I'm this close to going bananas!

Grocery shopping. What comes to mind? If you are in Forssa you're thinking city market or Euro probably. Lots of room, not a lot of people, good selection and AWESOME parking. If you are in Jersey (and me) you think Nutley Shoprite, little crazy, always busy and just up the street. Easy breezy....If you are in Brooklyn....TIME CONSUMING!

Let's back up a little. When we first moved in together, we did go to grocery shopping together. Due to T's aisle rage and me being home we decided it would be a good thing if I did the grocery shopping my myself while T was at work. It saved both of us from loosing our minds and kept our blood pressure in check. I had something to do during the day and T came home to full fridge and freezer.

Since we moved to Brooklyn a week ago we've done grocery shopping twice. Last Sunday together since T saw a Italian market she wanted to try and we REALLY needed food for this week. And me by myself today. Brooklyn and Nutley are 2 VERY different places, lemme just tell you. First up this morning was to move the car to Wednesday's side parking. We have street cleaning every Wed and Fri so the street needs to be cleared. Parking on those days is a nightmare! I drove around for few minutes until I saw a Wed side parking. I wasn't sure what time I was gonna go grocery shopping so it needed to be done. Then around 11 when I did decide to go grocery shopping I realize that the low tire pressure sign is on. I called T because it's her car to ask if I should go shopping or take care of it. The Getty's gas station right around the corner had a lot going on but I was able to take care of it. By that time it was almost noon. Now I wrote the directions to the grocery store down so that I knew where to go. Let me just say that there's a lot going on in the streets of Brooklyn. If it's not a stop sign on every corner it's lights...and cars are driving WAYYYYY faster than the limit says. And I'm not the owner of the car so I need to be EXTRA careful. Thankfully I at least now have a jersey driver's license which at some point (sooner rather than later) I should change to NY...for the longest time in Jersey I was driving with my Finnish license. but anyway, moving on... I was not happy with the Italian market so I wanted to go to a major chain. No A&P's close by so I ruled it out. There was either no Stop and shops or it was so far away that I wasn't comfortable driving there so that was out. BJ's was far away (for me) and I would have had to take the highway...no thank! Trader Joe's was close enough but I can't find everything we needed there so I went to Shoprite. That's where I went in Nutley as well. Getting there was OK, just took some time. The parking lot was a total nightmare with the crazy minivans (I now know what you mean babe) and delivery trucks and people who thought they are F1 drivers! I found a spot in the furthest possible corner which later I found out to be a major mistake!

Since this was the first time in this shoprite it took me awhile to find everything. I was also on the phone with T a lot because we had to discuss the selection. 2 hours and about 6 phone calls later I'm outta there. I felt I was deserving of a Dunkin Donuts iced coffee and since there was DD right there before I headed out I got myself coffee. I get out of the store and WHAM! The cart stops moving. I unload my stuff to another cart, try to get down the ramp again and WHAM! it happens again. They had one of those carts that when you get far enough from the door it stops working. I guess to make sure that the homeless people don't steal them but damn was I pissed! I had about 7 grocery bags FULL of food and the DD iced coffee. So I felt like a mule carrying all those bags and the coffee. Was good times. Totally. Looking forward to doing it again in 2 weeks...or not.

I got home just before 3 and got a good parking space on the side of the building. It took me 2 trips to get the groceries inside and now I'm just chillin. Will meet T at the subway in about half an hour, make some dinner for us and then just chill for the rest of the night. Tomorrow's a new day and I will take on the farmer's market, or Jenny market around the corner. It's meant to be with that name!

I just saw Saku Koivu's interview on ESPN. Cool seeing Finns on TV here. And speaking of sports...I'm glad I can go back to hating Ferrari with a passion! It was really hard cheering for Kimi while he was driving Ferrari but next season I can just hate them again!

While we live in BK I am gonna try to connect with some Finns in the area. Next week I am gonna try to go to the Finnish Church in Manhattan and check out the happenings there. And for those of you who think I might have seen the light or whatever...dontcha worry, still as atheistic as can be! It's just for making connections, maybe getting some salmiakki or other Finnish candy and for reading Finnish newspapers etc. I also signed up for Finnish meet up. It's a bunch of Finns and friends of Finns/Finland getting together once in awhile to talk about stuff. I was already contacted by another Finn who just moved to NYC with her husband and a baby. She thought I had a kid because I put a picture of me with Carly in there. Oops! Will need to e-mail her and tell her that is not the case!

I will blog again one of these days...Later.

p.s. DC is a no go. they did not invite me for a personal interview. Sigh. Job hunt continues.