Tag Archives: trader joe’s

Lame Adventure 295: Tree Trash Update

Posted on March 28, 2012 | 20 comments

I was feeling perfectly fine and then I wasn’t.  The Unforeseen Demon of Surprise Illness paid me a visit for a few nasty hours on Monday evening.  During that period I completely lost my breakfast, lunch, several pieces of dark chocolate covered edamame, a few handfuls of some crunchy crap I scarf at my desk called Oriental Mix, a fig bar, and two glasses of a Happy Hour Cabernet I quaffed after work with my buddy Coco.

Colleague-approved Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Edamame.

During this episode of violent evacuation I coincidentally lost interest in everyone and everything that gives me pleasure.  The list includes (in no particular order) writing this blog, shooting pictures, sex, food, alcohol, comedy, tennis, dogs, Gotham City wildlife, The New Yorker, music, movies, theater and film. To put in perspective how incredibly lousy I felt, if all four Beatles would have magically appeared in the center of my sanctum sanctorum to personally serenade me, I would have slammed the bathroom door in their Fab Four faces and groaned:

Me:  Go away!

The next morning I woke feeling feverish with a pounding headache, wondering, “what the hell was that about” regarding a hallucination I suffered prominently featuring a bullwhip. I am not by nature the violent type. The last time I fired a rubber band, several years ago, it hit a wall and ricocheted into my forehead.  Wow, did that sting. Once fully conscious I emailed my boss Elsbeth that I was taking a sick day for I was feeling like shit on a stick.  Possibly I used the phrase “I’m feeling sub-par” instead.

I continued to rest but I quickly caught cabin fever and needed a fix of daylight.  I also needed to run an errand for bland foodstuffs.  As I walked up my block I noticed the now infamous Tree Decorated with the Hanging Trash.  Here are updated photos.

Bags still in branches eager for their close-ups.

The tree is starting to bud and as pictured below, both bags are in full bloom and still flipping off Mother Nature.

White fast food delivery bag hanging in there.

Fairway bag in full bloom in its dual guises: free advertising and litter.

It appears that rain is in the forecast for later in the week so she’ll very likely have the final say about the presence of these two eyesores.  They’ll probably blow into my open window for refuge.  Hopefully I’ll be back to feeling groovey by then. Stay tuned.

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Posted in Humor, new york city

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Lame Adventure 223: Anticipating Hurricane Irene

Posted on August 27, 2011 | 8 comments

Hurricane Irene has yet to arrive, it is getting breezy outside my apartment’s window, but most people seem to have gotten the memo – streets are quiet and roads are empty.  My core group of dearest friends and I are predominantly safe (for now).

Tree outside my window that could possibly kill me if it uproots, crashes through my window and I fail to dive into my bathroom fast enough.

Even though we all share a degree of cynicism about Irene taking on Gotham City and the tristate area, no one seems too inclined to do anything too ridiculous.  This excludes my cabin fever suffering Friend From Jersey, Martini Max, who has already made an impulse purchase, specifically this poster of Theda Bara circa 1915.

Theda Bara tearing her hair out for Max. Still from her lost film called "Sin."

He intends to hang it over his TV.  Did I mention that Max is divorced?

Milton is nestled in his Upper East Side apartment with plenty of staples and some massive dessert he waxed about poetically.  While waiting for Irene we discussed our New York Film Festival ticket buying strategy for an hour.  We’re very dull that way.

My sidekick, Greg, is housebound in Brooklyn.  From his texts I’m under the impression that he’s feeling a tad grumpy.

Lola, who also resides in Brooklyn, was evacuated, but she’s made the best of a bad situation.  She’s with her boyfriend in Manhattan, taking it easy.  When I last spoke to her she said he was cooking.  What a guy.

Albee has extended his visit to California until Tuesday.

Ling texted me that she is about three hours away from the city.  On Friday Coco asked me:

Coco:  Where’s Ling?

Me:  At a wedding in Toronto.

Coco:  Oh!  Who got married?

Me:  Lowell’s [editorial comment: Ling’s guy] parents next-door neighbors’ brother’s son.

In response to that response Coco’s eyes glazed over.  Hopefully, Ling will make it back before the heavy rain starts to fall and the wind picks up.

This morning, I took some pictures of unusual sites on the Upper West Side.  Both Fairway and Trader Joe’s closed early.

Eerie site: empty fruit bins outside the Upper West Side's Fairway.

Eerier site: the store that is open every day, closed.

A Guy About My Age (GAMA or JERK) with the physique of a noodle tossed an out of body fit at the burly-direct-descendant-of-Thor-bouncer standing guard outside Fairway’s closed doors.

