five reasons the star e rose is my new favorite coffeeshop

First of all, ignore the x-mas stuff all over this picture and instead pretend that the sky is bright blue and the tree is full of bushy, luminous green leaves shading all the happy people who are NOT bundled for winter but are instead lounging in tank tops and sandals. That's what it was like today. And now here are my reasons:

1.) The inside is full of bright colors and everything looks old and salvaged! That's the best. The walls are yellow and red and blue and there's colorful art on the walls and along the whole front of the shop, along the top wall next to the ceiling, are a row of stained glass windows, ALL IN PRIMARY COLORS. I love primary colors. When I sat down in there this weekend, in a dismal funk, I could literally feel my mood changing as I sat there and absorbed all the colors.

2.) THEY HAVE DECAF! BREWED! ALL THE TIME!!

3.) Unlike the other coffeeshops that are full of young, white hipsters and wanna be yuppies, this joint still reflects the diversity of the neighborhood, ie: old black guys sit out front and chat while the white hippies mingle around with their dogs and everybody seems happy and friendly. (Notice the difference too between hipsters at the other coffeeshops and hippies at this one... I guess, when push comes to shove, I prefer hippies. Oh well.)

4.) That tree out front is awesome. It's bushy and shady and green and lush. I was just as happy looking at it from inside this weekend as I was sitting under it today. I love trees. I also love plants, and reason number sub-4 is that this place has plants inside. Not a ton, but the ones they have are huge and gorgeous.

5.) They play good music. This weekend they were playing old Paul Simon and today they played the Pixies. For cool girls of a certain age (like me) the Pixies are the just the trick.

And, of course, there's good people-watching and cute girls. And dogs. And very few children. And so far I have no reason to believe the wretched CB will show up and ruin everything again. Yay, I have a new coffeeshop!!