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I walk by this Christmas yard display on the way to/from the train. The look on Eeyore is so sad, and he has to pull Tigger and the Pooh. It kinda makes me sad.

Adrienne and I ran a few errands tonight, including a trip to the grocery store. All the stores out here in the ‘burbs are closed on Thanksgiving, so we had to be prepared! But the store we went to – get this – didn’t have any pumpkin puree! I really want to like this store, since it’s the closest one to us (within walking distance), but they’re not doing anything to help! And speaking of, Home Depot is still out of lawn refuse bags! I really want to like that Home Depot as well (due to proximity), but it really seems to be earning its reputation as the Home Depot NOT to go to. Too bad, since the next one is 15 minutes away, and the closest Lowe’s is closer to 25 minutes.

How did we solve the no-pumpkin-for-pumpkin-cheesecake dilemma? Decided to instead go with the old standby of carrot cake instead!

Sorry it’s a little blurry, lighting was bad, I had my hands full and this was the only shot I got.

It’s hot, we’re trying to pack, blah blah blah, and Dudley’s showing Sylvester who’s boss.

Celli always likes to help read the newspaper.

Dinner was salmon burgers, done on the cast iron stove-top since we’re out of charcoal:

Along with the packing come new empty places for kitties to explore.

A Sunday drive took us back out to the ‘burbs to check on the results of our garlic-juice mosquito spray. Let’s just say we’re not quite convinced yet. But there are many variable to control for, so who knows. We’ll keep the hope alive.

We now have a trash can full of weeds, and we’ve just barely touched the surface. That area where Adrienne’s standing is actually a driveway! And the green over the the right should be grass, but isn’t.

Despite the mosquitoes, we remain hopeful we’ll be moving in in the next two weeks, but time will tell.

As Adrienne and I work to leave Jersey City one way or another, I think I’m becoming somewhat nostalgic about some of the great things about being in Jersey City. One of those things is Pecoraro’s Bakery, just two blocks from our place. Word has it the building they’re in has been a bakery for 100 years, and the oven is 80 years old. They make simply amazing breads, Jersey-style of course: stuffed with your choice of sausage or pepperoni. They also do small pizzas on occasion, plain loaves, and a variety of other loaves. Trick is, you gotta show up early to get your choice. I stopped by Saturday early afternoon, and they were pretty much down to one stuffed loaf I hadn’t tried before: broccoli. That and a small bianca pizza (no sauce or cheese) with tomato and roasted garlic was $5. Needless to say, the pizza was gone before I got a pic!

And the brocolli bread was quite good!

To keep up with Little D, here are some snaps from our lazy weekend, which included non-productive house shopping, some grilling, biking and general lazying-around.

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I love TED. I’m not talking about the now-defunct airline. I’m speaking of the conference that has become, in my mind, a ministry of thought. I’ve linked to videos before. You should subscribe to the podcast. There’s great stuff to be had. I recently listened to Barry Schwartz talk about the real crisis: our loss of wisdom. And then today, I had this happen to me:

I rode my folding bike to work, and thus home as well. This evening I passed through the turnstiles with folded bike in hand, and proceeded to the back of the train, my usual spot. As I was to enter, a policeman stopped me and told me bikes weren’t allowed on the the trains until 6:30pm (an arbitrary time when rush-hour is apparently complete). I’ve never had a problem taking a folding bike on the train, and asked him if the rules had recently changed; he said no. I then consulted a PATH train employee, and he indicated while the rules do prohibit bikes, they typically let folding bikes pass. The policeman said he only stopped me because he got chewed out by his superior yesterday. So did I wait the 20 minutes? No, I left that entrance, went down the stairs and back up where I could enter from the other side of the train, and headed towards the front, away from the policeman. Two minutes later the train left the station, where another guy with a folding bike was still waiting for time to pass.

But here’s the thing: in my car, there were 10 empty seats. I was among two people standing, in a car that’s 51 feet long and more than 9 feet wide. There was space to spare – I could have ridden my bike in the car! That amount of people is normal for that train at that time, i.e. there’s always room for bikes, especially bikes that fold. So why was I stopped? Because rules have over-ridden practical, everyday wisdom.

Self portrait, with folding bike

A movie, that is. Signage outside our building looks like we’ll have production crew trucks later this week. Wonder where and what they’re actually shooting.

These are the kind of people who make me hate New York.  The people who have lived here for years but have never ventured to Brooklyn, let alone a foreign state like New Jersey!  I almost stopped reading this article after the first sentence of the second paragraph in which the writer felt to compelled to not-so-casually drop the names of the brands she was wearing (like so many people do here), but I soldiered on until the end.  You may remember David’s post where he also expressed exasperation with the people here.  I’ll just echo his “c’mon people.”

It’s not every day you have someone playing bagpipes at the end of your block. It’s St. Patty’s Day!

Another pic (both video and pic taken by Adrienne!) after the jump. (more…)