I moved here four years ago this November. We moved to the middle of Flatbush, near the intersection of Church and Flatbush Avenues for those in the know. We knew nothing about the neighborhood, only that it was predominately Caribbean and had a host of 24 hour fruit stands and fried chicken places on the main drag. My overly cautious mom even got a good vibe from the area and enjoyed visiting me multiple times. She said that the abundance of 24 hour places made it seem safer and heard that I shouldn’t live in Bedford Stuyvesant.

We didn’t pay too much mind to the fact that every store in the neighborhood from the chinese restaurants, to the banks, to the liquor store where you point behind 3 inches of glass to what you want, were bullet proofed. We thought it was a city thing. As we continued to live there and more and more cabbies and co-workers would express dismay at our choice of neighborhood, we became aware that it had a pretty bad reputation. There were occasional gunshots, and helicopters did hover once or twice looking for a local burglar in our back alley.

Other than that we had a great experience living there. We loved the fresh fruit stands, the people out playing dominoes and communing on their stoops, the weird crap people would sell on the street (hammers, clocks, churros, and pillows), and the people you’d get to know on your walk to the subway. I knew everyone from the hot barber at Leroy’s, to the guy who’d give you flyers for T-Mobile. “Graduations Vacations T-Mobile!” I also need to write a completely separate post on the craze that took place the night Obama got elected.

Living there, and now living about a mile up the hill in Crown Heights, also a very Caribbean neighborhood, we look forward to the annual West Indian Day Parade. I love their costumes. I love the jerk chicken and roasted corn. Most of all, I love the chance to show off my favorite areas and to dance in the street with a couple million of my neighbors celebrating where they come from.

Suffice it to say, this parade has a bad reputation. I heard nothing good from my friends, or even non-Caribbean neighbors about the parade. There is an overnight parade, J’Ouvert, the night before taking place from about 3-5 am where steel drum bands roam the neighborhood. I heard that if I went to this parade I would be shot or stabbed and would only see people having sex in the street. So when I moved closer to the route and decided that I could either go or leave town for the weekend, I didn’t know what to expect. What I did see was people of all ages barbecuing on the street, dancing, and staying out on their stoops to watch the steel drum trucks pass. In the essence of full disclosure, I only stayed out until about 4 am, and it may get rowdier after 5. There is drinking, but I wouldn’t say it’s equal to or worse than the St. Patrick’s Day or Mardi Gras celebrations that take place in this city and others.

The parade during the day has an equally bad reputation, though I’d find it more family friendly than J’Ouvert. I do know it gets more crowded as the day goes on and this year that meant trouble. Two places along the route, including one where I was standing two hours earlier had gunfire. Later on after the parade, about 1/4 of a mile from where we live, someone else fired a gun and injured innocent civilians and an officer. I guess the previous night, more people were shot at a barbecue related to J’Ouvert festivities.

I don’t know what possesses people to fire guns in crowded situations, especially in the face of such a heavy police presence. I counted 31 cops on my street in a two block area before and during the parade on Monday. They were spread heavily throughout the route as well. I wasn’t planning on gun violence, but I did feel that such a heavy presence was excessive. I feel terrible for the victims and their families and I definitely want to explore how these people acquired the weapons and why the violence erupted around this event as it has in 2003, and 2005, but I do not, under any circumstances think we should cancel this celebration. I’m also sad but not surprised to hear the usual “most dangerous parade” and “troubled neighborhood” tropes that have become standard.

I’m closing with this article that features the best parts of the parade. Read the comments for some more insight into the offensive way people are treating this. The parade is good. Flatbush is good. Crown Heights is GREAT! In the last two years, it’s gone from being “troubled neighborhood”, to featured in the New York Times and New York Magazine as a real estate up and comer. They even gave part of it a stupid new name “Pro-Crow”. More on that later.

