Saturday, December 15, 2012

Coca Cola and Cupcakes

After hours at Eileen Fisher.
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The best Coke is from Mexico. This is Dara at Sam's Pizzeria holding a bottle of Mexican Coca Cola. (Thanks for agreeing to the photo, Dara.) I'm not a big soda drinker, but when I do indulge in the classic pizza and coke combo, I now prefer Sam's Coke of choice bottled in Mexico using cane sugar instead of corn syrup for sweetness. My mom used to buy six packs of the green glass 6.5 oz. bottles in the '70s and the promise of one gave me all the motivation I needed to mow the lawn. When I tasted the Mexican Coke for the first time recently, a wave of nostalgia washed over me. It was the real thing.
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The Thorne's Market Photo Booth is back in order. The only other one I know of in the area is in Faces right across the street. That thin black and white strip of 4 photos will always be an iconic (refrigerator) art form. They've been usurped by digital cameras which provide immediate (overrated)  gratification but I remember when they used to an important part of the dating ritual. How many of us posed with someone on a first or second date and look at the photos now years later and see some combination of hope, fear, and remarkably smooth and tanned skin? If you both agreed to get in the photo booth,  it was an early yes vote for the relationship. Or at least assurance that you were at least willing to sit on each others' laps. Usually a good sign.  The forced proximity was an alibi for intimacy.  I  still smell pheromones and photo chemicals when I think about Sandy L. and me in a photo booth after seeing E.T. at the mall. Waiting together for the photo was a sneak preview and a dress rehearsal for our togetherness. It taught us patience  and required that we stand there together and ponder what we had just committed to film and to each other, while behind the peely walnut grain papered photo booth wall, the developer, stop bath, and fixer combined, reflecting our own chemistry. Waiting too long. Was it broken?  Was it a sign? But then PLUNK.  Immortalized x 4 regardless of what was to come.
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Before
After!  

The Queen Bee Cupcakery on the 2nd Floor of Thorne's Market is now a reality. But they aren't the only game in town. There's Woodstar of course and The Haymarket to name just two others who openly deal cupcakes. This morning I also kept passing people on the sidewalk eating cupcakes and soon thereafter spotted the SugarBaker's Cupcake Truck parked out in front of Jake's.  Cupcakes are a manageable, portable size for enjoying while also engaged in bipedal locomotion and there's something about eating a cupcake in the open air that just feels right. 



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