When I lived in Brookline, I'd occasionally make an afternoon of it; I'd take the the T to Coolidge Corner, play frogger to get to the independent bookstore, schmy around the (seemingly) small space (it wasn't small, but I tended to go in spots there that were over looked) and I'd "only" make a solid purchase of a couple UK imported music magazines (MOJO and UNCUT). Sometimes I'd pick up an extra book or two; but that depended on what would jump out to me. My purchases were also depended on whether or not I was on the hunt for a one off suggestion from one of the professors I was friendly with. I was mainly on a mission for the magazines and anything else was a bonus.
After getting my fill of all the books and knickknacks, I would hop back over the tracks to Trader Joe's. I'd again, loosely wander up and down the aisles, internally checking off a list in my head of what I could eventually buy and carry back to the dorm. I did this all four years of school, and when I was able to keep my car on campus, it made things a little easier, yet hard, because of the way U-turns are built around that area. Plus, a car allowed me the opportunity to stop at Star Market as well. Which was something I didn't always need to do. But off to shop, I went. As long as I could "pahk my cah in a free lot" (aka Trader Joe's or Star Market), so I had to make a quickie anywhere else outside of that building.
If I really wanted to make a cracking day out of it, I'd make my first stop the Coolidge Corner Theatre, then the bookstore, then Trader Joe's. That would be the excursion where my paycheck would be nil by nightfall.
Oh, but it was worth it.... 😁
Spinning back to the current decade, I actually have a Trader Joe's "near me" yet again. I actually don't make it a habit to go to this one in Fort Myers. It's not the same as "just getting on the T and ride the line". It's not so fun to have an agenda and surprise yourself with good finds. Yes, I could literally spend a paycheck in this store, but I do end up holding back. With the way things are now, I've got to take my car to TJ's because there's no train system, let alone a proper bus system. It's close enough, but also far past a few stores I like just as well, and are a little more reliable to get to.
After some research to try to correctly explain the transportation, the local bus system runs once an hour in my area. You need to find what stop is closest to you, in order to catch the bus at a specific time. It takes you to a common area / depot in about 45 minutes. For me, this would be equal to the stop by my community and then going to the mall as the depot. From the mall, I need to catch another bus to get to Trader Joe's, which now backwards on the route I was on just on. Two different bus number lines, so it can be another twenty minutes out of the way. That's providing the bus taking me to Trader Joe's is at the depot area. Otherwise it's another "who knows how long of a wait".. at the mall.. where I didn't want to be, to begin with. If I'm going to go to the mall, I might as well stop in Books-A-Million, but I don't need a book right now. Oh well.
All that being said, I don't know if there's an exact stop at the plaza the store is in, as the transit website is vague for the area I'm looking at. I've honestly not seen any bus there when I've been at the plaza, so I don't know how people shop if they don't have a car. Uber, maybe?
It's one of those trips that could end up being well over an hour in total travel time, one way, due to the back and forth and running around to get a ride (again, I don't know when the next bus would be from the mall to the plaza, to give a definitive answer). This time frame is not including the 45 minutes inside the actual store. Yes, I could spend at least 30-45 minutes in the store. I can admit to it. Then you have to wait for the return to the mall bus, to then get on the bus to go to my end of town. So another hour and change in travel time.
So we're at what, over two hours already? Just on a bus ride? It's 15 minutes from my house in "easy" traffic. Providing a car service doesn't get lost in picking me up, it'd be the same quarter of an hour.
Comparatively speaking, the bus system that I'm used to up north, the bus was at my street every 30 minutes (literally. There was a stop at the top of my road so it made things very easy). The days I took it to work (downtown), I was out my door and in the office in 35 minutes. Yes, I did walk home some days when it was nice (and it was an hour and ten minutes' walk because I moseyed and watched the flowers), but I had door to door service and didn't have to worry about catching multiple rides and starting my day hours in advance. My job was two or three stops from the main (and only) depot, so it all panned out in my favor. Plus, if I were to say, right now, "I'll walk home" from Trader Joe's (or walk to, for that matter), it would be a 2 hour and 22 minute walk, according to Maps. Publix is 5 minutes down the road from me, and would be a 25 minute walk, although I did do a similar path to a Redbox when we first moved here... so it's "manageable". That and I once rode my bike around the area - I plotted a similar radius I was used to back north, and once I saw an alligator sunning itself on the side of the road, I was like "nope" and haven't used my bike since. I actually sold it a few years ago, so I don't own two wheels anymore.