It was one of those memorable conversations that occur between two total strangers. I really felt something special. He gave me his card and a big hug and kiss on the cheek. I thought hey, wow, maybe we can collaborate on a project together someday, or maybe we can just be friends. Anyway, I never saw him again. Shortly after he became very ill (as it turns out he was 80 years old). He spent months in the hospital after having heart surgery. He passed away after his wife fought hard to bring him home to his studio one more time, where he died shortly after.

Why do I know this? Well, I read his obituary after being informed by a coworker. I also tried to bid on one of his drawings at this year’s charity art auction. I was prepared to spend money that I shouldn’t be spending. The piece was beautiful and from one of my favorite periods of his work. I told my mom about it expecting her to talk me out of it, but she only encouraged me to bid more on it! I was way outbid, but that’s OK. My coworker gave me his wife’s information and she invited me to take a look at more pieces. I’ve been trying to save money, blah blah blah, but I couldn’t not go. His wife took the time to show me pieces all over their apartment from all through the years. I decided on a beautiful, beautiful piece and in the middle of all this, we realized that this was the day he had passed away one year ago.

It is summer now, which means a variety of things. First, you are divided into two categories of people; those with air conditioning and those without. There could be further sub groups of those with air conditioned jobs and those without, but for now we’ll stick with housing.

Being that I’m fairly cheap, we tried to spend the last 3 years getting accustomed to a non-air conditioned lifestyle. We didn’t have to break down and buy an air conditioner until last August. I’m pretty proud of holding out for so long. After having a Seinfeld type installation incident where we almost dropped it out the window, (I think they make the cords sturdy for this reason), we were living in a cool paradise, as cool as 78 degrees could get us anyway.

We only had to use it a few sweltering weeks before it cooled down enough to put away for the winter.

This summer is a different story. Whenever the temperature creeps above 90 degrees, the city slows down. The air is thick and heat reflects off the pavement. The masses move noticeably slower down the street and the heat is the topic of everyone’s conversation. It affects the way we sleep, the walk to the subway, and the muggy unair-conditioned underground. People find creative ways to wear a minimal amount of clothing and sprawl out on benches and in parks when they just can’t bring themselves to walk any further. People also congregate around public fountains or open fire hydrants.

The weather is a boon to the portable cold beverage and snack industry. Mister Softee and his imposters crowd the streets while Marino’s Italian ice sends out it’s thousands of rolling carts. If your lucky, you can catch a shaved ice guy, with a giant block of ice and sugary water. If you want to make some money, grab a cooler and start hawking Poland Spring for a buck to people in cars, on sidewalks, or on the Brooklyn Bridge.

Something in the air is a little bit wild. People stay cool by sitting out on the stoops all night. Windows are open and you can hear everyone’s conversations, including the woman in my building who constantly yells at her kids. It’s easier for Trashregus to dump garbage out his windows into my back alley. More people are always in the street and the kids have started playing games of quarters under my front window.

I reflect back on movies I’ve seen about New York in the heat, like Do the Right Thing, BlackOut, or all the stories about the summer of 1977 with the Son of Sam killer and the blackout.

Jesse and I have found our own unorthodox ways to stay cool. Some of the most effective include eating mass amounts of pop-ice popsicles and sitting directly in front of a fan.

Last week was so intolerably hot that we made a habit of combining the pop-ice/fan method with wearing minimal amounts of clothing and sitting on wet towels. Our apartment didn’t get below 89 degrees inside, after the sun had set. At the worst part of last week’s heat wave, it seemed like our last nerves had disintegrated and we had a massive argument about nothing. The only reasonable explanation was the debilitating heat. The same night, my cat pushed out a screen and ran away.

The next day, the heat broke and the city let out a collective sigh of relief. People in front of my building were happy. My cat came back and my apartment went back to a tolerable 80 degrees.

It’s not even August yet.

The just of it is this girl REALLY doesn’t like PDA. She gets annoyed and shoots “disapproving glares” towards anyone making out and even holding hands.

Maybe the problem I have with the article is how angry she seems. The problem of PDA, especially on the subway is one on a long list of annoyances of living in the city. While I can understand not wanting to watch people get it on, there are so many other things that piss me off more that involve the same methods, noise, getting up in people’s space, or inhibiting conversation.

