Tuesday, August 30, 2011

The Wheels Fall Off the Cart

Literally.  I took the cart that Jake put together in the Shaw's parking lot on it's second trip to the grocery store yesterday.  On the way out of the building one of the wheels fell off.  I was able to put it back together to take it to the store.  Once I got my groceries home I had to struggle to pull the cart up a half of a flight of stairs to get it to the elevator.  When I got to my door, the wheel popped off again.  I retraced my steps, but I was only able to find two of the three parts to put it back together.

I was really missing New York, and grocery delivery service.  Here people drive their cars to the grocery store and park in the parking lot.  Having a car in New York is a rarity and even if you have a car, you definitely don't drive it to the grocery store.  Here people also drive their cars to Target.  Or they wait for a half an hour to take the bus to Target.  Half an hour, seriously?  This is not public transportation, it's public frustration.

We got on Seamless Web the other night to order food (for those of you unfamiliar, Seamless Web is this great online tool that allows you to search for and order from delivery places in your area) and almost all the restaurants charge for delivery.  I was scandalized.  In New York if you're going to get delivery you don't even need to come to a compromise about what you're going to get because one person can get Indian and another Chinese and no one will have a problem getting to the $7 free delivery minimum.  Here there were delivery minimums of $30 and delivery charges of $5.  Is there no civilization?

Okay, so I've complained about the buses and the lack of cheap, available delivery service on this blog already.  We all know I'm terrible at transitions.  It is all starting to seem real now that this is my home for the next three years and it's a bit scary.  But New York was scary at first too.  And then I learned how to manage the subway, get around the streets below Houston (sort of), find the reasonably priced groceries, and make friends.  And I miss that sense of comfort, of knowing what I was doing and where I was going, of having a routine.  And I miss my wonderful friends who I ate mac and cheese with, watched Glee with, baked cookies with, went to Target with, ventured into the outer boroughs with, tackled the budget with and generally learned how to make the City my home with.  I know the grammer in that last sentence is horrible, but the sentiment is pretty good.

So here's to New York, but also to Boston and to keeping the wheels firmly on the cart.

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