I wish I could tell My Monday Coffee Buddy about this but she’s probably somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean by now.

There’s a shopping plaza called Maple Village a couple blocks away from my house. It’s always been kind of a ratty place. I remember when I used to go to Minifab on a rainy day and they’d have buckets placed in strategic locations all over the store to catch the water coming through the roof and ceiling. Minifab closed just recently. I wish I could say it was a surprise but I knew it was going to hit the skids when they replaced all of the home decor fabric with trashy little kitschy knick-knacky type stuff. People who go to fabric stores want *fabric*! If they want trashy little kitschy knick-knacky type stuff, they go to Pier 1 or Cost Plus or Portage Street in Sault Ste. Siberia or wherever. Not, repeat, NOT fabric stores.

Okay, I’ll quit on that rant. As ratty as Maple Village is, it’s on my beat. My regular National City branch is there and the Secretary of State and The Village Kitchen and English Gardens, where I go when a few green streaks appear in my normally black thumb. Frank’s Nursery and Crafts used to be where English Gardens is but I could see that it would hit the skids when it replaced all the *craft* stuff with trashy little kitschy knick-knacky type stuff. I know, I said I’d quit. Grok grok. Good idea, ya ol’ bag. grok grok.

For about a gazillion years, starting probably well before I moved to Ann Arbor, the northeast corner of Maple Village was occupied by a little movie complex, Fox Village Theatres. Over the years we’ve lived here, it has closed and opened a few times under different managements. The last time it closed, I had the feeling it wouldn’t open again. And I was right. A couple of months ago, construction workers started gutting the place, plus a couple of adjacent businesses. My Monday Coffee Buddy and I had both noticed it and had a conversation something like this:

MMCB: So-and-so said that there was a grocery store going in there.

KW [jokingly and hopefully]: Maybe it’ll be Trader Joe’s!

Then, about a month later, as work progressed on gutting the movie complex, we had another little conversation. This one demonstrates how scatter-brained we can both be:

MMCB: Didn’t you say that a Trader Joe’s was going to go in that old movie complex?

KW: No! [laughing out loud] A friend of yours told you it was gonna be a grocery store and I joked that maybe it’d be Trader Joe’s.

Well! Today, there is a banner up in front of the building announcing that Plummarket is going to open there. It looks like it’s a relatively high-end grocery store by the Merchant of Vino folks. It’s within WALKING DISTANCE! I hope it’s successful. If it is, it may end my fairly frequent trips over to Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. If gasoline gets up to $10 a gallon, I can *easily* WALK there *and* carry groceries home!!! I do have to say, it probably won’t end my relationship with the Westgate Kroger, that’s just been going on too long. 😉

But I can’t *wait* to tell My Monday Coffee Buddy!!!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 5:40 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.