Urban Mama

Celebrating Small Businesses: Pillow Café-Lounge in Brooklyn

 

 

Thanks to American Express for sponsoring my writing today about small businesses. American Express is presenting Small Business Saturday, a way to honor the local merchants who are the backbone of the economy, this Saturday, November 27. They're offering statement credits to people who shop at small businesses, advertising for small-business owners, and donations to Girls Inc. for "Likes" of the Small Business Saturday page on Facebook. Join the celebration by clicking the "Like" button and then visiting the Facebook page to learn more about the program and read the terms and conditions that apply.

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As most of you probably know, I lived in Brooklyn for many years before moving down to the Washington DC suburbs. Despite three-and-a-half years here in Montgomery County, my all-time favorite small business remains Pillow Café-Lounge in my beloved old neighborhood of Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

I remember when Pillow opened in 2004. It was in a small space on Myrtle Avenue between Clermont and Adelphi -- half a block away from my apartment on the border of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. I was pregnant with the Schmoopette and wandered in one morning on my way to work. I met a stunning, bald woman behind the counter who introduced herself as Biola, one of the two owners.

She was one helluva barista and incredibly charming, so after some small talk and a few sips of my decaf mocha, I was an immediate fan. The next day I met her partner Robin, who prepared one of the best bagel sandwiches I'd ever had -- a cream cheese, tomato, cucumbers, red onion (which I asked her to hold) and pesto concoction they called a "Garden Bagel." It was delicious, and I began to literally crave it throughout my pregnancy.

From that day forward, I was a regular customer. I stopped there literally every day, either before or after work, and also on the weekends. When my siblings came into town, I sent them there. When I had plans to meet a friend for coffee and lunch, I'd go there. When I was asked to be a reference in a former neighbor's background clearance for the Department of Justice, I took the federal agents there. When I had my baby daughter and wanted to escape the apartment, I'd pop her in a sling and head there. 

My mother, may she rest in peace, was fond of their protein-smoothies. Our son, the Schmoop, was a huge fan of their Fizzy Lizzy drinks (he and Robin were the only ones who seemed to favor the apple). My husband loved their regular cup of joe, and I was a mocha girl -- hot in the fall and winter, iced in the spring and summer. Robin once joked she could tell the seasons were changing by whether I ordered the mocha iced or hot.

After I was laid off by AOL on December 13, 2006, I walked straight to Pillow and fought back the tears as I asked for my signature comfort drink. They not only made me the mocha, but they *gave it to me,* saying I'd get one every day as a "twelve days of Christmas" present. I'll never, ever forget that kindness, as it brightened up some very dark days for me. To this day, if one of their regulars has a major hardship, they do the same, and I hope remember where it all started.

In February 2007, Robin and Biola moved Pillow to a much bigger space less than half a mile away on Myrtle Avenue, between Ryerson and Grand. They eventually got their liquor license and transitioned from a coffee & sandwich place to a full-service cafe-lounge. The extra blocks were a big deal to me at first, but since I no longer had a daily commute, I still went every day. I found myself walking there to and from dropping off my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter at preschool, schlepping my Macbook to work on my new freelance assignments there. The new Pillow became my office of sorts -- from morning coffee to afternoon lunch right up to school pickups. On the way back from school, the kids and I would pop back in for one last treat before heading back to our apartment.

When we decided to leave Brooklyn that Spring, we knew we could only have our goodbye party at Pillow. So that April, we bid farewell to our close friends and family in the one and only place I have ever felt like Norm in Cheers. Robin and Biola treated me not like a customer but like a friend, and I've yet to feel that sense of investment in any other establishment.

Sure, the manager at Gymboree and the baristas at a couple of Starbucks know me and what I do for a living, but it's not the same. It never is at a franchise store. But Pillow was special, and for that reason, I celebrate the small business culture of New York, where the local small coffee shop becomes your personal oasis, the place you know the owners care about you and you in turn care about them and their business. Thank you, Biola and Robin, for -- to this day -- being the proprietors of my favorite small business.