GAMA or JERK: Why close the store?  This is ridiculous!  The subways are running until noon!

Note:  It’s after 11 am.

Burly Bouncer:  You should have gotten here earlier.  The store’s closed.

GAMA or JERK sneers at the Bouncer, a sneer about as threatening as a Chihuahua’s sneeze.  The Bouncer returns the gaze that I translated as:

Bouncer’s Gaze:  Sucks to be you fool.

I took these other pictures in my neighborhood.

Closed Trader Joe's at 72nd Street and Broadway.

Typical TJ's cheeriness. Why I prefer to shop at jaded Fairway.

Baffled tourists trying to figure out how to escape the city reading a subway map.

MTA poster announcing mass transit closing.

One of the last 1 local subway trains entering 72nd Street station.

FedEx making deliveries.

Time Warner cable is there; but when I need them, they're always nowhere to be found. Grrrrr.

My sister, Dovima, has texted me that our 84-year-old father out on the West Coast would rather talk to me on Sunday, during the heart of Irene possibly pummeling Manhattan into oblivion and knocking out my cell phone service.  He is busy watching sports on TV tonight.   I texted her back to tell him to call me next week.

I was supposed to usher an off-Broadway play today, but all theaters on and off-Broadway are dark.

Coco lives in the meatpacking district in lower Manhattan, near, but not in an evacuation zone.  The intrepid type, in lieu of a flashlight, she has glow sticks.

Coco's glow sticks.

Donning her Lame Adventures journey(wo)man photographer hat Coco has also emailed me these pictures from downtown.

Brilliant time to be on a cruise in the Hudson River.

Apocalypse approaching?

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Lame Adventure 209: Strange Beer-fellows

Posted on July 18, 2011 | 8 comments

This is a public service announcement from Lame Adventures.  Although wine and sake are my alcoholic beverages of choice, I have been drinking much more beer as of late in order to pay my bills and make rent.  Last Thursday I was in Trader Joe’s on the Upper West Side when I noticed they had a brew called KBC Blueberry Wheat Ale.

The six-pack was on sale for $5.99, an even better price than the $14.99 I’ve been paying for a twelve-pack of Heineken.  I was more concerned about this being wheat ale and the thought of getting a raging yeast infection starting in the nether regions and rocketing up to my eyeballs I so irrationally feared the wheat in this beverage.  Then I reasoned that all beer is made with brewer’s yeast, so I told myself, “Relax.”

Oddly for me, my usual high degree of skepticism was completely dormant over what this ale might taste like.  In general I like ale, particularly Bass.  The fruit of choice, the blueberry, is one I like very much, too, particularly fresh blueberries atop the flavor-free organic wood shavings I eat for breakfast every morning at work.  Had the fruit been one I abhor such as the cantaloupe, I would have recoiled considering that as repulsive a flavor in ale as banana or prune.  I was also seduced by the price and reasoned even if it tasted lousy, the more I drank, the less lousy it would taste, reminiscent of Marlene Wackcrunch, a girl I dated in high school who physically brought to mind a platypus, but she was a great kisser, even more so when I was hammered on ale.  I also reasoned if KBC Blueberry Wheat Ale was indeed dreadful, I’d share it with my sidekick, Greg, who has far wider ranging taste in alcohol than I.  In fact, I would not be surprised if he eventually tells me that he’s downed shots of lighter fluid.  Hey, the guy’s a musician.

On Friday, I returned home from work, grabbed my first bottle of KBC Blueberry Wheat Ale, popped open the top, took a swig and nearly projectile spat it across the entirety of my sanctum sanctorum.  I was not mentally prepared for sweet-tasting suds that were so intensely blueberry flavored I thought I had just downed a pint of fresh fruit.  This is truly an ale that would go well with pancakes.  Until that moment, I had never considered pancakes and ale a couple.  Enlightening.  Disgusting.  I immediately grabbed a juice glass and poured a little in to see if this beverage was blue.  It wasn’t.

There was no way I was going to dump this fruit-flavored gag-inducing breakfast beverage concoction on Greg.  He would have truly needed a twelve-pack of Heineken to wash away the blueberry taste.  Over the course of the weekend, I somehow got all six bottles of KBC Blueberry Wheat Ale down thanks to a Secretariat-size dose of anesthesia I had administered to my taste buds.  Upon reflection, I would rate this beverage just a notch above Moviprep, a slimy, salty, lime-ish flavored colon cleanse often prescribed in preparation for a colonoscopy.  Buyer beware.

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