Strrarrbrrucks

Progress is constant, creeping, even. I don’t want to rush these early stages of it though. But I am moving forward every day, including today, in spite of a break with The Routine.
The Routine was basically to go to starbucks in the morning, drink Chai tea and write. It was going well, and without going out on the second morning of writing the book may well of stalled stock still. So thank you, Starbucks, I appreciate your ability to create enough different noises so that no one noise dominates and becomes distracting. Yesterday, however, I was told that I was ordering my tea wrong. There are two types of chai tea you can get in starbucks; a hot water and tea bag affair that is spiced and very slightly bitter. The other is a chai latte, that is about 20% froth and 70% milk. The spiced taste is faint, like it is being remembered rather than experienced and instead of being slightly bitter it is sweet, like a kitten’s vomit.
I’d been given the latter latte once before and after trying to drink it for a few minuets I went back and asked for a normal one, which they did very politely and it was fine. I don’t mind that, it was ok.
The problem I have was that when I ordered a tea yesterday the staff member scribbled on the bit of paper (like they do in starbucks) and passed it to her co-worker by the milk frothing machine that is no where near the hot water and teabags machine, so I said quickly that that was the wrong sort and I wanted the other one, to which I was told that to get access to a tea bag and hot water I shouldn’t ask for a chi tea, but I should just ask for a tea, and then wait to be asked what sort of tea bag I would like.
It’s like inputting commands into a computer – that’s what she wanted as her preferred system of ordering.
I told her I’d remember to do so in future and I have no intention of returning.
So The Routine is broken, but I cleaned up my desk and have been getting on with it with my own tea quite nicely.