Who knew?

I’d like to share with you my recent communication with Starbucks – I’m very interested in your opinion once you read my letter to them and their response, both printed below.

It was my brother Pedro who alerted me to this situation.

Dear Starbucks,

I read with tremendous concern the controversy surrounding your excessive water use in the British daily The Sun published this past October 6.

(http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1771553.ece).

Rather than believing what I read in the paper, I want to ask you directly if it's true that it's corporate policy to keep the tap open with the water running.

The global water expenditure of such a policy is estimated at 23.4 million liters of water a day. Millions of families in the world survive with less than 20 liters a day.

If this is true, you could fill an Olympic swimming pool with clean, potable water every 83 minutes. 

Surely you can keep utensils clean with less water than this.

If all these allegations are true, please promise me, an avid Starbucks user, that you will abandon the corporate policy I am referring to in every Starbucks in the world, not just in the UK.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Dushka Zapata

Hello Dushka,

Thank you for contacting Starbucks Coffee Company. We appreciate your writing to us with your concerns about the amount of water used in our stores by the dipper well system. 

We recognize that the amount of water used by the dipper well system is unacceptable and we have been working since 2007 to find a solution that balances the urgent need for water conservation with the critical need for customer safety. Recently, our customers have urged us to expedite this process. This feedback has prompted us to redouble our efforts to find an alternative method and we are committed to finding a safe alternative to the dipper well for all our markets worldwide. 

As a result, we are launching additional and expanded tests in markets around the globe. Over the coming weeks, tests will take place in the U.S., the U.K., China, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand with the goal of identifying and implementing a global solution that is proven safe for our customers, complies with regulations and effective at conserving water.

Single Use Spoon Test- Starbucks locations in China, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia will begin (or have been) testing a single use spoon procedure as an alternative to the dipper well system. This procedure involves using a spoon once and setting it aside for later cleaning and sanitation during dish washing.

Verisimo Rinse Test- Effective Friday, October 10, Starbucks locations in UK will be testing a hot rinse procedure as an alternative to the dipper well system. This procedure involves using a spoon once and rinsing it with hot water immediately after use.

U.S. Tests- Effective Tuesday, October 14, Starbucks locations in the U.S. will be testing several alternatives to the dipper well system, including the self-draining container procedure, which involves intermittent rinsing of spoons after use and then storing them in a draining container and sanitizing; and the dedicated spoon procedure, where spoons stay in the pitcher of just hot milk or soy, and are rinsed and sanitized in the same way as our pitchers.

 Each of these tests has the potential to reduce our overall water use associated with dipperwells while maintaining our standards for customer safety. We are committed to phasing in new practices as they are proven safe and effective and hope to do so in the very near term.

We do place a high priority on water conservation, and you may be interested to know that we actually have several other ways that we are currently conserving water in our stores, including:

Installing high-pressure and temperature dishwashers to clean dishes quickly; Installing aerating spray nozzles in our sinks that reduce water consumption; Using rinsers with blasts of higher pressure water to clean pitchers instead of a long, constant stream from the tap; Reprogramming espresso machines to dispense less water during each rinse cycle of the shot glasses; and Testing in stores to evaluate the latest technologies designed to reduce energy and water use.

We continue to routinely re-evaluate our equipment, store design and training opportunities to reduce our overall water use with the goal of ultimately reducing our environmental footprint. In fact, our overall water use per square foot decreased this year.

Thank you again for contacting us. We appreciate your comments and thank you for being a customer. If you have any further comments please email us email us via www.starbucks.com/customer/contact.asp or call (800) 23-LATTE (52883) to speak with a customer relations representative.

Warm Regards,

Starbucks Coffee Company

Not me

I’ve heard this so many times people who have been together for years for decades one day you turn and see him a glance the light a washed out profile and you wonder who he is

but you You I always know have never felt I don’t know who you are I am instead surprised that after looking at you for this long I still feel I never want to look away

 

Don't go

I know what you think settled happy lucky I can’t deny it so lucky but the emptiness it’s still here I’m scrambling bewildered at least once an hour unrecognizable to myself old strong precious some day obliterated gone without a trace too much suffocates me not enough never enough a perpetual desperate search for my better self

I don’t know how to keep her here

Photo: www.realsimple.com

Eudaimonia

Ever so often I am overwhelmed by a feeling of well being.

And then I wonder if “well being” does a good job describing it.

It’s not a rush, like joy or enthusiasm (which fortunately I’m also prone to). It’s softer and fuller. Should I call it “Wellness”? Nah. Too clinical. This is more akin to fulfillment, to (dare I say it?) happiness.

Maybe it just needs a bit of Italian flair. Benessere.

Or, Greek. Eudaimonia.

Anyhow, the point is that, regrettably, I’ve come to discover that it’s not a feeling I can chase.  It has to come on its own. I can’t find it in good meals, in conversations with friends or the company of people I love. It’s not in a spa, even if the massage was a particularly good one. It doesn’t present itself when I buy new shoes, or finalize a good document. It doesn’t hold hands with the (delightful) sense of a job well done. It’s unpredictable. It always surprises me.