Honesty clause: I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

Surviving A Solo Roadtrip With Kids

Every now and then I like to surprise people by doing something completely uncharacteristic. Before I started at Columbia, I went on a pre-orientation program that involved backpacking in the Catskills. I had never so much as climbed a wheelchair ramp before that, but I did it (not that it was easy). Over the holiday break, I did something similar when I decided that I would drive back home to Maryland from my sister's in Plant City, Florida.

See, my husband and I both drove down with the kids, but he had to return the day after we arrived to prepare for an important case. He wasn't sure he could come back down to drive back with me, so I either had to suck it up and do it myself or wait until he or my brother or brother-in-law could drive with me. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I could do it, but only if I broke up the nearly 15 hour drive into more manageable chunks.

After a nauseating number of conversations with my husband (who has done 90% of the driving on all our previous roadtrips) and siblings (brother Jorge and brother-in-law Larry are experts, having driven long stretches since they were 16, my sister Diana has had to do her share driving with Larry from Texas to the East Coast when they lived in Fort Worth, and oldest brother Louis complains about driving anywhere out of the borough of Queens, but he was in on the planning nonetheless), we (and yes, I do mean it was a decision by committee -- I have never felt more like a baby sister) all agreed I should drive five hours a day for three days. Here's what it took for me to do the 1,000-mile trip, on my own, with three kids (ages nearly 8, newly 5, and 21 months) in tow:

1. Cleaning Up: My 2008 Honda Odyssey minivan was basically a pit after our drive TO Florida, so I knew I had to clean it out before attempting my trip FROM Florida. I found a local full-service car wash and pampered the minivan to a thorough wash, wax and vacuum. Sure, I knew the kids were going to muck it up again the moment they had their first snack in the car, but the wash (and more importantly, the interior job) created a blank slate of sorts for my trip.

2. Gearing Up: My Odyssey, thank heavens, has a built-in DVD player with two wireless headphones. I also own an after-market Garmin GPS, not that I really needed one, since it's basically I-95 North all the way home. It was mighty useful, though, since I stopped off to see a couple of friends along the way. In order to have hands-free conversations, I needed to buy a Bluetooth headset. After reading way too many reviews from fellow iPhone users, I settled on the Jawbone Prime. It's a good thing, too, because I had 23 cell conversations, most of them pep talks and check-ins with my husband, siblings and best friends. Who else was I going to talk to, with the two older kids blissed out on DVDs and the baby asleep?

3. Listening Up: I also bought several CDs, since I had to use the outlet to charge either my GPS or my iPhone. I figured when the iPhone wasn't charged, I would just go old school and listen to actual CDs. Since two-thirds of my six-CD changer was filled with children's music, I replaced them with the Glee soundtrack, Peter Gabriel's two-disc Hit, and The Best of Chaka Khan. The other two discs were Kings of Leon's Only By the Night, and an upbeat compilation "Vamos" my friend Dave made for a relay marathon he ran last fall. Nothing helps you stay awake like singing "Somebody to Love," "Sex is On Fire," "Tell Me Something Good," and "Don't Give Up" quite loudly again and again and again. On the plus side, I finally figured out what the chorus of "Games Without Frontiers" is (Jorge), and it's definitely not "She's so popular"; it's "Jeux sans frontieres" (the title in French). Cool, huh?

4. Fueling Up: My brother Jorge advised me not to drink anything while I was driving. That sounded good in theory (less drinking, less stopping to pee), BUT, this mama needs her caffeine. Trying to be "green," I bought a reusable coffee mug from Starbucks, but it had to be the worst designed travel mug I've ever owned. Unfortunately, it was the only style at the drive-through Starbucks in Plant City, so I had no choice, and I had no idea what a pain the arse it would be to use. The twist-top model required two hands to open, which is quite difficult when you're driving 70 miles-per-hour on I-95. I could NOT get it to open with one hand and ended up comically squeezing the mug with my thighs to add the leverage needed to open it. Needless to say, it's not ideal for solo drivers. At least the old friends I stopped to see both had fancy coffee makers, so the near-useless travel mug ended up worth the trouble.