Back to driving around the area and getting places.
To come down south and have a city that sprawls for what feels like centuries, is hard. I tell my friends who visit from out of state (or country, like when Rach was here), "think long and hard of where you want to go. Disney is three hours north of me. Key West is a minimum 5 hour drive south of me. There is no in between, where we can get to the place in a blink. Plus, for a Florida resident, there's also no major bargain for these "tourist" places. Yes, I can get a small discount on some things, but we're still paying gas to get there, hotel rooms, resort fees, admission fees. Before you know it, the bargain you hoped for, has long been depleted. Also, with blackout dates, a small percentage won't help because no one gets money off at that time (think school vacations or holidays)".
I told my friend Shawn (who lives in Connecticut and has a part time job driving one of the car services), "think of it as you going to Albany, New York. You're there in two and a half hours. I'm still driving to Orlando and you've crossed one state. If you continued driving and went 5 more hours from Albany, you'd be in Ottawa, Canada. You've crossed country borders; hope you've got a valid ID".
To continue this idea of distance:
* In just shy of six hours, I can drive from Fort Myers north(west) to Tallahassee, the state capital of Florida.
* I can drive north(east) to Jacksonville, Florida in just shy of 5 hours.
However, I'm still not out of the state yet. As those two cities are near the Georgia border, it would be another hour, roughly, for me to leave The Sunshine State.
* If I wanted to go to Pensacola, Florida, I would have to travel about eight hour and 32 minute north west.
At this point, I would be near the Alabama border, which would put me a little less than an hour outside of Mobile. So 9 hours and 20 minutes, I finally am in another state, and a different time zone!
* If I wanted to go another hour further (west), I'd be in Biloxi, Mississippi. Thus, making a second state crossing in this one trip.
With me on this? Did I lose you?
Essentially, Florida is freaking huge and it takes time to get to places. These are rough estimates, based on Google Maps at the time of this writing.
So to drive myself to Trader Joe's in 15 minutes, I can do that. If I wanted to take a bus, I'd have to plan well over 2 hours of my day to get on the public transportation line. All to go grocery shopping. It's easier to drive some days, just as it was far easier up north.
You may ask yourself, "what's the point already? Why have we deviated from the original plan?" and I'll tell you.
I bought beer bread mix and made it.
Actually, I bought beer bread mix and made it with carbonated sparkling water.
It was interesting.
I didn't add melted butter to the top, as it was optional, so the bread's surface was a little hard.
Inside, it was slightly soft (the chewy, yeasty, good kind) but it wasn't that bad. I think it's because I might have over mixed it. I added Craisins in the batter, for kicks, as I figured the liquid was cranberry clementine, why not add a little fruit bonus? If "raisins are humiliated grapes", then "craisins are humiliated cranberries". I have to say, the Craisins were an added flavor for sure, but the overall profile was still lacking something. Maybe if I did add the butter as it was cooling, it would have been a better bread and the fruit would create a better (sweeter?) profile?
Although, when I cut myself a couple slices (once cooled), one slice had peanut butter on it, and another slice had cream cheese. I'm weird like that, and I don't stick to butter sometimes for my bread. Even though I very well tried butter with this at another point. The bread did crumble a bit when adding the toppings, but it didn't completely fall apart. Each spread gave a different type of complexity, and I don't know what was better or what was worse. Out of the three, I think the butter was what we think of as "normal" for this type of situation, but the cream cheese was just as good. It wasn't indulgent by any means, but it served a new benefit. Something different. The peanut butter wasn't messy per se, but the nuttiness hid the fruit and yeast flavor, so it was a hard judge.
I think I would try this again, only changing the carbonated drink. Since I don't have alcohol in the house anymore, I'm up for trying other things. Maybe another type of carbonated water. Who knows; I did buy two boxes...
Turning this ship in another direction, I ended up watching the news the other morning and they were talking about the weather.
It happened to be that the television was on when I walked by it. It was the perfect time, because obviously, someone didn't quality control their job as the discussion of the next 24 hours was on display.
My question is:
What is "Brezzy"?
Especially in relation to temperature, such as "warm and sunny"?
