A belated valentine

I used to be satisfied with my neighborhood shopping opportunities. For instance, there's a big Safeway less than a block from my apartment. It may not be a fantastic grocery store--the produce looks sad and wilted, Soviet-style lines stretch down the aisles, and, more than once, I have been unable to buy ice cream because police tape was looped around the freezers. (Apparently that is the health-department-required precaution if the store can't keep freezer temperatures low enough.)

But my apartment features a dorm-sized refrigerator and an easy-bake oven, so Safeway more than met my humble grocery needs.

That was until Trader Joe came to town.

Oh wonderful, wonderful Trader Joes. You are like a gift from grocery heaven, with your bulk candy, your gourmet bagged salads, your $3 wine. Thoughts of pomegranate muffins keep me up at night. I write sonnets about your adorable boxed noodle lunches.

I even love the employee outfits--Hawaiian print shirts that almost make me forget that the sky just dumped two inches of snow on the nation's capital.

But ours is a long distance relationship. Joe lives in Foggy Bottom, I live in Adams Morgan, so I have to bribe or beg friends* with cars to take me there for our Sunday trysts. And I have it easy compared to my brother, who lives in New York. Apparently the Union Square Trader Joe's is only slightly less difficult for him to get to than the one here in Washington, DC. So when he visits, he stocks up on that tasty, cheap wine and transports it home on the Chinatown bus. (And perhaps he shares it with the driver, too, given their recent safety record.)

*Shout out to LW and TF!