ShopRite and Always Save!
Today I saw a ShopRite truck while going down Route 9 with Matt. I wonder what a ShopRite truck was doing around here…we’re probably at least 150 miles from a ShopRite.
ShopRite is one of the supermarkets I grew up going to. (Others includes: A&P, Grand Union, and Foodtown, as well as Keyfood and Waldbaums in Brooklyn)
I’ve had the old ShopRite can-can commercial stuck in my head ever since!
Filed under New Jersey, New York, nostalgia, videos | Comments (2)Car-free
I haven’t been driving for the past few days. To make a long story short, I was late paying a car insurance bill (for a whopping $37!), and they canceled my insurance without telling or warning me. I didn’t know until I got a letter from the RMV. When I tried to reinstate my insurance, they told me I would have to start from scratch and pay the entire amount in full. Well, I don’t have the entire amount, so next week, I will be car insurance shopping!
Driving without insurance is a highly punishable offense in Massachusetts. ($500-$5000 fines or a year in jail. Ouch.) And I don’t even want to think of what a nightmare it would be if I got into an accident. So, in the meantime, I have been sans car.
In our neighborhood, it’s easy to have a car, but it’s also pretty easy to function without one. I am less than a five minute walk from the commuter rail and a few bus lines, and a 20 minute walk to the green line (which I do generally try to avoid and it’s worse now that they’re shuttling). I can also walk to the Auburndale Star Market, Trader Joe’s, CVS, liquor stores, dry cleaners, restaurants, etc.
I am actually really enjoying being without my car! And here is why:
1) Walking = exercise. Yay!
2) Saving money on gas. I am also 100 miles away from needing an oil change, which I can now slightly procrastinate.
3) Walking and taking public transportation is more environmentally sound.
4) I always remember to take my canvas tote bags when grocery shopping, which is also environmentally sound.
5) Because I am conscious of the fact that I have to carry my groceries home, I buy only what I need, instead of loading up on impulse buys that I never eat, and wind up taking up space in the cabinets for a year. This also saves money.
I should have this insurance stuff figured out within a week or two…but, I am hoping that my car-free experience will be a reminder of how nice it is to walk to run errands on a regular basis!
Filed under Massholes on the road | Comment (1)The Photographic Evidence
Last night, I Tivoed the 11 o’clock news on Channel 7 to see if I was on it. I was asleep before 11, but Matt woke me up and told me they DID use the footage of me on the news.
Luckily, they had edited it down enough so that I wasn’t babbling. And the spilled yogurt was not visible. :-)
My mouth and teeth look really weird in that picture. The camera was too close to my face too.
I’m just glad they didn’t air the footage of me looking at the camera and said, “Oh my god, is that camera ON?!?!”
Filed under Local News, My Life | Comments (4)Oh, how embarrassing!
Today, Matt and I took a ten mile walk with a few of our friends.
We stopped for a picnic around mile six, where I proceeded to spill yogurt on myself.
Around mile nine, as we walked down the esplanade, I was stopped by an anchorwoman for a “woman-in-the-street” style interview. They asked me a serious question, caught me off-guard, as I stood there talking like a blithering idiot. A blithering sweaty and tired idiot with yogurt all over my shirt.
Can I hide my head in the sand yet? Maybe they won’t air it.
Filed under Local News, My Life | Comments (4)Moo!
I spent most of my life growing up in Central New Jersey. We lived in Dayton, NJ for seven years. Back in the mid-eighties, Dayton was primarily farmland. Currently, it’s your average suburb, but back then, there were lots and lots of farms. In fact, we didn’t even have a supermarket. We had to travel to get to one, or go to Butler’s General Store. (Now Butler’s is a fancy schmancy restaurant/banquet hall)
Prior to this, we lived in Brooklyn. We were city folk, and living in Dayton felt like we were in “Green Acres.” It felt really rural.
Of course, being surrounded by farms meant that, at the time, Dayton smelled like farms. Namely, Dayton smelled like cow manure. I remember many hot, sticky summers…playing outside, and smelling cow manure.
They say the sense of smell is strongly tied to memory. This must be true, because now, whenever I get the slightest whiff of cow manure, I feel transported back to the summers of my childhood.
Today, I was feeling a little anxious and stressed out, so I took a long walk around the neighborhood. I passed by a house and noticed a very familiar smell. They must have been doing some gardening! Ahhh, cow manure. For a moment, I felt like all of my troubles were evaporating. I was five years old again, playing outside, and life’s biggest inconvenience was that I knew I was going to have to go in to eat dinner soon. Ahhh, cow manure.
Then I had a reality check: “Um, hello, you’re standing in front of someone’s house finding inner peace from the smell of bovine fecal matter. Time to keep walking!”
Filed under My Life, gross stuff, nostalgia | Comments (2)