Last night I saw a commercial for -- if I can remember this correctly, it will be a minor miracle -- the stuffed chicken Santa Fe-style at Applebees. I heard the slogan, "As American as the southwest," but I didn't really look up until I heard them say Santa Fe. When I did look up, there was a picture of a lady chowing down something cheesy-looking, and then a picture of a giant saguaro cactus. Well, first of all, people chew with their mouths open in every part of the world, I'm sure, and second of all, there are no saguaros in Santa Fe, and as far as I know, you'd be hard-pressed to find one in ANY part of New Mexico. So I was all pissed off for about two seconds, and then there was a picture of a building IN Santa Fe! I only saw it for a split second, because I was busy rolling my eyes about the cactus thing, but I was almost sure that it was one of two buildings: either the new art building on the College of Santa Fe campus, or one of the big adobe-looking things near the Plaza... I think it was the one near that coffee place... Shit, I can't even remember the name of the coffee place... It was a really great coffee place with a big skylight and these gruesome orange and purple walls. If you looked out the window upstairs, the next building over (a big adobe-looking thing) was lit with luminaries in winter. I think it was that building.
What is my problem? I can't even remember the name of that place... It was my favorite coffee place until they shut it down.
Well, now I'm upset. So as I wait for my song to download and for the sun to reach a suitably high place in the sky (suitable for me to stand up and face the world, that is), I'll try to remember what the hell that coffeehouse was called... Without using Yahoo -- that's just cheating.
There was Java Joe's, of course. The one in College Plaza was quaint, but you always felt like people were watching you, and they never played anything on the CD player except Bob Dylan -- Erich's choice, of course. The one way the hell up on the hill, on Rodeo Road, was much better. It always smelled like hazelnuts and the guys who worked there always played this weird "world beat" music and wore these big African hats. Mike and I used to play chess there on a near-daily basis. He always won, but I loved playing anyway. Once, we found a flier advertising a "Holistic Tax Consultant." I swear to gahd. And in the center of the flier was a full-color picture of a middle-aged guy petting a golden retriever in the middle of a green field. It's funny, because there were no green fields in Santa Fe; even the rich people that lived in the hills didn't have green grass, and if they did, they didn't have much. Mike and I had hysterics over that Holistic Tax Consultant for about an hour -- what the fuck does a holistic tax consultant do, anyway? Rub you with essential oils before telling you Uncle Sam's ripping you off? -- until -- AND I SWEAR THIS IS TRUE! -- the Holistic Tax Consultant walked INTO Java Joe's! Of course, we recognized him -- his picture, as well as that of his golden retriever, was right in front of us. And there he sat, glaring at us for taking down his flier and laughing at it.
Then there was Downtown Subscription. Everybody said James Taylor went there every morning, but I never saw him there. Downtown Subscription was a coffeehouse as well as a magazine/newsstand. You could get some of the most obscure things there: photography magazines in Japanese, Finnish bicycling magazines, fashion magazines with women wearing rainbow trouts across their bosoms... You name it. Also, their coffee was the most expensive, and didn't taste that great, but they DID have aranciata: eight ounces of glorified Orangina for like, three dollars.
There was Dana's After Dark, over by the shopping center -- DeVargas, I think it was called, and there was a Baskin Robbins there. Dana's opened at 8 or 9 at night, and it was a coffee-bar for gay teenagers. I swear to gahd, there is such a thing. Actually, Dana's sort of pissed me off. You couldn't just sit there and have coffee without five or six mini-homos dashing past your table yelping, "NO, not Sarah again! You always wanna listen to Sarah! We gotta listen to Janet now!" There was a piano that was violently out of tune, and two Barbie dolls assuming the "69" position hung over the counter. Needless to say, Mike was not very comfortable there; Mike didn't care one way or another if somebody was gay, straight, or anything else, but YOU try sitting down to a nice leisurely latté with teenaged boys lisping all around you. At least *I* was used to the lisp, if not the annoying teenaged boys. Mike couldn't even claim that much, poor guy. Besides, the tea at Dana's was all loose and they could never manage to brew it without getting little crumbs of tea-stuff all over the bottom of your cup...