5. Meeting Up: If you're really in a rush, there's no need to go out of your way to visit people on a roadtrip, but if you're like me and wanted a distraction or an excuse for a break, call, email, text, Tweet or Facebook-mail any friends you have along the way. I saw two of my oldest, dearest friends (both were among my wedding attendants), and it was a lovely way to start off the new year. The conversation and good coffee alone were reasons to stop, but they also provided a spot of fun for the kids, who in my opinion needed something to do rather than watch movies.

When I finally arrived in my driveway, I was on the phone with my brother Jorge. I squealed triumphantly, said "I did it!" and then promptly realized my house keys were not attached to my key-chain anymore. As Homer Simpson so eloquently says, "D'oh!" Thank God for neighbors with spare keys.

A Year In the Life

We moved to the DC burbs one year ago last week. Here's a quick look at the past year in Urban Mama land:

• April  2007: We tearily bid farewell to our Brooklyn home, our New York lives, family and friends and move to downtown Silver Spring, Md. Our new apartment is 300 square-feet larger but 300 times more boring than our former place. The kids go to a cooperative preschool in DC; The husband starts working at his new lawfirm, and I deal with navigating life as a freelancer in DC.
• May 2007: I make my first return trip to NYC for the Tribeca Film Festival.The husband and kids join me, and we visit many friends in Brooklyn and my brother's family in Queens. I cry through the streets of Tribeca wondering why we moved.
• June  2007: We discover a family friend's niece is a realtor down here and start looking for a house. The husband and I celebrate our sixth anniversary. The kids and I enjoy going to the apartment building's pool most afternoons. We return to NYC a second time to house and dog-sit for an acquaintance in Brooklyn. We once again feel seriously homesick.
• July 2007: We find a house we really like but by the time we're ready to to bid, someone else has already put in a contract. The following week, I find a newly listed home, and my awesome realtor gets me a preview. After the husband visits during the Open House, we decide to put in a contract the following day. The contract is accepted, and the closing is set for August. We go to NYC a third time and live it up once again. The husband and I go on our one and only flight of the year -- at trip to New Mexico for our dear friend Elizabeth's wedding.
  
• Aug. 2007: I quickly realize the "flu" I think I have feels eerily like first-trimester symptoms. But surely that's not it, since I have an IUD. The husband remembers we have an old, unopened pregnancy test I can take. There's a faint, faint, barely-there line. After four more tests and a trip to the hospital, we come to terms with the fact that I am, in fact, pregnant. We close on our house, and I nearly vomit at the proceedings. The Schmoop starts kindergarten.
  
• Sept. 2007: We move into our new house, and I realize that there is no way I can unpack while still having the actue pukeyness of first trimester life. I decide to have a homebirth and meet my amazing midwife for the first time. We rack up a lot of new-homeowner expenses. My mom comes to visit for the first time since we moved. I turn 31.
  
• Oct. 2007: No more morning, noon & night sickness. I start getting to know my neighbors and realize this suburbs thing isn't as bad as it first seemed. We celebrate our first Halloween (as parents) outside of Brooklyn. Despite missing the crowded streets of NYC, we're delighted not to have to deal with mobs of kids outside of every stoop.
• Nov. 2007: We go back to New York for the Marathon, where we stay directly on the marathon's path at our friends' brownstone.The Schmoopette turns three! We host our first holiday -- Thanksgiving with 2/3rds of my siblings and their families. The cousins have a ball running around the house. I cry when my last sibling leaves town and wish we all lived in the same city.
• Dec. 2007: We host our second holiday -- Christmas with my mom, my in-laws and one of the husband's aunts and her family of three. For New Year's, my oldest brother comes down with his brood and we thank God for my mom making it another year with cancer.
• Jan. 2008: My mom has to have surgery that leaves her with a colostomy. My siblings and I are on the phone with each other several times a day. She pulls through and stays at my sister's in Central Florida. I feel helpless being 30+ weeks pregnant and unable to go down and help.
• Feb. 2008: The Schmoop, our Superbowl Sunday 2001 baby, turns six on Superbowl Sunday. The husband turns 33 three days later. We have an un-Valentine's Day "Lost" celebration, but our plans for a last-hurrah weekend away go to pot when the husband's case schedule interferes. I have early contractions and am advised to stay on modified bedrest for a few days. No baby, though.
• March 2008: We (well, OK, *I*) have our third child in a birthtub in our basement rec-room. It's my most fulfilling, empowering birth experience. Life with a newborn begins again after a three year and four month break. We all fall in love with our new itty bitty boy. Our family feels complete, but I still yearn for another birth and a baby sister for the Schmoopette. The husband feels quite differently and schedules a vasectomy.
• April 2008: Here we are one year later, and although we still (and maybe will always) miss living in New York, we have grown to love our little butter-yellow home with the white picket fence. We have many blessings to count down here -- our neighbors, our old friends, our new friends. And our family is larger by one tiny person we all adore.

