Un-Intended Consequences

At the beginning I know this is a discussion of First World privileged problems, but they are fun sometimes too!

Moving houses comes with many intended consequences. But the process also comes with those things you “never thought about” — and which surprise the heck out of you. After all, none of us can anticipate EVERY eventuality, now can we?

The day after our big move the two of us wanted a private “celebration”. Admittedly, a “celebration” for us may not be much of a celebration for anyone else, but there you have it. What did we want to do? To buy a cuppa and a morning bun and drive to an overlook at our favorite city park and just sit there chatting and noshing together.

Milwaukee isn’t really a coffee culture town. Not as I know coffee culture from visits around the country and world. We have coffee shops. Yes. All the national chains are here — I don’t consider that coffee culture. We have our local brew houses too: Collectivo, Anodyne and a host of others. But Milwaukeeans (by and large) don’t buy a cuppa and sit and chat with a friend, or make a new friend, whiling away the hours like folks in other cities I’ve lived in and visited. We’re Midwesterners. We do things. We tend to be in a hurry. “Whiling” isn’t in very many folks vocabulary it has never seemed to me. I crave little privately owned coffee houses, but they are hard to find here.

I also crave good baked goods. REAL baked goods, that follow traditional recipes. Recently we went to a coffee shop that sold “croissants” and “morning buns”. except rather than being made with a flaky, crispy, puff dough they were fashioned out of a yeasted sweet bread dough. Yes, they were tasty, but they weren’t as advertised: they weren’t either “croissants” or “morning buns”.

Which brings me to my topic — roundabout.

The Neighborhood we now live in is Bayview. It HAD a lovely real bakery until a few months ago. The business that had been around for 40 years or more sold out to a new baker and after promises of staying the same they soon found out that the reason the old owners sold was that business was declining; today the premises are empty and for sale signs once again advertise a closed business. That was the only thing resembling a real bakery in our area. All the groceries have their baked product which is manufactured off-site and hauled in by truck a day or two after being made. Some groceries are trying to keep up old traditions by using in-house ovens to make a few varieties of product but the numbers game — and the availability of trained bakers is limited. Not that many years ago there were half a dozen shoppes I’d love to frequent. And then there is the fact that new ethnic groups in town mean that there are bakeries that cater to their distinct interests — which is great — I applaud them — but they aren’t really to my taste.

So, we find ourselves looking for different options. “Coffee AND…” is going to look differently now. I guess that’s not a bad thing. With me needing to watch my blood sugar it’s not like I can indulge every day; though I surely would like to do so.

The same sort of situation is going on with restaurants, and hardware stores. The places we’ve grown accustomed to are too far away and finding alternatives that aren’t “the same” — that never happens and people just get upset about it — but rather finding places that are suitable alternatives. Life changes. We have to accept and embrace the changes without them frustrating us, or embittering us. That’s life.

Cheers for today. Stay safe!