This synthesizes so many ideas I have about living in the city including those invasions of space as well as being on the other side of the problem and having a crowded confined space to either share a personal moment or have a loud and heated argument.

Here’s a great comment some dude posted…

“Yeah, well welcome to New York. We share space. We press up against each other. If what someone is doing isn’t loud, isn’t emitting offensive odors, isn’t dangerous to anyone else, and doesn’t involves littering, then you can simply look away. Or watch. Those with more prudish sensibilities should consider cities where everyone drives or lives in homes with expansive lawns. I hear Texas is nice this time of year.”

If you want to talk about turning your ipod up to drown out the sounds of people making out. Here are a list of louder things that could drown out or distract you from people making out. It could be the guy urinating out the back of the car, or better yet, on himself (seen both!), the mariachi band or guy with trumpet, or drunk guy who only knows Wish you were Here, or variety of other musical entertainers. Don’t forget the preachers. They are loud! There could also be the loud business men or even louder teenagers that get on in droves after 3 pm.

At dinner I hate sitting next to loud conversation people. Last week Jesse and I had to listen to some know it all talking about how she knew everything. Then she spent 5 minutes talking about how she hates people who use the world Y’all. As someone who uses the world Y’all, I really resent that. I find it to be an integral part of my Midwestern mystique. Jesse agrees.

I get judgy and make mental complaints about nearly everyone I see on the street, but the thing I probably hate the most are the people who see the need to actually say something in the moment. I apparently stepped on a woman’s toes on a crowded subway. She pointed out that I kept mashing her toes and then proceeded to tell the unknowing lady next to her about how much she hated rude people on the subway. Geez lady, the subway is crowded! You’ve got a seat!

There was also the guy I made the mistake of sitting next to on a train. I guess he had to scoot over on the seat a little bit. That really set him off and he called me a fat bitch. Then he started ranting and raving about how lesbians were going to hell. It was also the 2nd time I’d been called fat in public in two days. It wasn’t the last time either. (I’m telling you, this city can get UGLY!)

The sad thing is it makes these probably rational, sensible people (except for that guy who called me fat) look so angry that they explode. They can’t take it anymore. I guess it speaks back to the practicality of living in a place where space and privacy are at such a premium and why people pay exorbitant amounts of money to do so. I don’t have an answer for that, but I did pay my rent yesterday.

I guess I would ask Ms. Ferarro to reserve her malice for something more deserving of a complaint in the New York Times.

As an aside, subway platforms are great for smooching while you are waiting for that illusive train. Service cuts anyone?

Moving to the city is an experience of both awe and culture shock. Living here, you adopt a ready for anything attitude, or at least a “That’s New York for you” attitude. This is for the times when you become fed up or disgusted with one of the many disturbing things you can see on the street on a daily basis.

Having said this, I wonder about the locals. Specifically, I’m thinking of my old NY housemate Louie, born and raised in the city. He takes everything with the proverbial grain of salt and whenever he ventures out of New York he swears that’s the last time. He used to be a real wild child. He would tell us stories about his teenage years, spent dropping acid and running around the streets of New York. This was also in the 70s, which, if you talk to anyone “in the know” was when the city was bankrupt and full of garbage, crime, and graffiti.

So, even though the city is much cleaner and more crime free, I wonder about the New York youth of today, the children who’ve had it all or seen it all before the age of 5 by living in the naked city.

When I was working my odd job circuit, one of my jobs was a nanny for my 10 year old neighbor. Since she’s under the age of 18, we’ll call her Penelope. She happened to be in a Broadway show with Patrick Stewart. I would pick her up from school, take her to the theater, and in the meantime, we would navigate our way around in the breaks she had between the matinees and the evenings.

We’d have conversations about school, dogs, and the finer points of city living. Once I saw a huge pile of garbage, at least 10 feet tall. I had been living in the city for a while, so had definitely seen my fair share of huge garbage piles. I remarked on this, only to get the kid’s response of “I’ve seen bigger.”

