Mmm, more cheese

Whole Foods is opening a new store in Lakewood, near my neighborhood. It's about two miles closer than the old Greenville Avenue store, but that two miles makes a world of difference. The new WF is about six times larger, prettier, and much more of a destination. The old store was too cramped and cluttered. It was like a teenager still squeezing into her "Jonas Brothers" t-shirt. It was too small and it needed to move on and grow up.

The new store as all sorts of corporate nods to its "new" neighborhood, from Live Oak leaves decorating the ceiling to a Lakewood-centric timeline - Do you know what year the Corinthian Sailing Club was founded? How about LCC? - on the cold-foods wall.

There is more merchandise than was at the old Greenville store, but less of its charming birkenstock-y attitude. Whole Foods Lakewood feels more corporate and less granola, but it's not the mecca the Austin store is, nor does it have the uber-suburbia feel of the Preston Road store - spa, anyone? However, if Lakewood ever wanted a place to hang out and bump into everyone in the 'hood, this Whole Foods will be just perfect for that.

It opens Monday, at 9:30am. I'll be there to break bread with them; come get a slice.

Thrifty shopping

At thrift stores there are shoes, and tchotchkes, and dishes... OMG there are dishes - "Shakespeare's Birthplace" and Royal Doulton, 1970's shopping store give-away and one-of-kind design-fading dinnerware, can-you-believe-someone-ate-off-that?, and more...

And then there are treasures such as these type-setter's trays from an old printhouse that closed in East Dallas. They couldn't even remember its name. Trays and trays of typeset. I don't know if they threw away the keys that were in these, but other trays "Jolly" and "42PT Spart" and "18PT Stymie" were full.

I wanted to save every one and set print and see what 42 point words looked like in "Spart." But instead, I took a photo. Which I found was a very good thing to do in a thrift shop. I felt like I had come home with it all, but none of it would ever be dusty.

Oh, Oh, O's!

Can't wait, can't wait! 'til Thursday...

The O's came over to my new studio, before there was even any electricity, and wonderful videographer Alex Kanakis rolled ... um... pixels. No "tape" for us.

Before we got started Taylor (on the left, with mustache) asked me what questions I would ask in our interview, and I went through my usual, "What do you like about Lakewood, where do you hang out, did you grow up in Dallas, when are you releasing the CD, what are you working on now... you know, that sort of thing." He nodded, and Alex began recording. I think I asked them, "What are your favorite places to hang out in Lakewood?" but for twenty minutes after that, I couldn't get in another word, I was laughing so hard. The O's were on a roll. They are Dallas' version of the Smothers Brothers, and the funniest, best FreakFolk* players I know.

You can find the O's everywhere.

*not my terminology. I'd rather go with "PopFolk" if you're asking my opinion.

Working our thumbs black

Thumbs get a workout in photography. Mine holds my camera steady, and at the end of a nine hour wedding, it was black. The other thumb (in the hip plaid jacket) belongs to wedding photographer Carissa Byers, who hires me to second shoot with her. It was the end of the night, and our thumbs were aching.