, one of the baristas recognized Earl, and said, "Earl Gray the third." She is a friend of a friend, very pleasant and having what looked like a pretty good time working there.

Another barista, pulling coffees next to her, asked Earl, "What were your parents thinking when they named you?"

I said, "Probably the same thing my parents were thinking when they named me."

That, clearly, was fun – one of those unplannable interactions that are an unexpected lift. She had fun with it, too, and asked Earl if he knew that there were some coffee proportionality benefits if he ordered his Venti as a triple, which he said he didn’t know, so she set him up that way and he said it was really good.

He had a raspberry scone with it, and I had a Tall Tazo Zen and a chocolate chip cookie.

I liked all of the baristas a lot, and we thanked them on the way out for good stuff and a good time.

There are clearly conversational benefits to having a semi-unusual family name. I’m guessing it never came up to my father’s parents in 1919 when they named him that, or to him and my mom in 1952.

We work with it, have fun with it and it helps people to remember who you are.

So we’ve got that working for us, as Bill Murray said, which is . . . nice.

Earl spotted the 15 minutes only sign on the parking lot by our cars and made the Warhol reference, which I though was pretty good. It’s the shot posted just before this one.

This is the 30th shot in the series of every coffee shop meeting I have in 2008, starting when I thought about doing it back in mid-April, a little over 60 days ago. This is also where the first one happened – you can see it here: tinyurl.com/5oe4sy

Cheers!

Starbucks in the strip shopping center across from the Towson Mall, Towson, Maryland

Cheers to you from Starbucks – Coffee shops 2008, #32

Image by Earl – What I Saw 2.0

A little Friday break at the end of the day at the Starbucks in North Glen Burnie, next to the Motor Vehicle Administration.

Met my friend Tinney there to catch up a little and have cold drinks. I’m having a Vivanno banana mango – not bad, but not as good as a smoothie made with crushed ice.

Gave him a copy of Who Moved My Cheese – he hadn’t heard of it or read it, and his cheese is definitely getting moved around, a lot. I’m looking forward to getting together again and getting his take on it and how it may apply to his world, too.

Cheers!

Starbucks, Rt 2, North Glen Burnie, Maryland

Starbucks

Image by rossdurham

Starbucks at Northlake Mall. (The one I got fired from) LOL.