A standout memory that brings together Penelope and my old hat NY roommate Louie would be one that takes place on the subway and includes some angry junkies.

We were riding home after her final show of the day. Surprisingly, at the next stop, my roommate got on in our same car! It proves that NY is smaller than you think. Two stops later, some heroin addicts boarded the train and sat directly across from us. There were 3 of them, two men and a woman. The woman had a small french bulldog. You could tell they were heroin addicts because of the track marks all up and down their arms and the purple hue of their hands. If you’d had any doubts, they were amended when one of the men, the one who wasn’t passing out in a heroin induced coma, shouted to the uninterested train, “Yeah these are track marks!”

Louie and Penelopoe watched them with intense interest. Louie kept murmuring, “It’s like the 1980s all over again.” Penelope looked on in silence. At one point, a child who was with a large family that had just come from the circus (you could tell because of all their light up circus hats and swords) started screaming. It’s regular, it happens. You can rarely get on a train without a screaming kid (or preacher). This did not bode well for the angry junkie, as we referred to him later. He turned around and yelled, “Maybe if your child wasn’t such a malcontent!” The circus people let that remark go. They looked pretty exhausted, and this wasn’t the type of guy you wanted to engage. As soon as we were back home, Penelope could not stop talking about the “Junkies”. “Junkies this and junkies that, a big angry junky yelled at a family! They also had a dog!” She talked about the junkies for weeks.

We would sit in Bryant Park and at her request would play Local/Tourist where she would try to guess who was a local and who was a tourist. She would say things like “BACKPACK AND JEANS, TOURIST!” She could pick them out like a pro.

Penelope was also trained in the art of fair hopping. This is a NY kid thing because many of the children I’ve ridden the subway with do not own metro cards. It’s ok. They know what to do. If they’re small enough, they crawl under the turnstile. Otherwise, they get at the front and you both slide through on the same swipe. It’s like they’ve been trained.

Yesterday, I picked up my boss’ 7 year old son from school. I asked him if he had a metro card and he said no, he just slides under the bar. He asked me how much they were these days. I told him $2.25 and he thought that was a “stupid number.” He then asked why anyone would pay such a stupid price to ride the stinkin’ train? This is timely, as the bankrupt transit authority threatens even more fare hikes and service cuts, as well as discontinuing the student metro card service, which means, these kids will really have to put their fair hopping skills to use.

This kid also knew about my blackberry, as well as rent stabilized apartments, though he was under the impression his dad’s “house bill” was only $180 a month. I told him my rent for Brooklyn, $1339 and he asked me why everyone in my building didn’t move.

Similarly, I recall a conversation between Louie and Penelope, arguing over the price of what to sell his house for. She would say things like, “You’ll never get that kind of price in this neighborhood.” My roommate contended that she was the only person actually qualified to have the conversation with him, as she and he were the only people out of us, her parents, neighbors, and friends, who were actually born in NYC. Maybe he was right.

March officially marks 2 years since Elliot Spitzer was caught in a prostitution scandal and resigned to leave David Paterson in charge, as he immediately admitted to using cocaine and marijuana and to having an affair so as not to have two gubernatorial resignations in one year.

Fast forward to fall 2008, when in a huge victory, the New York State Senate became a democratic majority for the first time in 40 years. It seemed like, even in the midst of a hard recession, that things were going to get back on track. Then it was discovered that the GOP was using taxpayer dollars on a secret television studio, printing press, and a $50,000 luxury van. They paid top aids more than the governor and even hogged parking spaces. New Secretary of the Senate Angelo J. Aponte was quoted as saying, “Every time we nail something down, we uncover another rock and there’s another 30 people there — it’s all over the state,”

The majority and honeymoon lasted until early summer when Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate staged a coup against the democrats and gave the republicans a majority. Chaos ensued, lawsuits were filed and the caucuses locked each other out of the chamber.