This, my friends, is what the meteorologists are teaching us; how to use new words in a sentence and not correctly spell others. Considering the person giving the weather report did, in fact, say it was going to be "warm and breezy", someone on the control end didn't catch the oopsie.
It wasn't like this was a fully live (one hour, local) broadcast; it was one of those cut in "here's your local weather" segments from the morning national show. Someone might have had enough time to check the visuals before it went on air. I hope. Especially if the weather person was being prepped for the minute he was on air, the tech would have had opportunity to input the information correctly.
Who am I, though? I've had my fair share of oopsies, especially on here. We all know that. 😒 But I admit to it and if caught in time, fix it. Sometimes I don't want to be bothered, while other times I know I must.
However, to go "live, on air", is something different. Yes, people are probably absentmindedly listening and not paying attention to whatever screen the weather is on, but you still need to have your words correct. There are people who are learning things by the day, and if something is out there for them to pick up on, they will soak it in and put it back out.
Don't throw rocks at glass houses, I know. Don't remind me. I'm not out there in the media world right now, pushing out sound and vision items to the masses. Yea, excuses, excuses.
Maybe I should attempt to get back in to the Communication field and apply to the television stations... start on the ground floor as a little higher than an intern and work my way up to the control room. Make sure the stuff going out is on the up and up. 🙈🙉🙊
As it is, there's rumbling about the big governmental science department going away. The weather people we rely on for keeping tabs on major storms that could impact our lives (rain, hurricanes, snow, etc) and by that getting shut down, there will be no accuracy in the local channels that can deliver the information to the citizens. We're coming up on rain and hurricane season in Florida; we can't afford guess work (even under normal circumstances), considering how active the summers have been lately. If the radars aren't getting fed the right models, a lot of people could be in real trouble.
I am trying to tread light right now, please excuse me. I don't like getting too political in my posts unless I really have to, and given some national news about sites getting shut down, I'm not about to have that happen here.
But truly, if we can't get the information (good, bad, in between), how will we know what's right? Then again, the misspell is common around here. I'm always being told how the local news anchors can't even pronounce the simplest of words correctly, and they don't know, or realize, they've just said something wrong. The other anchors continue with the conversation like it's nothing and they keep going. It's not a "tomato / tomahto" situation. It's far worse than that. To also have cue cards with bad spelling is on the same level of not knowing how to speak (in a way). Like I said, this isn't the first time and I know it won't be the last.
There's a big reason why I have ill feelings about some of the "ways of life" down here. This adds to it. I feel bad for the ones who need the education, but the people who earn a proper living with proper education and still have errors should know better?
Again, I know I've done bad things. I am not excusing myself. I do try to fix and apologize. This may be a public blog, but I'm not "live and on air" and putting things out there that are all together bad. Or at least that's my attempt. I could possibly write something that can be misconstrued, and I really am sorry for that. It isn't my intention and I tend to free write and not thing too clearly. Which is why sometimes I tend to ramble and have the mistakes. I circle around things because it's how I think most days. At least I'm trying to improve myself, my education, and not speaking in front of people with poor language skills or push out a piece of information on the screen with a word that doesn't exist ("teh" doesn't, but it's a rip on someone in my expansive circle from when this blog started. There's a backstory).
It's just one of those things where I wish there was better opportunity around. If I can catch the wrong, who else is? That's a good question that I can never seem to answer. I don't think I ever will be able to answer it.
Which is also why a lot of people can't stand watching television and movies with me. I catch the small stuff and have to make a comment about it. Yes, its needless knowledge, but if they didn't catch it, surely I didn't mistake the scene? Rewind, backtrack, talk it out. Yup; after explanation, they caught it too. Strange...
I have been working on this post for five hours because I keep getting squirreled. It's sooo past my bed time right now, I think I'm at the point of making stuff up. So in order to maintain some sense of everything making sense, I'm going to end it here.
It's going to be 80 something degrees tomorrow, so if you're in the heat, stay hydrated. If you're in the cold, stay hydrated and warm. If you're in between, choose your own adventure.
Until I get a proper rest, stay safe and cool.
Cheers;
See Also:
* MOJO Magazine via Amazon
* UNCUT Magazine via Amazon
* Trader Joe's Beer Bread Mix via Amazon
* The "Humiliated Grapes" reference is from the movie, Benny & Joon.
