Car Ride 1/4

Hello to my fans and readers,

I am writing this on my first of four 5 hour car rides this week. In other words, my first of two pilgrimages to Massachusetts. Why? Good question.

Some updates that you may be curious to know…

I have new American flag shoelaces. My shoes have stars on them, my laces have stars on them. My socks often have stripes on them, my shoelaces have stripes on them. Now, upon meeting me, it will be even clearer to people that I’m American. Finally! Dreams do come true.

It’s quite a sight, if I’m being honest. Good thing I didn’t walk around NYC too much today, otherwise people would have been falling over in jealousy. I have my red Patagonia backpack, my blue sparkly shirt, my track pants, the aforementioned shoelaces (of course), AND polka dot socks that match my Frost Valley water bottle.

Side note: I’m dressed like an American flag without even trying, red, white [on the track pants] and blue. Stars [barely - I’m counting the sequins] and stripes [again on the track pants].

I’m wondering, are there Canadian flag shoelaces? As I’m sure you’re now wondering the same, (especially my Canadian readers) yes. Yes there are.

Last night, I spent the delirious moments before falling asleep daydreaming about the Fourth of July. In this scenario, someone, I don’t know who, comes up to me. They say- Violet, what fun Fourth of July shoelaces! Did you buy those for today?

HAHA. I’ll say back. You would’ve thought, wouldn’t you. These are my daily shoelaces. These shoelaces don’t come easy. I had to scour the internet, pages and pages, to come across these little things. Plus, they didn’t have the right length for me, so I got them custom. CUSTOM. These aren’t just any Fourth of July shoelaces.

Realistically, I will not be wearing them on Fourth of July. It’s too meta.

I’m listening to Beast of Burden (again) and wishing I was Mick Jagger.

While I feel slightly disgruntled about all of the time I’m spending in the car, I have high hopes for this weekend.

I’ve learned that writing out my goals helps them come into fruition. So, here they are:

• Study up on the Massachusetts accent

• Get my first summer ice cream cone

• Make another blog post

• Go viral on LinkedIn

• Meet Joe Biden

• Learn how to pronounce Schenectady (which I spelled right on the first try, thank you)

• Show off my new shoelaces

• Change the national spelling of Connecticut to Conneticut to switch it up

• Learn how to make styrofoam

• Get called a Masshole

• Not get allergic to the remnants of cat hair in the house I’m staying in

• Stop tying my shoelaces like a child (start using the bunny method)

• Find the perfect clothes at Savers and cry of joy and start hitting my head on the table because I’m so happy

One of my coworkers recently asked me what my nationality was. I replied, nothing interesting; I’m just general white. I thought back on this. Why? Was I embarrassed of the truth? I should want to shout it from the rooftops.

“I’m half Midwestern! I have Massachusetts blood! I’m a WASP.”

I need to start being proud of my heritage.

Maybe this pride just comes with knowledge. To get this knowledge, I’ve decided to learn about my culture. They say the best way to learn is through teaching, so I figured that, especially since this week I’m returning to homeland Massachusetts, I would take this opportunity to educate the masses on what it means to be me.

So, here you are. This might be useful if any of you are about to play a WASP in a play, or maybe you just started dating one and are looking for a birthday present.

Types of cream my people (New Englanders) enjoy:

1. Heavy cream

2. Cream cheese

3. Sour cream

4. Creamer

5. Ice cream

6. Creamed corn

7. Whipped cream

8. Cold cream

9. Cream-colored furniture and paint

10. Irish cream liqueur

Honorable mention: butter, cottage cheese and mayo. Unfortunately none of these have cream in the title, so they didn’t make the cut.

Violet

Ps. Sorry in advance for the lack of pictures in my recent posts, I am really close to being out of storage on Wix. Oops!

List of things I did while stuck inside

Made a list of things I could sit on in my room, like a stack of books. It was a very short list when I noticed all I was adding were things outside. Which didn’t make sense, because my list was things to sit on while stuck inside.

Tried on a lipstick color that didn’t work on me last week, but maybe that’s changed. (It hasn’t)

Watched YouTube videos on how to properly roll a shawarma

Tried, and failed, to properly roll a shawarma

Watched people walking outside my window, noted their outfits

Looked at my clothes waiting to be put away lingering on my floor

Drew a picture of my chair, added photos to my list of things I could sit on

Wrote a list of things I could do while sitting in each potential chair

Sat pondering my outfit of the day

Looked at the infected cut on my knee, thought about putting on Neosporin.

Made a list of things I did while stuck inside

Added writing this list to my list

Showed my sister that my pants got stained from all of my gardening manual labor

Wondered about whether or not this is how Indiana jones feels while looking at his sepia wardrobe after his adventures

Had an ice cream cone and reminisced about my coffee crisp ice cream cones in Montreal

Thought about the RPM of the ceiling fan, but decided not to calculate it because it was moving too fast for me to count.

Wondered what the battery life of my speaker is, because if it died right now I don’t think emotionally I could take that hit

Looked in the mirror and tried to picture myself with gauges (is it gauges?)

Wondered what the process is to make tissues

Thought about the Richard Scary book where they teach you how paper is made

Made a list of my five favorite pairs of socks (three are striped)

Zillowed the address on the New Yorkers Sidney gave me that she found on the street

Read that the aforementioned apartment had a queen size home office

Wondered what a queen size home office was

Spilled crushed doll parts on my rug

Looked for new music

Drew people walking outside

Noticed that my jeans and their yellow hue matched the air color outside, I am fit for an apocalypse movie. Maybe the 100? I could probably do better. I’ll think on this

Waited for Georgia to get dressed. It took a while.