Later, Monserrate came back, probably due to his fear of his impending court case of cutting his then girlfriend’s face with broken glass. It was all caught on surveillance video and he was later convicted and kicked out by the senate.

Pedro Espada stayed republican for a while causing a huge tie that regularly would have been broken by the Lt. Governor. If you’ll remember, our Lt. Governor is now the seated governor thanks to that Elliot Spitzer hooker scandal that just wouldn’t go away. Paterson tried to appoint one, but no one knew whether or not that was constitutional. It was tied up in court and everything was stalled for almost a month.

Finally, to get some semblance of order, the democrats bribed back Espada making him a new speaker of the house.

In the midst of a recession and budget shortfalls, he promptly hired his son for a position. It turns out he started the coup because he was mad because again, in the middle of a budget crisis, he couldn’t get money for his sham charities.

Most recently he has tried to upend rent regulation under the guise of helping the poor and was photobombed by tenants rights advocates.

During all the commotion, my senator got into some fights. Some with photographers, others with fellow seantors.

Meanwhile David Paterson kept prodding along, losing top aides due to infighting and eventually bungling the nomination of Hillary Clinton’s senate seat, first hinting at Caroline Kennedy and then not.

Most recently, he’s ended his race for governor due his involvement in the attempted cover up of a domestic violence case against one of his top aides. The state police, members of the governors security detail, and the governor himself individually spoke with the plaintiff on multiple occasions to allegedly intimidate her out of pressing charges.

Just to bring it all back full circle, just today, Kristin Davis, the Madam implicated in the original Elliot Spitzer prostitution downfall has announced her candidacy to replace David Paterson.

If you get a chance, read the attached articles. I am not making this up, but I wish I was.

I always angrily wondered why someone would only throw part of their garbage out the window. Why not go all or nothing? If you’re only throwing part of the garbage out, you’ll still have to lug some downstairs. It seemed like a plausible question until I met Trashregis. He seems like the kind of guy who would really get a kick out of just watching shit fall down into the alley.

Over the summer, the things thrown down would get more and more strange.  It went from innocent bottles and orange juice containers to a 1/2 gallon of milk, with the milk still in it.  There were the new pink disposalbe razors and feminine hygene products (unused luckily), and the raw chicken that landed on our window seal.

We’ve had quite a few run-ins with him, some are entertaining, others are tiring and downright weird.  We, or I should say Jesse, met him in front of the door to our apartment.  He approached him saying “You look like the guy with the animals.”  Jesse was confused and suggested the late Steve Irwin from the Crocodile Hunter.  The guy was kept saying “No, no.”, and pressing Jesse to remember who he thought he looked like.  Finally he remembered and said “Indiana Jones!”  I heard all the talk in front of the door and looked out the peephole where I saw Jesse trapped in conversation.  The guy talked about everything from race relations and how he was ok with us because we were cool white people.  He had told other people in the building not to bother us, because we were down.  He also mentioned that he wanted to watch the Mummy and that he’d be bringing it down to our apartment or we could just come up to his.  Apparently, he also had a selection of dirty movies and invited us to watch those too.

The next time we saw him was at 3:00 am when a friend who was staying with us came home late.  Unfortunately, when she came in, the door hinge broke as she opened the door.  It was hanging on one hinge.  I woke up and went out in the hall to find Trashregis in my apartment trying to be courteous and fix our door.  Since he was drunk/high, he was only making it worse and we couldn’t get him to leave.  We told him that we’d call the super the next day and he told us the super couldn’t do anything because he was a dirty Puerto Rican.  We finally had to hold the door up and pretend it was fixed, and he didn’t leave without giving all the ladies two hugs and a kiss and jesse a hug and a fist bump.

I was walking home and he asked me for a dollar and a cigarette before he knew who I was, then he decided to talk to me and give me a hug. I don’t think he has keys to the front door because he’s always ringing everyone’s bell at all hours to let him in.  We finally took matters into our own hands and disconnected our intercom.

