Tag: #GroceryShopping

  • Yes, I am Procrastinating

    I am having the day of getting nothing done, while at the same time, getting stuff done. I have sat on the couch for the last forty minutes, and really haven’t done anything but look up obscure stuff, and get totally sucked into Buzzfeed listicles.

    Yet, I can say that I have meal planed for the week, gone grocery shopping, and read a short story. I also put the kid’s school schedule for the rest of the year in my calendar, and started looking up summer camp options, though I don’t think we can afford a sleepaway camp this year.

    But I am tempered by the things that I want to get done today, like finish the edits on my story. I also need to get started on a cover letter for submitting the story. I am a little nervous to do that because the only “professional” writing credits I have number two, and they were twenty-five years ago.

    So, I guess I am procrastinating a touch.

    Which is true, because I thought awhile about how Yogi Berra argued his whole life that he tagged Jackie Robinson out on that stealing home play.

    Not that has anything to do with anything… but did you ever think about that advice everyone is given how you should do what makes you happy, and that should be your career. What if what makes you happy has no value in society?

    Also, my dog smells like corn nuts.

    Okay, seriously, I’m going to go to work now.

    But first, I am going to where a tweed sportscoat.

  • Nothing Particular

    The domesticity of my life has taken precedence today. Meaning that I had to make a meal plan for the family, and then go grocery shopping. The chores that need to be accomplished for the stay at home parent. I’m not complaining about these tasks, but I was bad at planning them this week. Normally I make the plan and shopping list the night before, so that I can go take care of it as soon as I get done dropping the kid off at school. Thus, freeing up the rest of the day for things I want to do.

    So, I got a late start today, and as such, I am writing later than I was planning. Some days are like that. Some days are just go go go, and I don’t get what I want. It has to be delayed, because I’m a grown up, and that’s what life is sometimes like for a grown up.

    And as I ran my errands, walking through the Upper West Side to get to the Trader Joe’s, the pang of missing my mother hit me. Not crushing, but just that a pang because out of nowhere, I thought about her stuffed peppers that she used to make, and home the smell of those peppers cooking would permeate the entire house, and how I hated that smell as it informed me of a meal that I wouldn’t enjoy, but there was no sense in complaining. The rest of the family loved it, and I was the odd man out that would have to put up with it. And even if my mother magically came back and made stuffed peppers for me, I still would not eat it. That meal sucked.  

  • Random Thoughts of Living in NYC

    Funny thought… I would like to wear a suit again. Or, or, or… a sportscoat and tie. Nothing super formal, but dressed nice.

    I am casual all the time now, that I think a little style for the sake of style sounds fun.

    I grocery shopped today. I went to three different places, and it was enjoyable hopping around the Upper West Side, and then back to Harlem. I needed to get some dashi, and uncooked noodles, as I have it in my head that I will be making my own miso ramen sometime this week. I headed over to H Mart at 110th. Then there was the normal round of shopping at Trader Joe’s at 93rd. Funny thing was that at TJ’s, they had no produce, which was a little shocking. (The last time the store looked like that was the start of the pandemic.) Then back home to Harlem and hitting up the local grocery store for the final items. In all, about two hours to get it all done.

    I know that we are staring down another surge, and we all need to be careful, and I was. But, sometimes I do miss being out and watching the people. I miss seeing the weird, strange stuff that is piled up in front of buildings.

    Speaking of which…

    Most parks in the City have an area where people can leave their old Christmas Trees, so the City will dispose of them, and turn the trees into mulch. This morning, as I was walking by a park that had a huge pile of Christmas Trees, I saw that someone had left two bright orange pumpkins among all the green trees. It made me laugh as I walked by, and then after a couple of more steps, it hit me I should take a picture of this setting. When I turned around, there was a guy, a normal looking middle-aged white guy, who was pulling out the pumpkins from the pile of trees. He held the pumpkins in front of his face, as if gaging their worth, and then he took off with them.

    Why? What for? What could he possible be thinking that he needs with two, quite possible, four-month-old pumpkins? It was confounding with the amount of possibilities that these pumpkins could be used for.

    Yet another reason it is still fun to live in this town.

  • The Weekday Morning New York

    I do the grocery shopping for my family. I sort of like it. And when I say sort of, it is a taxing errand that has to be accomplished each week. Carrying two heavy grocery bags from the Upper West Side Trader Joe’s to Harlem isn’t the easiest, even with using the subway. My shoulders and elbows hurt. The part I do like is the time to myself, and I get to listen to my music. Little silver linings but necessary ones.

    As a stay at home parent, I do all of this after I drop the kid off at school. As I observed, I am one of the younger people at the Trader Joe’s. Sure, there are some young creative professionals there, as well as the kids who work at night, but really, the store is full of retired people. I would also say that this group covers a gamut of ages too; newly retired 65’s to one guy who had a WWII Navy Veteran ballcap on which lead me to believe that he was 90+.

    And now that the world is sort of getting back to normal, and I’m beginning to relax into this new life style, I am beginning to see the different people who occupy the same space in the City, but at different times. I had worked, pretty much, a 9 to 5 existence at my day job for ten years, so that was the New York City I encountered; Professional people commuting, eating, and commuting again, Monday through Friday. My Trader Joe experience used to be with other professionals shopping on their way home from work. Now I’m with people who don’t work. Same city, but different world.

  • Summer Grocery Shopping

    The school year is coming to a close here in NYC. As of this moment we only have 6 days left of remote school, and we all can’t wait for it to be over. Come September, the kid will be back in class, like a normal elementary schooler, and there will be so much joy and excitement for that occasion, it already feels like it’s going to be Christmas Morning on that first day of school.

    In the meantime, it’s still the Dad/Daughter Experience for the Summer.

    Yesterday, as we got out of class early, I had to go shopping at Trader Joe’s. I didn’t see any reason why the kid couldn’t come with me, as the store is allowing people to shop together again. If nothing else, it would kill an hour of the day, which was better than her watching TV.

    Getting there did mean a subway ride, which is slowly beginning to feel normal to me again. For the kid, mass transit is still an adventure, and now it’s more exciting as she can read, and loves checking out all the ads on the train. Stepping down into one station, and then appearing out of another, is like magic as you get transported to a whole new world; Like the Upper West Side. Once in the store, she was a good kid, and is now big enough to push the cart for me, unassisted, so she was really helping out, and not fake praise helping out.

    As we walked to the subway station to go back to Harlem, the kid was excited about the ice cream we had bought, and I wondered how much of this she would remember later in life. I have foggy relocations of going grocery shopping with my mother during summer vacation when I was my kids age, and at the time it was just a thing we did, but now it has taken on more of a melancholy reminiscence. A very important mundane experience that I value more today.