Tag: #TraderJoe's

  • 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.

  • That Song Triggers That Memory

    I went grocery shopping this morning. It is one of the rare moments in my week where I can listen to music uninterrupted. I take the subway down to the Trader Joe’s on 93rd, and there is a little bit of a walk. Early in the morning, after the kids are in school, and people have left for work, there aren’t many folks on the street, so I can jam out to my music; I can get it.

    And as I was riding the subway home with my bags, my playlist randomly gave me “Bye Bye Love,” by The Cars. I have heard this song since forever, and its hints of unrequited love made it such a wonderful juxtaposition of a song, contrasting with its upbeat rock tempo.

    Not sure why, but I added it to a playlist in mid 2018, and listened to it quite heavily. In September 2018, I was visiting a friend from college and her husband in a rather cool Brooklyn apartment that was in a walkup building, and they had access to a rooftop garden. That kind’a cool apartment, you know? We were drinking, a lot, and started playing a game of finding videos and concerts on YouTube of songs we loved. I picked “Bye Bye Love,” from a club concerts The Cars played in 1979. I liked it, but not sure if it played well in the room.

    But the memory of what I was feeling in that moment is still attached with that song. I felt lonely, because my wife and daughter were 3,000 miles away in California. I felt paralyzed as I was supposed to be packing up our apartment for our move to California, but I couldn’t get myself to do it. I was about to start rehearsals for what would be the last show I worked on, which had me excited to see my friends who I love and I am amazed by. And I couldn’t shake the feeling of doom, as my mother had cancer, and I knew she wouldn’t recover.

    My college friend lost her father when she was younger, and I knew if there was a friend who could understand what I was feeling, it would be her. And I think of her as one of my close friends, but I couldn’t talk about it. I just lied. I said it was looking better, and we have to believe in hope, and all that stuff. But I didn’t mean it. I said the thing I thought was expected. I didn’t tell the truth.

    I don’t hate listening to “Bye Bye Love,” or The Cars. Sometimes that memory and feeling doesn’t settle over me when I hear it. Some days, I’m okay when I think of my mother’s passing. And then one day, I hear a song, and it all comes back to me while on a B train, heading uptown.

  • 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.