Trader Joe’s – Another Choice

Trader Joe's in the Hollywood District

In the grocery store wars, I can think of several options off the top of my head. Only one is in the Lloyd District.  Safeway is closest to me.  Fred Meyer’s and QFC (Quality Something-or-other) are sort of equi-distant.

Another (I can’t remember its name) is up by Cannon’s (barbecue) and another is…

…well, I know how to get there.  I can’t remember where it’s at or what it’s called, either.  But I know how to get there.

And there is Trader Joe’s.  That’s in Portland’s Hollywood District.

Once inside, it seems like a grocery store that predominantly sells its own branded products, but those products have a good reputation.  Probably the other natural or whole foods groceries do, too.

If you go, you have to be prepared.  They aren’t going to have Kellogg’s Sugar Frosted Flakes (“They’re great!”).  They’re going to have some other type of frosted flakes.

Maybe.

I don’t really know, because I don’t buy frosted flakes.  I’m not a fan of milk.  Milk can be fine one day, sour the next, and how do you know?  Smell it?  Do you always smell milk?  Come on.  Do you?  What if it doesn’t smell sour but doesn’t smell like fresh clean milk you might dunk a donut in?  I don’t dunk donuts, either, by the way.

I’m suspicious of milk.

So I went to Trader Joe’s, but I didn’t really know where Trader Joe’s was located.  I knew it was somewhere near the place where Sandy and Broadway run into each other (on the other side of Sandy – if you start in the Lloyd District or Sullivan’s Gulch).

I was going on an adventure!

So I went down Broadway, got in the right lane and turned right on 37^th (don’t do that!)  What happened?  I couldn’t get in the far left lane so I could turn left on Sandy.  Instead, I had to cross Sandy and get in a lane with LOTS of cars (until I could get out of it).  I think they were getting on the freeway.

Starting over.  Get in the left lane on Broadway (which can turn right on 37^th, too), turn right, stay in the left lane and a block later, you can turn left on Sandy.  Now that you are on Sandy, about a block and a half later, there is a “Y.”  If you take the right part of the “Y,” you are back on Broadway again (realize I had to go back twice to get all these names).  At the first traffic light (42^nd), turn right (I didn’t do that the first time).  Trader Joe’s is that busy parking lot on the right side of 42^nd before you get to the busy street named Halsey (recognize that name?).

Park if you can.

During my shopping experience – I got stuck on rice.  Apples, yogurt, raisin bran – those were okay.  With rice, I just wanted white rice. There was white “bopbobobo” rice, with some name I couldn’t remember (“from India!”).  There was jasmine rice.  There was this kind of rice and that kind of rice and the other kind of rice, but I didn’t know what any of that meant.

I just wanted long grain white rice (at first, the “long grain” fooled me, too) (what is short grain rice, anyway?).

I reached for my telephone to call and ask questions.

Uh-oh.

No phone.  I left it at home.

I didn’t realize, but I’ve become sort of addicted to having a phone at the ready all the time.  I went to the cashier, paid for $10 worth of groceries, walked to the car, left the parking lot by turning right on 41^st (I think), went until it dead-ended, turned left…

Don’t do that!

Turn right, turn right!  See what happens is that you are back on Broadway and for a whole half a block, it is one-way again.  There is even a sign that says, “One Way.”  It’s the wrong way, of course.  Down in Lloyd District, Broadway is one way, too.  One-way toward the river.  In the Hollywood District (for a whole half-block) it is one-way going away from the river.  See?  The wrong way!

I went about a car-length, realized I was going the wrong way (thanks to the other cars going the other way and beeping at me!), backed up into a parking lot, and went home.

I got my phone and finished my shopping at Safeway.

An easier way to Trader Joe’s is that it is on Halsey across from Hollywood Bowl.

Oh.  That’s sort of like the “Hollywood Bowl.”

I get it!

I’ll go back.  I just didn’t go back the other day.

Oh.  What’s fun at Trader Joe’s – load up on patience and go back when the parking lot is full.  Drive around the parking lot with no intention of pulling into a spot and watch the others.

I’m weird.