Whatever Wireless

I take my dry cleaning up the hill to Merit Dry Cleaners in Altadena. I'm sure there are good dry cleaners in Pasadena, but I've been a Merit customer for a long time and they've always done everything perfectly, so why change? (Actually, I did try two other cleaners, long ago. That resulted in one ruined garment per cleaner, so I went back to Merit and lived happily ever after.)

The savvy among you are well aware that the photo above is not a picture of Merit Cleaners. It's a picture of Whatever Wireless, a new business at 843 Mariposa Avenue in Altadena. Whatever Wireless is sandwiched between Merit and Altadena Hardware. But it's part of Merit, a new venture for a long-time Altadena business.

Some people have been wailing for new businesses to come to Altadena. Here's a shiny new business, owned by a loved and respected Altadena family. And the grand opening is tomorrow! (Tell Seiko I sent you.)

Think you don't need a cell phone in Altadena? Maybe not. But you go other places, don't you? And how am I going to reach you there?

Worth the Lack of Effort

I'm peeking out from behind the door at Merit Dry Cleaners toward the sidewalk rack outside Ritzy Rags resale shop. Though I love resale shops I haven't been in Ritzy Rags yet. From the Yelp reviews it sounds like the kind of place where you have to dig. I don't mind digging, that's part of the experience. A bit of effort usually brings results.

Merit Cleaners I can vouch for. We became customers when we lived in Altadena in 2001/03. Moved away to Van Nuys (V'Ennui) for exactly two years. (Came back to the Dena as fast as we could. We were smitten). I tried two dry cleaners near my Pasadena home and each of them wrecked a beloved item of clothing, so I figure Merit is worth the short drive up the hill. (Effort, results. See?)

Plus I get to be in Altadena. I always find something there to charm me. (That part's effortless.)

Feels Like the 101st Time

You know those things you walk by a hundred times but don't notice? These mailboxes are one of those things for me.

John and I lived in beautiful Altadena when we first got married and I became a regular customer of some businesses there. One was Merit Dry Cleaners on Mariposa and the other was Webster's on Lake, which was one store at the time but is now divided up into, oh, nine or ten different shops. I kid, I kid! Webster's is a card/gift store, a stationery shop, a pharmacy and a liquor store.

Did I miss any?

Though I now live in Pasadena I'm still a customer of these shops (including Merit Dry Cleaners). The other day I was in Webster's Fine Stationers and I noticed these mailboxes. I've walked past them how many times? They look like the old timey kind, don't they?

It turns out they are. I asked Scott Webster about them (when you're a customer as long as I've been, you get to know a Webster or two); Scott said his dad, who's of the second generation of Websters to run the business, acquired them from a mailbox store on South Lake Avenue when it went out of business some years ago. Not sure which mailbox store it was, but at least the boxes are from within the Pasadena family, so to speak. They've been in the stationery store for a long while now.

They're having a tea party up at Webster's Fine Stationery this afternoon at 3:00. Don't go spilling your Earl Grey on the thank-you notes.