The Little Shopping Center on South Cedar Just Around the Corner

Just a quarter mile from the Tacoma Mall, directly across the street from KFC on 38th Street in Tacoma, is a small, but friendly and interesting shopping center with only a handful of shops.

Years ago we often visited the Mexican restaurant there, The Funky Iguana. It’s gone now, but in its place is Cocina Mexicana. The food is excellent. We wrote a glowing restaurant review recently. You can visit Cocina Mexicana at – restaurantji.com/wa/tacoma/cocina-mexicana-restaurant-/

A search for office chairs brought us back to this little shopping center. We discovered Cocina Mexicana, Action Business Furniture, and Crystal Spirit Spiritual Center. “Offering crystals, Readings, Energy Work, Minerals, Events, Jewelry, Incense, Candles, Tarot, Books, Recovery Items & More! A place filled with serenity, magic, laughter, knowledge, friends, growth and peace. An oasis in a busy world. Come and enjoy the vibes and be a part of the fun!” – crystalspiritllc.com/

After shopping at Action Business Furniture, I window shopped at Crystal Spirit. What caught my eye was this wonderful slate carved image of two owls. I just had to introduce Peg to this interesting boutique.

The women-run shop is very organized and careful. Once in the door, you must wear white cotton gloves (provided for you), which don’t work well with my meaty paws (or Peg’s tiny hands), but I’m guessing their clientèle is predominately female. When you’re ready to leave, you place your used gloves on a particular counter.

Peg and I went our separate ways as we wandered through the little emporium, that seemed to have thousands and thousands of offerings. Soft, soothing and relaxing Indian music played in the background. Not loud enough to impose itself, but just enough to relax . . . and let you dream.

Earth’s hidden beauty was on display everywhere. I very carefully avoided looking for a price tag on this huge geode of purple and turquoise. Before walking quickly past it, I envisioned it standing on our deck. I thought to myself, “Get thee behind me, geode.”

“Geodes are geological secondary formations within sedimentary and volcanic rocks. Geodes are hollow, vaguely spherical rocks, in which masses of mineral matter are secluded. The crystals are formed by the filling of vesicles in volcanic and sub-volcanic rocks by minerals deposited from hydrothermal fluids; or by the dissolution of syn-genetic concretions and partial filling by the same, or other, minerals precipitated from water, groundwater or hydrothermal fluids.” – Wikipedia

I led Peg to the book section where they had wonderful children’s books about bats, cactus, and rock collecting . . . I led her away before she started falling in love and buying them all.

I restrained myself from buying, but if Peg had purchased anything, I was ready to buy a handful of tumbled copper nuggets. I sometimes buy coin-like gifts with words of encouragement on them and give them away to friends. I would do the same thing with the copper nuggets . . . they were calling to me as were a number of other stones and rocks, and gems. Thankfully, I was able to ignore the call center . . . for now. I think we will return.

What had brought us to this little shopping center on South Cedar was Action Business Furniture. After shopping around for office chairs, we ended up at Action where we bought four chairs from Bud Truebenbach earlier in the month. My cousin Lindy, came over for dinner the day after our initial purchase. She sat in each one of the chairs and declared she liked Peg’s new (used) chair the best. She wanted to replace her chair.

Action Business Furniture has a great selection. Danika is always helpful and friendly there, too. I quickly sent an email to Bud, asking him to hold the matching chair he had that Peg had chosen. It was already gone. Bud first checked with the Spanaway store, and then found four matching chairs from the Olympia store and had them sent to Tacoma. Visit Action – actionbusfurniture.com

Lindy, Peg and I had an early and excellent dinner at Cocina Mexicana and then walked about a hundred feet (being careful not to look in the windows of Crystal Spirit) to Action. While Lindy tried out the four chairs from Olympia and chose one, I paid Danika for Lindy’s new office chair. Later, Lindy wheeled her new chair into her Lakewood apartment and relaxed in it while she surfed the net. We had a great afternoon shopping at this small shopping center. There are a couple of other shops there as well . . . maybe next time we’ll visit them, too.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.