In Praise of Good Neighbors

Since moving to our new home six months ago, we've become close to two sets of neighbors. One family has four girls, ranging from almost seven-year-old twins to a 15-year-old. The mom is an awesome baker with a small dessert catering business. The other family has two girls: one in elementary school and one in middle school. Both families have been a godsend since we moved -- lending us household appliances, helping the husband move furniture, providing much-needed "new homeowner" advice and, most importantly, babysitting the kids. They are very different families -- the one with two girls are fellow Obama supporters, the one with four girls are apolitical; the two girls go to a posh DC private school, while the four girls all attend public school, etc -- but they are all amazingly caring and generous, and they have made me (especially since the husband works long lawfirm hours) feel at home on this block.

Twice a week, my neighbor L -- the baker -- has her 15-year-old daughter pick up the kids and walk them across the street for dinner and a playdate. It's not only a two-hour break for mama, but it's a great time for the kids, who are quite attached to the twins. One of the twins has even decided she and E are a "prince and princess." The regular visits often end in a doggy bag of food for the husband and me and home-made treats by a professional baker. What could be better?

My other neighbor, M, was so concerned about me one day she brought me a take-out dinner. When I called her later on to ask how much I owed her, she shushed me and said "Don't even think about it. We're neighbors!" Since I'm usually on the receiving end of the favors, I was thrilled when in one week M and L needed to borrow sugar and milk, respectively, for recipes. A couple of afternoons later, when I was feeling particularly energetic, I hosted the twins for a playdate while L delivered desserts to a VIP client. The girls were great, and it was good to repay the generosity.

As much as I loved living in New York, we never had the stereotypical "cup of sugar" relationship  with our apartment neighbors. We were friends with various building mates, but we didn't rely on each other on a regular basis, so this sense of community is all new to us. What I love about my neighbors is that they aren't necessarily people we would've seen ourselves bonding with, but here we are, forever in debt to the way they've treated us since the day we moved in!

Do you have amazing neighbors? Tell me about them.

The Flying Tent

This morning I was oddly interrupted while making the kids oatmeal for breakfast. Someone was the door. I assumed it was DHL or FedEx delivery. But when I opened the door, I realized it was a bundled mom I couldn't quite recognize.

"Hi, I live in the block behind you. Do you have a blue tent?" she asked.
"Yes, I do," I replied.
"The wind blew it into my backyard, and before I could grab it, it flew into my front yard."
"Omigosh, really? My tent is in your yard?"
[Looks at my belly] "I'd help you get it, but it could be in the street by now, and it's too big to just drag into my house. And, I don't know how to take a tent down.
"Yeah, my husband put it up, but I'll go get it right away. Thanks for letting me know."
"No problem"

So I scooped up the oatmeal into the kids' bowls and quickly assessed the situation. Bundling them up and getting them buckled in the car would take another 10 minutes. And if the tent was in the street, that could mean disaster. I told the Schmoop, who was home sick due to an overnight asthma attack, to watch his little sister, turned on my alarm, switched on the TV to Noggin and did the unthinkable -- left the kids alone in the house. I raced to the street behind ours, and thank God, the tent was still in the neighbor's front yard. It had gotten stuck between a tree and a street sign.

