Mary-Lynn’s Neighborhood

Reasons I Am Buying Less At Trader Joe's

or

Items Trader Joe's Has (Apparently) Discontinued

in no particular order other than the most heartbreaking is first (also you might notice a theme)

• Mexican Hot Cocoa Cookies--I told the cashier last year that I loved these so much I wanted to marry them.  Then I wrote Trader Joe's and told them that, and they said they were a seasonal item.  And they didn't bring them back this season.  I want to punch them in the face for this alone.
• Pierogies--these had become rather a staple for me over the last year or 2.  I'm not sure if they have been discontinued but I haven't seen any in a few months.
• Hot chocolate mix in the round blue can--okay, they have the sipping chocolate which is good, and this one I can live without but still, just another turn of the thumbscrew.
• Chocolate yogurt--the kind with the real cocoa in the bottom that you mixed up and it was all delicious and shit, not that Eurotrash crap in the smaller container they try to shove off on you.
• Cookies with Perks--the chocolate chip cookes with espresso chips (or espresso flavored cookies with chocolate chips?).  Haven't seen them since probably last winter or spring.  Bastards.
• Milk chocolate cocoa almonds (are you getting the theme yet?)--now they have the black cocoa almonds, and they are pretty good, though unless you eat them with a spoon or chopsticks it's like you just read 100,000 newspapers (okay, newspapers that taste like chocolate, but still, it's messy!)  Now---90% of the time I prefer dark chocolate, but this is one of the few exceptions (one of the others is the milk chocolate covered McVitie's digestive biscuits which I haven't had in years but I would probably sell a kidney for a packet right about tomorrow).  Would it be SO WRONG to have both?
• I didn't check for it this time because I bought some at the regular supermarket since I couldn't find it at Trader Joe's the last couple times, but if they have discontinued their frozen broccoli florets I'm gonna bust up the joint.
• I don't think they have discontinued them (YET) but their sea salt brownies were really delicious until they lightened up on the sea salt.  Now they are just bland.
• I didn't see the little chocolate mint cookie clusters.  They were so good that I can't even remember what they were. They were in a brown and dark pink round container, like a pint of ice cream, like Thin Mints or something, all crumbled up and covered in chocolate, maybe?
• Also I haven't seen the dark chocolate toffee squares I've become rather addicted to, in a while.  I bought some in September to bring on vacation.  I have one left in front of me.

There are probably other things but it's probably like regular food that doesn't stand out in my mind like chocolate stuff.  I will add things as I recall them.  I know my neighbor was pissed about some croissants they discontinued, maybe almond croissants.

They are discontinuing stuff I like but not replacing them with anything as good or better.  Are my tastes that eclectic?  Do all the rest of the Trader Joe's customers have bland ass taste?

Oh--the first thing I ever had from Trader Joe's, before I lived near one, were these little chocolate animal cracker type cookies (my sister had them at her house when I was babysitting once and I wanted to eat the whole thing).  They weren't chocolate covered or anything, they were like chocolate butter cookies that melted in your mouth.  And they replaced them with something BLAND.

I seriously was planning on buying 10 boxes of those Mexican Hot Cocoa Cookies. And next trip I would have bought 10 more.  I'm completely serious.  I was going to stock up so I could have them at least through the spring.  Or till New Year's.  Or till I OD'ed on them, or at least till I vomited.

Quit breaking my heart, Trader Joe.  You are getting to be evil and sadistic, getting me hooked on this stuff and then yanking them out from under me, without warning, before I can stock up and buy out every store in the area.

I thought this was kind of neat.

The Beatles Complete on Ukulele  (recorded in Shabby Road Studios in Brooklyn!)

I was just looking again at a newsletter I got in October from Spottiswoode & His Enemies and noticed it mentioned at the bottom.  Well, Spottiswoode does a cool version of Within You Without You which I downloaded for free.  Yep, all of the songs are free to download.  They are doing a song a week for 185 weeks till the catalog is complete.  And if you happen to be in Brooklyn this weekend, they are doing a Benefit Concert for Yoko Ono.  Last year it was a benefit for Warren Buffett, so I don't think it's like Yoko's broke and needs bone marrow transplants or anything.

Sunday December 6, 2009, from noon to midnight at Brooklyn Bowl, 61 Whythe Avenue, between N. 11th and N. 12th Streets, Brooklyn 11211.

more info here.

37WithinYouWithoutYou

Spottiswoode

• 07:21 Oh, KTVU, or should I say, "KT VU"? flic.kr/p/7jLuyL #

• 16:44 Oh my god I love Magnum Force. #

• 13:57 The love of two brains flic.kr/p/7iMEuS #

You may remember that the contractor we got to add a second story to the house fled before the job was finished.

So OH has become the craigslist master, finding free stuff in the ads that he needs to finish construction on our house. Not just bay windows, but hardwood doors, a complete closet system, even lumber.

And one of the things he recently found for free is a wheelchair.  It doesn't have its footrests, but when the humanitarian who was offering 4 free, used wheelchairs learned that I have M.S., he told OH that he would reserve the best one for me.

Ever since we went to Bellingham and used the borrowed wheelchair, I have realized how useful a wheelchair is to accommodate us together.  While I do have my scooter, a wheelchair allows OH to stabilize himself while pushing me.

When I was diagnosed in 1991, I was told to go home and start preparing to be in a chair soon.  I even saved some ratty Chuck Taylor Converse hi-tops to wear while in the wheelchair so that people wouldn't see me and feel pity, that everyone would know I used to be able to walk.

But as time went by, I stopped waiting for the possibility.  And I believed what the doctor told me in 1991, that I could assume the severity and progression of my disease could be gauged by the initial five years after my diagnosis.  Obviously wrong.

 Now the wheelchair is folded up in the living room corner, calling to me.  I'm always aware and worried when I am hobbling around that I will fall down.  It's tempting to know that I could be less stressed about it by sitting down.

The author Nancy Mairs who chronicles her M.S. in books like Waist-High in the World: A Life Among the Nondisabled recounts that she had a serious fall on her head then decided she would "give up walking" after she "had another such mishap."

However I don't want to "give in" to the deterioration prematurely.  And "sitting on your ass" is synonymous for being lazy. So how will I know when it's time?

• 07:07 That TV thing where somthing shocking happens then they fade to a card that says "(blank) hours earlier"? CHEAP AS FUCK. #
• 12:08 Liking peterman doing the dog show. #
• 12:33 Thanksgiving gut flop flic.kr/p/7iyzPj #
• 15:44 Keeping the kids from fighting flic.kr/p/7iwyzg #