It presents itself quietly, say, when I travel and am surrounded by unfamiliar sights, smells, sounds. But it doesn’t come on every trip. It arrives when I’m sitting somewhere, not making an effort to do three things at once. When I’m just taking the world in. But if I tell myself to focus on staying in the present and just enjoying the moment for what it is, it evades me.

Is this what happiness is? An elusive, ephemeral tease of a feeling that you can’t consciously go after? It might be my inalienable right to pursue it, but if I do, I might miss it entirely.

Photo: woodgroove.com

Don't ask

Here is a short list of questions you should refrain from asking:

Why are you still single?

When are you two getting married?

When are you having kids?

Is your child adopted?

Are you pregnant?

Does this make me look fat?

Did you have a rough night?

How can I ban a book?

Let me know if you have others for my "don't ask" collection.

Photo: www.dailygalaxy.com

No way out

Two weeks ago I wrote about a television show called The Wire. When I posted that entry, I was still in the middle of season 3. Season 4, which I hadn’t seen, is about education, and I’m so affected by what I’ve learned that I have to write about this program again. I’ll keep it short.

Education is the one thing – maybe the only thing – that offers a glimmer of a way out of a near impossible to break vicious circle of poverty, crime, drugs and ending up in jail or shot on a corner.  This makes education (at least in my book) the number one priority. Despite of which our education system, here, in the most powerful country in the world, is failing all of us.

The “No Child Left Behind” initiative gives kids a free pass, “allowing” them to be in a class that corresponds to their age, not their level – which means they will always be too far behind to ever catch up. It forces teachers to give a passing grade to students who don’t know how to read, which not only means the child is forever lost in class, at best bored, at worse humiliated, with an ever diminishing sense of self worth; but that said child also slows up the lesson for everyone else. It forces teachers to impart to students specific answers to tests, rather than whole lessons, to ensure kids get a passing grade. This is done to improve statistics, to back up the claim our system is improving. Did you know this? Is this common knowledge? 

Coincidentally, in the middle of my watching eye opening, enraging, hopelessness inducing season 4, David Simon, the creator of this show, gave a talk at Berkley. I couldn’t attend, but thanks to my friend Analisa I did see the webcast, which you too can watch at:

http://townsendcenter.berkeley.edu/webcast_Simon.shtml

David Simon explains that corruption is not just government officials looking to line their own pockets, but people everywhere who look for ways to make someone else responsible. “This horrible mess here is not really my fault, because…”

I don’t know just how much the structures and institutions that supposedly bind this country can hold while we (and I mean I) contribute to the mess by looking the other way.

Photo: www.thewire.com

 

Some day you'll understand

One of Luca’s oldest friends came to spend some time with us in California. He and his three children, ages 8, 11 and 14, stayed at our house for a few days. It was a fascinating experience, sociologically speaking.

When I was a kid I solemnly swore I’d never, ever be like a grown up. I wrote this sacred vow across the top page of my diary. In fact, the diary itself was meant as a reminder to a future me; inoculation against whatever it was that possessed adults, causing them to forget all that was important.

It took me 12 seconds flat to turn into my parents.

I put these kids on a regimented schedule so I could holler “Time for breakfast! Time for a bath! Bed time!” and, my personal favorite “No, not in two minutes. Now!”

I said “shhhh!” a lot. I made them eat their fruit and vegetables before they could open bags of chips or eat cookies. To their whiny “but, whyyy?” I’d quickly retort “because I say so”.

In my defense, kids are noisy. They yell, opine, scream, complain, bang, weigh in, listen to (atrocious) music, and thump around like elephants.

They are chaotic. They each have different requirements and demands (Hot milk. Cold milk. Strawberry cereal. Banana without the mushy part. Can I please have some conditioner? My hair is all tangly!)

They are crazy expensive. They are perpetually thirsty, hungry and needy. I usually shop for two people who don’t eat a whole lot. We struggle to finish a liter of milk in a week. With three kids in the house (and an extra adult), I bought milk by the gallon. They went through a dozen bananas a day. Boxes of cereal. One day, I made chocolate chip cookies (big hit) and they were gone before the cookie sheet had a chance to cool off. I’m just glad they left before I needed to start worrying about cars, college educations and weddings.

Kids are messy (and smelly). The youngest one had the habit of walking around the house while dragging her sticky hands across the wall (which I hereby swear didn’t made me cringe – I was more amused than disturbed.) A straw was inserted somewhat heartily into the apple juice, sending apple juice squirting all over (easy to wipe) counters, floors and chairs. Their shoes smell of feet (and so did the entrance to the house, since everyone left shoes there.)

These creatures. Never. Get. Tired. After taking in their energy and bounciness I determined that the best course of action was to take them outside. We went to the beach. Played basketball. Went for a hike. Walked the dog. Had a picnic. Went bowling. They were still bouncy on the way back home. And woke up the next morning hungry again, bouncy again, needy again. As Joan Cusack so eloquently put it: “The thing about kids is that they just keep coming at you.”

I was very happy to share my time and space with these amazing characters, but was equally happy to supervise their packing and departure. Now excuse me while I go for a long walk. Alone.

Photo: me on a long walk, alone.