Tag Archives: Trader Joe's

Eastward Bound and Back, Day 28: The Penthouse Suite

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Family, Historical, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

May 26, 2024, Exton, PA- I tend to eat far too much, when a quality Italian restaurant dinner follows a Persian lunch. Maybe there is a solution: No dessert. I am trying that, and a walk around the grounds of the quaint Bed and Breakfast, in this still-charming exurb of Philadelphia helped a bit as well. I will be able to lighten up, during the rest of this week.

Now, to a recap of the day. I did not need to sleep in, after the surprise fire alarm last night, at Woodsprings Suites. By 8:45, I was out the door, for a walk to the nearby Perkins, where a friendly team of servers brought a light breakfast. I went back to my Baha’i friends’ house, at 11:15, to enjoy the rice I had saved from last night. I left there, after about an hour, so they could tend to personal business. Once in Allentown, ten miles west, I sat in a parking lot, and tried to access a Zoom call, from Arizona. This did not work, so on I drove to a Wawa station, fueling both Sportage and myself. At a Trader Joe’s, in Montgomeryville, I picked up several personal items and a lavender plant, for my Downingtown family. The cashier’s name, like my mother’s, is Lila. There are lots more Lilas these days. Parents are smart.

Drivers tend to, quite often, wait until the last minute to go somewhere. Then, they expect everyone else to get out of their way. I saw that a lot, today. People were more forbearing, though, when they saw my Arizona plates. I got from Bethlehem to Exton with no fender benders, or even close calls. Once at Duling- Kurtz Country Inn, I took my bags up to the third floor, “the penthouse suite”, settled in a bit, then joined my brother and sister-in-law for the aforementioned Italian feast. Pomod’oro’s is a vibrant, happy place, where a large number of children were celebrating what looked like the end of a successful athletic season of some kind. We just celebrated another chance for family time.

Here are a few scenes of Duling-Kurtz Country Inn. This will be a most restful night, with scant chance of a fire drill.

Duling-Kurtz House
Bridge across “the River Kurtz”
The “River Kurtz”

The Nuance of Weird

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Posted by on in Assistance, Community, distraction issues, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Striving

April 18, 2023- The car pulled into Costco Gas, by way of the exit and faced the wrong way towards the pumps. Driver was swiftly corrected by the station’s attendant, and shortly thereafter pulled around and came in the same way as the rest of us.

I don’t often witness a general energy of the off-kilter quite so widespread as today’s. Whether it is due to the coming New Moon eclipse or just the result of a collective ennui, people were acting in rather a backwards manner or in complete obliviousness to their surroundings, in various moments. A young woman was dancing, this morning, in the middle of a pedestrian crossing in downtown Prescott-innocently enough, but seemingly unaware of anyone around her. It was a Thoreau moment-definitely a different drummer. Later, a woman walked to the far end of our post office lobby, thinking the exit door was in a different place than it has been for the thirteen years she has lived here.

For someone like me to make such observations may seem odd, in and of itself, but I have become accustomed to mostly neurotypical behaviour, since I moved here, twelve years ago this July. Not today, though; the pace of oddity seemed to accelerate towards evening. The gas station incident was preceded by at least five people walking trancelike, inside our local Trader Joe’s and its parking lot. I was grateful to be well-rested and fully aware of my surroundings, lest one of them walk right into my path. On the way back to my apartment, someone went from my lane, across an inside lane and a gore point, then stopped momentarily, before continuing across to Sheldon Street, which is clearly separated from Gurley, the street that goes directly to downtown.

For once in my life, I was among those not exhibiting off-center behaviour. Having been in a position of grave responsibility might just have re-wired me. Let’s see how the rest of the eclipse unfoldment turns out.