There was Starbucks, on Cerrillos Road. Mike and I were living in Santa Fe when the very first Starbucks opened there. Once, just before a trip to El Paso, Mike and I stopped in at Starbucks for coffees-to-go. Mike got some wimpy little espresso thing with more whipped cream than coffee, and I got the only thing I've ever gotten at Starbucks: coffee, straight up. I'm telling you, Starbucks coffee looks, feels, and tastes like tar, no matter what state you're in. Unfortunately for my internal organs, I really like tar... Anyway, that day, I drank the entire cup (16 ounces? 20? I think 20...) of coffee before we even got to Albuquerque. That's approximately 47 times the lethal dose of caffeine I had ingested within an hour's drive. THEN, in Albuquerque, Mike stopped for gas, and we got beef jerky and those gas-station cappuccino things. I finished my cappuccino thing within half an hour, and then finished Mike's, too. I don't remember much about that trip, except stopping at this rest stop halfway between Albuquerque and El Paso. I remember wanting to roll around in the sand. I think I may have brought a handful of sand into the bathroom with me for luck. I don't know. Oh, and there were antelopes. Everywhere. I saw antelopes. No, I don't know what they were doing in the desert, but I'm certain they were there. Mike didn't see the antelopes. Mike also didn't want me to continue breathing after I'd told him my entire life story about four times and then started in with some crap about antelopes.
THEN there was this other place... I can't remember the name of it... There were two of them -- one of them downtown, and the other on... Cordova Drive? Something... Whatever. Anyway, these were my favorites, especially the one downtown. They were painted in these weird colors, and the downtown one had framed photographs lining the walls of the stairway. The best thing about that coffeehouse, though, was the orange juice. They squeezed it right in front of you. Not only that, but there are several kinds of oranges, and they didn't use the kind that Tropicana and Minute Maid uses. They used some seriously bitchin' oranges. I can't even tell you what was so special about that place, other than the orange juice, but I was so thrilled with it. The best was when Mike and I sat upstairs in the window seat, and I sat watching snowflakes drift down silently onto the adobe-stuff. The luminaries were glowing, and if you didn't think about it too deeply, it was a lot like Café Decadence in Ithaca. Mike sat across from me reading the label on the bottle of Hot Sauce (which was from the Coyote Café, I think -- I do recommend that everybody eat there at least once in your life, even though the food looks really freakish; you can get the sauces basically anywhere now, but the Café is in Santa Fe...). I was a few thousand miles away that day, but I remember the adobe-ish building next door. I swear, I SWEAR they showed that building last night on a freaking Applebees commercial.
What the fuck was the name of that coffeehouse?
They closed the one downtown, but left the Cordova one open. The Cordova one was okay, but after the downtown one closed, Mike and I went to Java Joe's most often. At least there, even though the view was shitty, we could play chess.
...The Santa Fe Baking Company... I had to look on Yahoo. Funny, some of the pointless crap I remember, and then I couldn't even remember the Santa Fe Baking Company?
(*sly smile*)
...Maybe I need some coffee...
Love,
~Helena*
"TELL me you didn't see that one! Oh my gahd, you almost HIT it! How could you not have seen it!"
"Helena, there are no--"
"I don't understand what they're doing here, but I SAW that one, I'm SURE I saw it. Just like I saw those ones over there, I swear it! What do they eat, Mike? What do they eat out in the desert where there isn't any grass?"
"Helena, there are no--"
"Do you have the radio on? Can you turn it off, please. I think maybe you need to concentrate on driving a little more, because you almost hit that antelope and you didn't even see it... I mean, you didn't ALMOST hit it -- there was a pretty good leeway, but what if you don't see the NEXT one and you DO hit it?"
"Helena, there are no--"
--Mike's and my conversation the entire way to El Paso after I'd had Starbucks coffee...