So - yesterday I set out at about 8:20 AM in search of some whole bean coffee, as we were fresh out. It was lovely outside, and where we live is quite walkable to most things, so I decided I’d take a half hour or so - maybe a bit more if I stopped to smell the flowers - and take a brisk, invigoratingwalk to the local independently-owned cafe and then a local convenience store for the aforementioned coffee and a copy of Cody’s Favorite Reading Material - the Sunday
NYT. Because, you know, I am all about supporting the local scene. Easy, right?
As I approached the cafe after a delightful walk through my old neighborhood, it dawned on me that the possibility of there being no beans for retail sale was a distinct one, especially since I’d walked and not called first. A weird dry spell regarding beans at this particular establishment had happened before, and it wasn’t pretty when it did (I still don’t understand how a cafe could think it was OK to be entirely out of decaffeinated coffee for over a week). Since I was after fully-leaded beans, however - you know, the stuff regular people drink - there was no way this was going to be an issue. Right? However, I really wasn’t surprised when I walked in and discovered the only whole bean coffee they had for sale was a single pound of decaf. Swiss water-processed decaf, but… decaf.
Onward to the next place - the Hippie Health Food Store! Surely they’d be open by my ETA, which was 9 AM as I was on foot and had already stopped to pick up the
NYT. The smell of lilacs (which I stopped for several times) was overpowering along the way, bringing my last spring in MPLS (1991) to the front of my brain’s Memory Line. I admired some local architecture as I walked, and cursed myself for not wearing sneakers. It was with little surprise as I approached the HHFS and discovered they did not open until 10 AM. Drat.
I strolled through downtown, on my way to the (regionally owned/operated) grocery store to procure doughnuts and some bananas and maybe, just maybe, some coffee. I looked at some excellent shoes in the window of the local high-end shoe store, checked out some Irish pottery in the window of another establishment, and lamented the fact that the Fancy French Bakery was not open on Sundays (it never has been, but I still lamented). Construction has begun on the county courthouse, I noticed, and the excellent maples near one of the busier intersections in town had finally leafed out. I crossed the street and walked past the Giant Coffee Conglomerate, which would have made everything easier, and on to the grocery store. Turns out the cafe in the store actually has better-than-passable beans. I waved to a co-worker who was there, buying orange juice and a newspaper.
As I walked toward home, I saw a City Council member, a lot of rabbits, some interesting yard sculpture, my favorite flower garden, and the Blue House of Self-Sufficiency (more on that in a minute). I took a slightly different route at the end of my trip, the better to check out another one of my favorite gardens, hoping to catch its caretaker so I could ask about the yearly bamboo harvest. I heard a great many
House Wrens, a bird I haven’t been hearing much over the last few summers, but seems to have settled in my neighborhood in force this year.
Mogul Geoff and
Hooey Jill were out in their enviably space-efficient front yard with their
dogs, so I went over to say hello. After a lengthy conversation about
rock n roll reunions, coffee roasting, container gardening, and heirloom seeds, I left their place with 3 packages of seeds (melons and pole beans) and three tomato seedlings (2 of them
Black From Tula).
Home was less than a block away; I arrived and delivered the coffee, bananas, and doughnuts. It had taken me two hours, but in that time - which went by really fast - I’d done something I used to do all the time but have had little time to do this spring - I observed. I took notice. Most of those places are places I’ve been walking past every day, but haven’t been noticing beyond a perfunctory registering.
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Fun news from
Chank -
Wordier Diva and
Li’l Diva will soon be available to font nerds/freaks/devotees everywhere.
Wordier Diva is a twelve-years-in-the-making re-draw of
Wordy Diva, and
Li’l Diva is, of course, Lilly’s contribution to the Wordy Diva family. Lilly is hoping to get Li’l Diva into the Artemis Fowl series. Could be an excellent case of
like mother, like daughter.
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Obligatory
Market at the Square photo, taken Saturday, May 24:
Note especially for locals: the Market now has a
Facebook fan page, a
Flickr photostream, and a
weekly preview page that gets updated the Thursday before the Market.
Also for locals: would love to see you at the
Illinois Local and Organic Food and Farm Task Force Listening Session in Urbana this Wednesday, May 28, from 7-9 PM at the Urbana Civic Center in downtown Urbana. The Facebook page is
here, a link to the (PDF) flyer is
here, and I really hope some of you can come and contribute to the dialogue. I’ll be there, too!
*****
I was going to keep going, but this is plenty long enough for today. More soon, this time on Motorpsycho, the Blue House of Self-Sufficiency, and gardening-as-responsibility, plus whatever else…
