Natural Attachment

I know that I had some strong words to say about our newly reopened coffeeshop. I have more things to say.

I realize that in my intolerance of my resistance of the new and different, I was only resisting resistance, which is a vicious cycle and leads to lots of unpleasant things. Over the week, I have been allowing myself to accept my resistance and see it as just my reaction of a deep love and comfort with what was and a fear of what might be. Now that I have *some* tolerance within me, I have some new thoughts on this coffee conundrum!

I and just about everyone that I have spoken with wants a coffeeshop to be in and succeed in the neighborhood. Most of the neighborhood doesn’t care what it is like, barring that it isn’t Starbucks (or similar chain) or a Crazy Mocha — I have to agree with everyone on this.

Ultimately, I am just upset that The Vault is no longer *my* coffeeshop. The manager is very nice and has a great attitude about the project in her hands, but lacks the funk and cynicism that I like with my coffee…ergo so does the coffeeshop.

I want a non-corporate coffeeshop in the hood, so since it is convenient for me to stop in when I hit the community garden (which is right behind the coffeeshop), I will continue to stop in. However, I won’t *live* there like I once did…I’d rather call Affogato my new home or ‘third place’.

I apologize now for anyone who reads my blog…I need to vent, fuss and spew on about my experience today.

So, our local coffeeshop (The Vault), which we absolutely adored and lived at about 4 to 6 days a week closed its doors back in early May. We were devastated, but we also saw it coming.

Skip forward to about a month ago.

We were walking by and saw someone inside painting and whatnot. We knocked and then preceded to have like a 3 hour tour and visit with the new manager. We shared ideas, tips and lots of suggestions. She was nice, friendly and full of excitement for the project in her hands.

After walking away from this conversation and adding it to half a dozen or so visits and phone calls, there are many things I have been able to infer and assume about this whole operation. Now, I can only affirm a couple of these statements I’m about to say, but this is just how I perceive things:

• Manager is not a Pittsburgher and knows not who Pittsburghers are.
• Manager has no knowledge of coffee or ‘real’ coffeeshop culture…she specifically used the term, ‘third place’ — such a Starbucks word…hubby vouches for this as he put time in with ‘The Devil’ (Starbucks)
• Manager knows nothing about Brighton Heights or what her neighbors want. Several neighbors have expressed this feeling to me personally.
• Manager appears to think that the average income in our neighborhood is about $40K more than it is…lots of talk about business people and suits and wanting to attract their business…what about all the Blue-Collar Workers who live here and who will be her regulars — you know, the ones paying the bills?
• Manager ‘wants everybody to feel comfortable here’…I hear this as, ’she wants people who don’t appreciate funky neighborhood coffeeshops, to feel comfortable buying coffee from a place where my dread-locked-head-with-free-child-in-tow ass won’t feel comfortable sitting around for too long’.
• Manager is so nice and I feel so bad for her. Me thinks she has no ‘real’ grasp of what the issues were with the shop in its previous life. Me thinks the owners/investors are not being completely truthful and open with her.

First, the shop looks nothing like it did before. Everything is repainted and practically sterile. No longer is there hip and fun music playing overhead, but drab ‘yuppie-jazz’ playing in the background. It looks and feels so impersonal it hurts, really. I don’t feel comfortable there and it lacks everything that I enjoyed about it.

I miss:

• the humor
• the wit
• the anger
• the charm
• the horrible (in a ‘good’ way) paint colors
• the never completely clean women’s restroom
• the comfy well worn-in old bank furniture
• the inappropriate or objectionable toys and ugly dolls for sale
• the fun signs posted everywhere that made me smile or smirk
• the guys behind the counter who knew how to make a drink, make it right and pretty…the guys who knew how to have a conversation
• the snarky and jaded attitudes…full of love and understanding underneath
• the ability to spread ourselves out across the front bench seat and be comfortable and left alone
• the long afternoons spent pouring over crossword puzzles with the gang

Now it’s just too nice, too clean, too un-coffeeshop. It no longer feels like home, like my ‘third place’. It sort of feels like a combination of ‘nice’ dentist office waiting room+ middle class ‘Direct Buy’ living room. It has celery green faux paint finish on the walls and Lilac/Lavender walls in the bathroom with frilly curtains. Seriously. I’m a grown-ass woman and I was grieving the loss and then the tragedy before me…I cried, while my son made dominoes fall down in neat patterns on the ‘dry-brushed’ paint finished coffee table. I am pathetic and stubborn.