Ate some pizza (without the crust)

Researched how to self-rescue after falling through ice

Learned how to properly kill an alligator, if ever trapped in a duel (thank you Willow)

PS: I didn't really need to be stuck inside, but as a mostly unemployed woman I don't have many things to do. Unfortunately, my usual day lingering at the piers did not seem as appealing in these conditions.

Mini Cooper X Coconut Milk

After years and years of people telling me I reminded them of the investigative journalist Nellie Bly, I decided to put on my practical sneakers and emulate the great Columbo. I am in LA after all.

What question am I trying to tackle?

The truth about Erewon. Being so fabulous and off the grid, I hadn’t heard about this up and coming grocery store until recently. But, unlike usual, the more I learned the more I felt intrigued.

It seemed to get more mysterious with every step closer I got to the truth. Now, I’ve watched Murder She Wrote, I know that this is just part of the process. Honestly, answers found early on in the journey are often misguiding.

So, I kept my detective goggles on, and tried not to be swayed by implicit (or explicit) bias. Thank you, Ms. Witte.

The journey started on a sunny day in Fairfax Los Angeles. I set off, a pep in my step, lost in thought about my Erewon adventures ahead. Little did I know what was coming.

Walking up, I almost went in the wrong door, and was met with rueful eyes from the customers around me. Not letting this get to my head (imposter syndrome is a real problem in this industry), I continued on my journey to the real entrance.

For those of you who have never been to this Erewon, the outside windows are covered in a tinted film, dark but still allowing for reflection.

And reflect these people did, as one group of girls stood, face to the wall, admiring their appearance.

Like many LA residents, these girls were alone, out in the big city, save for a vlog camera at their sides. A modern day battle axe.

I started to wonder, much like Zebras in the jungle, do the various vloggers get competitive? It didn’t seem so, as two other vlogging groups were seated outside the golden gate to heaven (Erewons sliding doors). They didn’t look vicious, and despite momentarily slipping my headphones off, I couldn’t hear any sort of growling.

I was curious to learn more, but I’ve always been more partial to Observational rather than Experimental design, so I made my way inside.

My first discovery, something pretty unsightly to someone with New England heritage like myself, was the lack of Hellmans mayo. This isn’t talked about, but the brand of mayo says a lot about an establishment.

I’ve attached a photo of a grocery store I went to last August below, for reference.

This is the comfortable baseline, what's to be expected.

The sight to behold lurking in Erewon's condiment "section"

So, you might be able to understand my discomfort. If I hadn’t been able to tell before, this made me aware that I was in a foreign land, maybe even more foreign than Canada.

I shook it off, and continued on my journey. This place looked like Whole Foods on steroids, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I saw a lollipop there retailing for - you heard me right - $7.49. Maybe LA uses a different currency? I’ll ask Elon next time we hang.

The aforementioned lollipop. You ask me, it's a steal. Look at that sale! You know I love a good deal.

I also noticed that, unlike my usual grocery stores, the prices were either not on things, or hidden on the bottom somewhere. This wasn’t the case for the stuff on shelves, but most of the prepackaged foods and fruit. Maybe this is a marketing scheme, or maybe I need glasses, but it freaked me out. Do the customers here just not care?

Moving throughout the store like a Taipan snake, I found myself at the bread section. The whole store went quiet, and I could hear the whispers around me. Carbs?

I could feel the power coursing through my veins, electric sparks shooting out of my fingers, calling me closer and closer. I felt like the eight year old girl from Roahl Dahl’s the Magic Finger, believing that she had some sort of electric superpower. I later learned this is not the books storyline. Good thing I didn’t tell anyone about that one, huh? 😂💩

You know how in the movies, all great villains have a breaking point? I would tell you what the girl from the Magic Finger’s was, but clearly I don’t remember the book very well. Well, mine was these bagels.

'bagel'

To be quite vulnerable with you all, I feel like I’ve been through enough this year. I’ve had to sit through multiple lecturing me about how Montreal’s “bagels” are better than New York’s. I consider myself a strong person, but this cross was too heavy to bear.

This isn’t to say things didn’t call to me. I saw my favorite fruit of all time, passion fruit. And, the famous sushi sandwich looked delicious. But, some things you just can’t excuse, and while I could not find the sushi sandwiches price, I figured it wasn’t meant to be.

Unlike Nellie Bly, I made it out of Erewon like an oily eel slips out of your fingers when you’re at the beach and in the water and you’re looking for an eel and then you find an eel and you grab it and reach for it and oh no! it slips out of your grasp and you think to yourself what could have been if you had only remembered your fishing net so you put your hands up to your eyes because you can’t stand the sight of the ocean in front of you any longer but you forgot you had just been cutting jalapeños because you’re not in the ocean you’re in your kitchen and you’ve never had an eel in your hands except for that one you ate last night in that sushi that was so delicious and you look at your hands but they’re not hands they’re eels and they’re reaching for your throat and you can’t breathe and the eels become you and you become the eels and you wonder if you were always this way and it seems like you might have been but something’s not right and then you wake up.

To be honest though, I think worse come to worse I could have survived. Like James Madison once said, “throw me to the wolves and I’ll return leading the pack.”

Ta for now, I’ve a couple more Erewon trips in my future, so I’ll keep you updated.