Sometimes I see him on my way to work.  It will be 8 am and he’ll still be drunk/high.  I have to say hi quickly and yell, “I’m late for work!”  as I’m quickly walking away, or I’ll get sidelined into another conversation about cigarettes or the Mummy.

I don’t want to discount the importance of jury duty. I hope, if I ever have to be on trial, that I will be judged by sane and fair minded people, many whom may have had to put aside their working lives to take a few weeks off to serve. Though, admittedly, Jury Duty is a time consuming, mostly boring, mostly losing prospect, especially if you’re not getting paid. For the record, I was.

It was also full of enough fodder for a blog post.

I began my day by arriving at the Brooklyn Supreme Court at 8:30 a.m. (earlier than I ever get to work by the way). I went to the wrong building, as it is a complex of buildings, and was worried because I was 15 minutes late. That wasn’t a problem, as everyone in New York City is late for everything all the time. This includes movies, plays, concerts, anything with a set starting time. They didn’t start the action until after 9 and people were still walking in well after that. Some were so late they missed the sweet informational video that was one of the highlights of my day.

The video started with people in medieval costume tying someone up and then throwing them in a river.  A narrator explained Trial by Ordeal and what the world was like before juries existed.  Apparently, if you were guilty you would float.  The poor guy in the video sank, was deemed innocent, and then fished out.  Jury duty, not for the faint of heart.

Immediately afterward they have sort of “word on the street” segment, interviewing local New Yorkers in all of their thick accented glory about their thoughts on our judicial process.  They were basically people complaining about how much being summoned for jury duty sucked.  One older gentlemen went so far as to say “Jury duty, that’s a pain in the YOU KNOW WHAT!”

After this honest response to being summoned, the narrator introduces himself as the guy from 60 Minutes.  The guy who is not Andy Rooney or Mike Wallace.  He gives more history of juries involving Ancient Greece, Rome, and some monarchs.  They skip forward a few hundred years and then show clips from Perry Mason.  Diane Sawyer comes on to remind us that even though we’ll probably just sit around all day, we’re really serving a higher cause.  The video ends with a judge from the state supreme court telling us that in actuality jury duty is more important than voting because voting involves many and a jury is only twelve people.

Initially, I was in a room with about 150 people.  After waiting around for an hour, we were called out in groups of fifty and taken to another, smaller room, where we were called and taken to our court room.  Fifty people taking the elevators at the same time makes for a crowded trip.  On the way up to the court room, our elevator door opened.  A guy started to get on and then claimed, “It looks like a deodorant commercial up in there!”

We sat around in the waiting room of the court room for about 30 minutes before they took us in the actual room.

Once inside, we met the judge, defendant, council, and prosecution, as well as the bailiffs, the clerk, and the stenographer.  They then swore us all in, save for some weird guy who was late (more on him later) and had to be sworn in alone.  After being sworn in, they asked if anyone had any religious convictions against serving.  One guy raised his hand and approached the bench.  He elaborated on his convictions and the judge excused him.  After that eight other people got up and kind of mimicked what he said, so they were also excused.  I think it hardened the judge, because after that, he wasn’t exempting anyone, even people who probably shouldn’t serve on a jury.

Immediately after they called 16 of us to sit in the actual jury chairs and be questioned by the prosecution.  It was fairly simple.  Does anything in our lives make it impossible for us to look at the case impartially?  Most everyone was cooperative, but this one guy was really trying to get out of serving.  Either that, or he was just odd.  He gave multiple excuses for not being able to render an impartial verdict, including being hungry.  Around 12:30, after being asked a question he said that he would be impartial, then he raised his hand and corrected that if he is hungry he might make a different decision than if he’d had something to eat.

After letting us break for lunch and letting that guy get something to eat.  That guy as it turns out, is the brother of a famous actor who appeared in such movies as Fargo, Coffee and Cigarettes, The Big Lebowski, Pulp Fiction, and others. The defense questioned us next.  The defense lawyer liked to tell a lot of jokes and anecdotes.  He somehow related his wife’s car being hit at a jiffy lube to the law and how it related to our case.  He asked Mr. Food if he was actually related to the actor and Mr. Food refused to answer (I already knew, thanks to IMDB).  Mr. Food then tried to get out of service at every other question they asked.  He didn’t like violence.  He didn’t like animals, or children for that matter which might make him biased towards both the defense and the prosecution.  Somehow the judge always found an excuse as to why he was still a good candidate for jury duty.