Once I got over the eyesore of the cold decor, I put ‘em to the test. Triple Soy, Extra Dry, Cappuccino. You know, like a ‘real’ drink. Now, I’ll be up front; I am a horribly huge coffee snob. I am difficult and particular. In just about every coffeeshop that I have been a regular at, I have ended up making my own drink on more than four dozen occasions. It’s not necessarily something that I am proud of, but it happens and it happens to just be how I am. Maybe William and I should have taken the new manager’s offer for us to train the new staff seriously. The drink was made by a friendly gentleman, who took care to ask me lots of questions about my drink and preferences. He did make me something that was drinkable…not comforting, not smooth, not soothing, not sexy (yes, espresso can be sexy), not pretty and just where do they find coffee with dirt in it (excessive grounds at the bottom of my cup)? I know, it’s their first day and they will have to learn these things, but it’s still depressing for me.

I left there with $14.71 less in my pocket. I left there with the idea floating around in my head that maybe it’s worth more paying $4.00 round trip bus fare and another $20-$25 to go and hang out at Affogato instead of walking the half mile to The Vault.

Maybe I am just being too unfair and too judgmental of this whole experience. Maybe I should lighten up. Maybe we can’t all be happy. Maybe things will change drastically in the near future and I can resume a comfortable corner perch in my own neighborhood. Until then, I will try to stop grieving the loss of my beloved coffeeshop.

I know, enough with the melodrama already.

So, we haven’t been to the community garden since June 13th, right before we left for vacation. I finally got down there tonight at around 8:30 pm. Oh My Gosh…like, all that rain we’ve been havin’…our little measly lot has turn into a jungle of sorts! (No, I really don’t talk like that!)

Tonight (from our plot) I harvested:
1 med. head worth of leaf lettuce
Few bits of bib lettuce
15 radishes
Few sprigs of basil
Few sprigs of sage
1 tiny (about the size of a roma tomato) purple bell pepper — I couldn’t wait for it to get bigger!

From the Community Side I Grabbed:
Few sprigs of Dill
Few sprigs of lemon thyme

On my walk home, I harvested some lavendar from a yard — I doubt they’ll notice!

I apologize that these pictures are so fuzzy, but it was just about dark and camera was having issues, or rather I was having issues — either way, the pictures do not speak the true name of our garden.

This last picture is of our plot with our salad & chives up front, super tall radishes, giant cauliflower and broccoli and wild and sprawling black heirloom tomatoes (at the far end). There are other things in there, but those are the biggest guys right now.

Over the last couple of weeks the kiddo and I have been venturing outside to tend to the yard and garden areas. We are about to get some plants into the soil.

Today we planted some really old cucumber seeds, poppy flower seeds and sweet basil seeds to see if they were any good. It was just something to hold over the kiddo until our local nursery (The Urban Gardener) opens up in a couple days.

Our List of Things to be Planted:

• Lemon Balm (melissa officinalis)
• German Chamomile (matricaria recutita)
• Apple Mint [woolly mint (mentha suaveolens)]
• Bergamont Mint (mentha citrata)
• Spearmint (mentha spicata)
• Dark Opal Basil (ocimum basilicum “purpurascens”)
• Lemon Basil (ocimum x citriodorum)
• Catnip (nepeta cataria)
• Oregano (origanum vulgare)
• Rosemary (rosmarinus officinalis)
• Garden/Kitchen Sage (salvia officinalis)
• Divining Sage (saliva divinorum)
• Lyre-Leaved Sage (salvia lyrata)
• Red Raspberry (rubus strigosus)
• Red Clover (trifolium pratense)
• Carrot (novelty cultivars: red, purple, yellow and white)
• Radicchio [”italian chicory” (cichorium intybus)]
• White Clover (trifolium repens)
• Wild Strawberry (fragaria virginiana) (rosaceae)
• Low Sweet Blueberry [”maine blueberry” (vaccinium angustifolium)

There’s also onions, garlic, tomato and broccoli among other things, but I think most of those will be saved for the community garden we are involved with.

I usually hate working out in the yard, but this year I have been looking forward to it. It’s nice to feel the soil between my toes and to get my hands in the dirt. Elijah is sure enjoying it too.

We have signed ourselves up to work in the community garden that is just getting started in our neighborhood. It’s located in the yard right behind The Vault, our neighborhood coffee and tea bar. This will be a wonderful adventure.

More garden notes to come.