Hubby’s car is still not ready to pick up, so I loaded up boxes of books into the car and headed up North. Got to Bloomfield right during lunchtime, so I got to not only deliver books to the school, but also chat with a bunch of the teachers. It was delightful to catch up with them.
Headed over to Ellen and Mike’s house to drop off some other things, and got there just as they were deciding where to go for lunch. We all went out to Michi together, spent lots of time chatting and catching up, then I headed to Montclair to see if I could get some store credit at Montclair Book Center.
With my back being what it is, I was looking for a spot close to the store so I wouldn’t have to carry the box of books too far. I lucked out and found one close and on the same side. I wanted to parallel park in the spot the right way, but in typical North Jersey fashion, some dude in a luxury car pulls right up on my tail. Hello, duh? See my turn signal? See the empty parking place on the side I’m signalling on? Back off. But no. I knew if I pulled past the space to back in, he’d be right on my bumper so I couldn’t, so I cut the wheel to the right to pull in forward, planning to straighten out after he was out of my way. Bad news, cut the wheel too soon, scraped the car behind my chosen spot.
The damage to both cars was pretty superficial, but I still felt awful. I left the owner a note with an apology and my phone numbers.
The bookstore took only a couple of books, and I didn’t get even enough credit to cover the full price of the books I bought. Oh, well. It was fun to wander around looking at books no matter what.
Got onto Bloomfield Ave. to head home. Did pretty well at remembering which lanes worked at which lights, where to stay left because of double parked cars, where to stay right because of people turning left, until I got into Bloomfield. I was coming up on a truck that was sticking out into the right lane. I saw that I had space, put on my left blinker, and started to go around the truck. Guy driving a black pickup speeds up to cut me off. Really speeds up. He was a good 3-4 car lengths back when I started to move, and I had to slam on the brakes to avoid being hit by him. As he drove by, I called out “thank you”. Well, his buddy in the passenger seat, looking like the NJ version of a good ol’ boy, down to the camo painter’s cap, starts yelling at me, sticking his upper body out the window so he can turn around and shout obscenities to my face. This is definitely one of the things I don’t miss from Bloomfield.
And, of course, my timing put me on the Parkway right at rush hour. An overturned car south of exit 98 caused a backup that completely eliminated the need to put my foot on the gas pedal all the way up to 109. It was during this that the owner of the car I scraped called. She was very sweet, we’re going to work things out with the repair costs, and I’m grateful for that.
So it’s a little after 9PM. I’m tired. I’m in my pajamas already. Tomorrow. . .off to get pond winterizing supplies, then beach and seafood festival with the family. Oh, and the 5AM alarm is getting turned off, too. Betcha I’ll sleep til 7 and think I’ve died and gone to heaven.