I don't know how I got the tent down. I called the husband to whine about the situation (read: blame him for not taking down the tent despite the ubiquitous weather reports of record-high winds). I was angry, frustrated, worried about the kids, and filled with an adrenaline rush to just get the damn thing down. While I was hustling with the tent, I actually fell (the neighbor's front yard is on an incline). At one point a mother and toddler who live across the street opened their door and stared at me but said and did nothing (what could a mom with a barely-walking toddler do, I guess). The whole thing took less than 10 minutes, which is miraculous as I have never, ever taken a tent down before! I managed to shove everything in my trunk, get back in the car, and rush right back to the house.

The kids were exactly where I left them -- eating their oatmeal at the breakfast counter. Now, I know many of you have zero-tolerance for what I did. But I had images of this huge tent -- my huge tent! -- causing a multi-car pileup on the curvy avenue we live off of... I just had to get it ASAP, and looking back on the morning felt like I had no choice but to put on a coat (over my pajama pants and maternity sweatshirt) and secure that tent!

So we won't be leaving the tent out in crazy weather anymore. And I won't be leaving the kids home alone again. And lastly, I can't help but add that Eureka! makes one helluva sturdy six-person tent! Despite it's little cross-street trip, the tent is perfectly fine.

Giveaway update: Last week's holiday giveaway winner is Christina. Please email me with your home address, Christina, so I can send you your prize

Class Meme

From Deirdre

“Devise a list of 5-10 courses you would take to fix your life. It’s more fun to be in classes with friends, so include one class from the person who tagged you that you’d also like to take. Tag five.”

1. Organizational & cleaning skills (with Deirdre): I am clueless as a housekeeper, and I know it drives the husband batty. I wish I could pretend it's cathartic or fun the way some of my friends feel, but I just don't like to clean or organize. I have a high tolerance for messy surroundings.
2. Cooking for idiots: I can bake and follow a recipe, but I don't really know pretty basic things about cooking, like how certain vegetables should be stored, what ingredients can act as substitutes for each other, how to properly chop, etc. I wish I could take some sort of Home Ec. course for adults.
3. Interior design (another Deirdre pick): Other than tearing out pages from catalogs, I don't know how to put furniture together so rooms look good. We haven't graduated from the grad-school look of hand-me-downs, Ikea and the occasional higher-priced item.
4. Sewing: Several of my close friends are amazing seamstresses. They sew, crochet, knit, etc. I never learned how to do any of those crafts. My mom is to blame: she doesn't sew either, so there was no one to teach me!
5. Playful Parenting: I love hanging out with my kids, but I don't always know what fun projects to do with them if they're not in a creativity kids set. I wish I could be more like my old friend Kindness Girl, for whom playful parenting comes so naturally. I have to work at it.

House Hunting Take 1

Today was my first official day of househunting with my realtor, Cecilia, who is the niece of my late aunt's best friend. Got it? Yeah, it took me a while too, but Mami assured me she'd treat me better than a stranger, and I think she was right. Cecilia and I saw seven homes, and I could only really see us living in three of them. It was surprisingly entertaining to walk around and imagine whether a particular space would make a good office or playroom or secret sitting & reading nook. Of course none of my daydreaming included our actual stuff -- I was thinking more along the lines of the Thomas Moser showroom: handcrafted rocking chair, benches, perhaps even a swing. Who cares if most of our real furnishings will come from Ikea or Crate & Barrel -- it was my daydream, dammit!

Two houses were eh. Two houses were *nearly* perfect (one was farther away from downtown than we want to live, the other had a smallish and enclosed kitchen). Two others had a lot of charm and history but needed too much work to be feasible. The last one was huge and old and lovely, despite needing a laundry list of updates. I wish I could be like Chris and renovate an amazing old home, but right now we just want a place that will suit us without bankrupting us. I'm optimistic it will happen in the next few months (keeping fingers crossed that we stay in a buyers' market a bit longer!). Then feeling rooted will just come naturally. I hope.