When asked about gore and being exposed to graphic photos, I spoke of my physical aversion to blood.  It’s true, I once passed out at Union Station after watching an exhibit on open heart surgery.  I get queasy, etc.  Though I did admit that it wouldn’t sway my final decision.  It just might be a disruption.  The judge assured me that if I indeed passed out during a trial that they would wait until I was revived to proceed.  What a relief!

In the end, they made us all leave.  I thought for sure, excluding Mr. Food and a couple of others, including a guy who had somehow made it through speaking very little English, they would have a very full and very decent jury.  I secretly cursed the jury alternates of the original 50 who had been watching our questioning thinking they would get a free pass.  After about 20 minutes, they called us back in and only picked 3 out of the 16!  We were dismissed, and everyone else had to go through the entire process again.

We all went downstairs to turn in our surveys and get our free eight year pass, thus ending my day of civic duty.   A sidenote: The Kings County Clerk is named Nancy Sunshine.  She signed our discharge papers.

There are several options that we’ve tried, each at multiple stages of our city life.   There was the Trader Joe’s in Union Square, before we knew better, where you had to get in line as soon as you walked in the door.  The line wound all the way around the store, and it was better to just pick up a basket and prod along while waiting to check out.  There was also the long trek back on the subway.

There are much closer grocery stores in our neighborhood, the Pioneer, small enough to sell alcohol, small enough, not to really go there for anything else.  There is the “fancy” Key Foods almost a mile away that caters to the more gentrified Prospect Heights, the Associated, probably the best balance between Pioneer and Key, better stocked and larger than both, but still tiny.  They all have those checkout conveyor belts from the 1970s.  They never have a line, but are all so pricey!

Lately, we’ve begun to use a delivery service, Fresh Direct.  It seemed expensive at first, but is actually much cheaper, higher quality, and has more selection than the local three.

No matter what we do, it seems we’ve always had to buy our groceries from three separate places.  We used to get the generals from Stop and Shop, the suburban sprawling mecca in our old neighborhood.  It was worth putting up with crazy lines, for cheap prices and that processed dream food you just can’t buy at Trader Joe’s, Eggo waffles, ReddiWhip, etc.  We still bought our beer from Rite Aid, which is still the cheapest, and our meat from Meat Palace Supreme, one of the many butchers on Church Avenue.

This is where we decided to head tonight.  Last year, with our Stop and Shop cards, we got our Turkey for a mere $10!  With our wire shoping basket in tow, we boareded the B49 bus (late as usual) and headed the mile and a half to our old neighborhood.  We strategically went in the early evening, to miss the Sunday night crunch.  To miss the really huge crowds, you should either go early morning to avoid the church crowd, though crowd of church goers could vary by neighborhood.  You could also go in the early evening in hopes that people are eating and not shopping.

There were only three baskets available when going in, two had busted wheels.  We made it through relatively quickly, tag teaming the aisles and strategically planning an extensive list ahead of time.  Armed with discount cards and the sense that we weren’t coming back anytime soon, we stocked up on other cleaning products and cat food.  The catfood was 1/2 the price of Associated, not on sale!

Towards the end, we checked out using our seven grocery bags, and getting $.05 off for each, this year we set a new record, getting a turkey for $6.99.  It was one of about seven left in the frozen bin.  We loaded down our little cart, which already steers a little to the left.  It didn’t all fit, so Jesse had to carry a bag of groceries on one shoulder, a bag with our turkey in it on the other.  Rather than take the bus, we decided to take the subway and then the shuttle back to Franklin Avenue.

