Two different treat to of a scene recently at the Weaver Street Market in Carrboro, NC. It’s a hip place in general: an independently owned grocery with a huge salad bar and cafeteria-style hot bar and local produce and baked goods, artisan cheeses and two full aisles of high-quality supplements. You get the idea. Outside the stor is a mulched-over lawn with picnic tables to camp out at, washing down your kale and green bean salad with organic coffe, while tapping away at your late-model MacBook. A jazz band will play a few sets, contributing to the hipness and inspiring beat poetry.
So it’s not only friendly to hipsters and vegans, but also animals. Lots of people bring dogs but this was the first time I have seen anyone bring a macaw. It was in a cage, but still. Lots of children wanted to look at it, pat it, feed it mulch, whatever it is kids want to do to exotic animals. If you have any experience with macaws, you how both SMART and STRONG they are. If a macaw wants to bite your finger off, or rip a chunk of flesh off your arm, it can do so easily. So I was very glad it was in a cage, when it probably would have happily ridden on his person’s shoulder.
Also at the same table was a sheep dog, obviously pure-bred, a magnificent animal. Although it was huge, and overflowing with a cascading energy and impatience, this was a specimen to make dogs everywhere proud to be canine. If dogs were cars, this guy would be a Cadillac Escalade. The dog had been getting quite a bit of attention but as soon as the guy with the bird sat down, everyone scattered in that direction, leaving the poor sheepdog barking helplessly and furiously. Where’d everyone go? Where are all my friends NOW?
You might gather from all this that I think Weaver Street Market is a silly place but actually I love it there. My husband asked me first thing this morning, before I’d even had coffee yet, did I want to go to Weaver Street for breakfast. Huh? There are very few questions of any sort that I could, or would, answer when I first wake up, I can’t even answer “How did you sleep?” until at least 9:45 am, but I knew enough to say “YES!!!” to an invitation to go to Weaver Street. Not only is the breakfast bar worth the trip (Eggs Migas to make you drool), the coffee strong and dark and healthful, but there is always a terrific cross-section of society there. There are the crunchy-granola types with yoga mats, and lots of students, and professionals of all ages and stripes. On your left will be a narcissistic college sophomore going on like this: “and she said blah blah blah and I was like oh my god, you are SO insensitive, you know what I mean? Like, my mother was in the like next room and then my father started flipping out …”. Then on the other side will be a couple planning how to conduct a double-blind neurological experiment and the difficulties of interpreting the result data. Or there was the Ladies Book Club who I wanted to ignore but then I realized they were talking about Christian Mystics in the traditional monasteries in the US and it was actually a fascinating discussion.
I usually don’t talk when I go there, I’m one of those people tappety-tapping away on a MacBook, in fact that’s what I’m doing right now. Oh, and another fun thing to do at WSM is to sign into iTunes and see who-all around you is sharing their music library, and start playing their music on your own laptop. I’ve done this several times and never been caught.
I would really like to write about the music and dancing at WSM but it will have to wait for another post. To whet your appetite, a couple of years ago I posted a picture of Bruce, here: http://thedailygrunge.com/2012/10/20/dancer/