February 2009 Archives

Tonight, talking to my daughter while getting her ready for bed:

DD: "I'm two, P [her cousin] is four."
Me: "Yes, that's right!"
DD: "Mommy is sixty-five."
Me: [not sure I heard this right] "Mommy is WHAT?"
DD: "Sixty-five."
Me: "And how old is Daddy?"
DD: "Daddy is six."
Me: "So let me get this straight. You're two, P is four, Daddy is six, and Mommy is sixty-five?"
DD: "Yeah."
Me: "Well, that explains why Mommy's so cranky."

I've hated cafeteria-type places pretty much all my life. Grade school lunchroom, high school cafeteria, college dorm food, English dining hall (the worst!), on up to the lunchroom at my office... I just can't stomach the smells or the crowds, much less the food typically offered.

So I was skeptical about the restaurant in our local IKEA. The prices are so cheap, I figured it couldn't offer much in the way of flavor or atmosphere.

I'm happy to eat my words. Apart from the "million-dollar view" of the bay and freeway, the food itself was satisfying enough to please our toddler (pasta for 99, can't beat that!) and my husband (the buffalo chicken wrap and fries). As for me, I took a gamble on the gravlax, and it was remarkably tasty, especially when I grabbed a few crackers to eat with it (39 cents each). And bonus: cool IKEA decor and no nasty smells!

Now why can't IKEA start running cafeterias for all those other places? They could really turn things around.

First Blueprint, Domino and Wondertime... now this?

Dear Katherine,

Lately you've been telling us something that we've found increasingly true: Do-It-Yourself interests - from tech to fashion, science to crafts - are increasingly converging on the web. Our craftzine.com community is thriving. At the same time, print magazines are facing rising production costs and shrinking ad markets. Therefore, it makes less sense for us to publish two separate print magazines in the DIY space. Craft: Volume 10, our Celebration issue, will be the final issue of CRAFT magazine.

This will allow us to offer even more on craftzine.com. If you haven't been hanging out at craftzine.com, please join us. It's a wonderful place to find DIY projects, learn techniques, and share ideas.

We will continue to publish the print version of MAKE Magazine. We will send you an issue of MAKE for every remaining issue you have in your CRAFT subscription. We know you'll enjoy it. The same editors who work on CRAFT work on MAKE, giving it the same spirit of Martha-meets-MacGuyver innovation and inspiration. Already, over a dozen articles commissioned for CRAFT are destined for future issues of MAKE this year.

Many CRAFT subscribers are already loyal MAKE subscribers. If this includes you, we will extend your existing MAKE subscription by the number of copies remaining in your CRAFT subscription.

If you'd rather not receive MAKE, just let us know and we'll refund the unserved portion of your CRAFT subscription. You can reach us by e-mail at cs@readerservices.craftzine.com or by phone at 818-487-2037 or toll-free at 866-368-5652.

We look forward to continuing our relationship with you in the print pages of MAKE and the web pages of craftzine.com.

Cheers,

The CRAFT Team
(Dale, Shawn, Goli, Natalie, Daniel, Becky, Rachel, Arwen, Tatia, Keith, Laura, Katie W., Katie D., Gerry, Sherry, Sheena, Dan, Rob, and Heather)

A couple of weeks ago, I dropped in on a goodbye party for our local stationery store. The aisles had long been picked bare (pretty much the day after the owners announced that they were shutting down.) People were laughing and drinking and signing the guestbook saying things like "Where am I going to get my daytimer refills now?!?"

Two or three blocks up the street, the framing shop on the corner is shutting down as well. Around the corner from our house, the antique store that used to delight my toddler with the many trinkets in the window (and delighted me with the case of glass eyeballs) is gone. The gelato place I used to take her to on warm days has a "For Sale" sign on its glass door. The run-down but sweet little Cambodian restaurant with the pleasant covered deck out back was replaced by another restaurant. We've also lost a great French restaurant and are in the process of losing a clothing boutique, one which could always be counted on to have really atrocious underwear in the window and really cute skirts on the racks. The gym space where my daughter takes classes is moving a mile away, not far but no longer walking distance.

Perhaps it's churlish — or worse, spoiled-yuppie-ish — to bemoan these developments. Things could be so much worse, and are, in many parts of the country. And businesses come and go even in good times. But it does still make me feel like my neighborhood is slowly moving away from me, and I wonder when things will get to the point where it's simply no longer the place I've loved for nearly 15 years.

Just as long as the bookstore hangs in there...