We carefully chose the less crowded path along the south side of Church Avenue, past the old Dutch Reform graveyard, past the street we used to live, past the Kennedy’s, the Brooklyn Pizza and Brooklyn Pizza II further down, past the bodega where I used to buy Presidente Beer, and then with little time to get nostalgic, we arrived at the Church Avenue subway.

We had to get the attendant to open the emergency gate, just as we heard our train arriving below.  We ran down the stairs, as fast as you could carrying our load.  I pulled Jesse, nearly pulling him and the load down the stairs with me, he was more than a little peeved.  We caught the train, getting on the last car, along with the trumpet guy, a Q train regular.  He pulls his single amp with musical accompaniment and plays all the classics.  Tonight he was playing “What a Wonderful World”.  I gave him a dollar as we stood up to exit at Prospect Park, poised to run down the platform to catch the shuttle.

I jumped off with the front of the basket, Jesse pushed the basket forward, but it somehow was caught on something, so he fell out of the car with the cart, face first.  After dusting him off and grabbing the turkey bag, we tipped the cart back up and pushed it up the platform towards the shuttle, which was leaving.  We wouldn’t have made it anyway.  When the next shuttle finally arrived, we took it one stop to the Botanic Garden, getting out and carrying the cart up the first flight of stairs, then through the station, then through the gate causing the alarm to go off.  That’s ok, though, people do it all the time.  Then up the last flight of stairs to the street, where we pushed down Eastern Parkway, always veering slightly to the left.

We finally arrived home everything in tact, luckily we live on the ground floor.

On Monday, my partner and probably future character in this budding blog, went to see a movie. The very nature of movie going in New York, as with many other regular activities, has a certain amount of acrimony. It usually involves long lines, confusion, rude people, possibly bedbugs, not to mention great expense (it was $11.75/ticket, now it’s $12.50!!!!). Since moving here two years ago, the movies we have taken the time to see are still in the single digits.

This time we didn’t see just any movie, but a movie set in and based on the city in which we live, New York, I Love You.

One of our favorite past times since actually moving here is seeing such movies. First we proudly point at the screen and say, “We live there!”. Afterwards, we compare and contrast how “real” the movie was in comparison to actually living here, and also feel generally superior.

Here are some opinions on the movie that come off the top of our heads:

Marisa-I like how the first scene showed two people bumping into each other while talking on cell phones. I was disappointed that it was someone actually picking someone’s pocket and therefore part of the story. Bumping into people on the street is a constant occurrence.

Jesse-Why the hell were Hayden Christensen and Andy Garcia smoking inside a bar? That doesn’t happen.

Marisa-When Orlando Bloom is in front of the Dakota, he’s sitting in Strawberry Fields and it’s empty. Where are the hippies that camp out there?

Jesse-A cab driver making someone get out of the cab? True. A cab that is willing to go to Brooklyn? False.

Marisa-People having sex in Central Park? Yeah, it probably happens.

Jesse-The character of the girl who video tapes everyone leaves a camcorder unattended and filming. That would be stolen. Though, there are a lot of wannabe artists always filming things or taking artsy photographs. I guess that part was true.

Marisa-True to the film, there are also a lot of young hipsters who wear porkpie hats, all over town, also scarves.

Jesse-A stranger jumping in a cab to share a fare? Cabbies lock their doors.

Marisa-Speaking of cabs, only one character in the entire movie takes the subway. What the hell is that? Also, I only saw one homeless person, maybe two, if you count a person yelling at people on the street.

Jesse-Everyone in the movie smoked. This does not accurately reflect that cigarettes in New York are more than $10 a pack and that you can’t smoke anywhere indoors.

Marisa-Some were smoking outside, on almost empty streets. Where are all the people, let alone drunken people you find on a night after 9 pm?

That’s all we could come up with for now. The movie was cute and entertaining, though mostly took place in Manhattan and a little bit of Brooklyn, two out of five more than usable boroughs. It also focused mostly on younger white people. Basically, this movie was good, but had more potential. Is it worth $12.50? Jesse says no. I say, I got a kick out of pointing at screen and thinking, “That’s where I live right now!”