My first winter in the Bay, I frequently loitered around the South Shore Center in Alameda, a recognizably indistinct shopping development anchored by Safeway, Chipotle, Trader Joe’s, and a TJ Maxx crowning this mild-weathered summit of Maslow’s hierarchy. It was the holiday season. Displays of scented pine cones had been recently unloaded in front of the Safeway entrance; poinsettias were flanking the Trader Joe’s florist corner in bold, red, wax paper-wrapped pots, and the Starbucks had already put up holiday-themed window decals not seen since video stores were sentenced to extinction. I would sometimes be as deliberate as to bring a book to read in the strip mall’s interior courtyard, posing feet away from the nice families enjoying their lunch on the patio of the Italian chain restaurant where Bombay Sapphire was unironically adorned closer to the top shelf than the well. It was complete euphoria. The whole experience would feel like a complete indulgence each and every time, and that was unaffected by whether or not I would stop into Cold Stone on the way in. What made it such an absolute draw that I would make the drive from Oakland, eschewing Jack London Square, Berkeley, or a more cosmopolitan trip into San Francisco, was the music.
on the soundtrack to your life
on the soundtrack to your life
on the soundtrack to your life
My first winter in the Bay, I frequently loitered around the South Shore Center in Alameda, a recognizably indistinct shopping development anchored by Safeway, Chipotle, Trader Joe’s, and a TJ Maxx crowning this mild-weathered summit of Maslow’s hierarchy. It was the holiday season. Displays of scented pine cones had been recently unloaded in front of the Safeway entrance; poinsettias were flanking the Trader Joe’s florist corner in bold, red, wax paper-wrapped pots, and the Starbucks had already put up holiday-themed window decals not seen since video stores were sentenced to extinction. I would sometimes be as deliberate as to bring a book to read in the strip mall’s interior courtyard, posing feet away from the nice families enjoying their lunch on the patio of the Italian chain restaurant where Bombay Sapphire was unironically adorned closer to the top shelf than the well. It was complete euphoria. The whole experience would feel like a complete indulgence each and every time, and that was unaffected by whether or not I would stop into Cold Stone on the way in. What made it such an absolute draw that I would make the drive from Oakland, eschewing Jack London Square, Berkeley, or a more cosmopolitan trip into San Francisco, was the music.