After we picked up Lily from a birthday party today, we hauled it into the Trader Joe's on 14th Street to stock up on some spirits for New Year's Eve. During our trip in, Drew got an alert on his iPhone of breaking news from CNBC that the NASDAQ building had to be evacuated due to a suspicious van being parked outside. We were thinking based on this news tidbit, our liquor run may not have a happy ending but alas it didn't affect us at all and thank goodness no one was hurt downtown.
I missed the opportunity to get a picture of the entire skyline which after thirty-eight years still excites me, because Lily wouldn't stop talking and I was probably listening intently so as not to miss something. Something she could not have possibly said like eighteen times already.
For any of you that know Lily personally, I know the idea of incessant talking might surprise you, but believe me she NEVER stops talking these days. I mean NEVER, even when we are like "Lily, put a sock in it." She will start laughing and ask about "how can you really put a sock in someone's mouth?" Which will go on for another twenty minutes STRAIGHT.
Drew is not a fan of driving through the Midtown Tunnel but we made it through without incident. He did tell me on our way out of the City that he likes leaving better than going in because the lanes coming out are bigger. Oh pardon me, but I would think the tunnel was made exactly the same on BOTH sides but I guess not...no sarcasm here.
The picture above by the way, is of the SMALLER side of the tunnel taken while we were heading into the City. ;)
When we got to Trader Joe's we were lucky enough to not have to wait in line to get into the store as we noticed people had started doing when we were leaving. Although as soon as you enter you are automatically on line whether you like it or not.
So you basically just make your way to the cashier and grab what you can along the way. If you have to get off the flow of traffic approaching the cashier to go down the only aisle not in the flow of the line, good luck getting back in line.
Browsing is clearly not an option when the store is this crowded. So the only picture I was able to snap was one of the white wines when normally I wouldn't even glance their way, except maybe in mid-summer with temperatures topping the nineties with a few ice cubes in it.
We ended up with two cases of cabernet, a few random bottles of white for wusses (not my first word choice but trying to keep it PG) and a few bottles of dessert wine. In the picture below, we found some kind of secret sauce that they claim is pure perfection. We found this one in the normal Trader Joe's store and I need to google it to see what it is used for. But I mean they claim it is almost perfect. That is some build up.
Drew is making fun of me for posting this picture and pimping out Trader Joe's wine as he is a certifiable wine snob. But for those of you that have tried Trader Joe's wine, I am sure you all know what I already know and that this wine is good. It is a genuinely good wine. It is smooth, full bodied (I am imagining Drew now rolling his eyes about how gay I am for whipping out my wannabe wine lingo) and goes down very nicely.
And for a girl that has a problem with sulfite's and the impending headaches followed by a glass of even the very best wine, I am impartial to wines that don't give me headaches and this is one of them.
This three dollar bottle of wine NEVER gives me a headache and if you are any good at math you could calculate that three bucks a bottle comes out to just under forty bucks for a case and what is not to love about that? Good tasty wine, and twelve bottles for what Drew usually pays for one bottle, MAYBE two.
Tomorrow Drew will be back out at another liquor store to stock up on rum, vodka, bitters and triple sec. And then it's on BABY. We are locked and loaded. But the funniest thing about all of this running around stocking up is that we are only expecting ONE other couple and maybe one or two stragglers if they can get away from their kids for a bit.
But at the very least and if nothing else we will be more than adequately prepared to welcome in 2010.
