Seeing a friend again - a short post.

I made one friend from the firm I last worked for, and went to lunch with her today.  She knows I am trans, and treats me like a lady - including the discussion of topics of physical matters not usually discussed with males.  So it was a pleasure to get together at the Mexican restaurant down the hill from me. As much as I would like to chat about some of the issues we discussed, I won't, save for one thing - she's been dealing with a lot of headaches lately, and she is exhausted.  (She's lucky that she's at least 10 years younger than I am!)

Rosarito is becoming a go-to place for me when I'm in Marian mode, as the restaurant is quiet during the day.  It is a nice place to get a good Mexican meal at a reasonable price, and one that I'll only go to at off hours.  My friend, I'll call her OSJ, had trouble finding the place because her car's GPS system had her make a left turn at my exit when she should have made a right turn.  Once she used her phone's GPS system, she found the place without trouble. It was like seeing a long lost friend again, and we brought each other up to date on each other's lives.  After lunch, she made sure to let me know that I can call her before our next lunch.  I will take her up on that.

Around 2:30 pm, it was time for us to leave the restaurant, and I decided to drive to Poughkeepsie to see what they had in the local Lane Bryant.  They had a few nice dresses, but nothing worth what they asked for those dresses.  So, I passed on them, and drove home.  On the way back, I stopped by Walmart to buy some slip shorts, and then it was home for the night.
 

Shopping at the local mall. Boy, how things have changed!

Lately, I have needed to go inside several malls to do some shopping.  Gone are the days where the mall was busy most of the day.  Now, if you're "lucky", you might bump into a single shopper while walking aimlessly in the mall.  No, it's not that bad, but it seemed that way when I window shopped in some local malls.

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Years ago, the White Plains Galleria was busy from the moment it opened to the moment it closed.  Abraham & Strauss anchored one end of the mall, while J.C.Penney anchored the other.  At lunch or dinner time, one could not find a seat in the dining area. Each and every storefront was rented out with goods available for sale.  Today, the two anchor stores are gone, and the mall's owners are covering up vacant storefronts to keep the few people shopping at the mall from doing the rest of their shopping online.

White Plains is not alone in the decay of the modern mall.  In Kingston, NY, the Hudson Valley Mall is effectively vacant, with all of its major anchors gone.  (I don't want to include Target here, as it is off to the side, and easily severed from the rest of the mall.)  In Yorktown Heights, NY, the local mall lost its Sears, and is in danger of losing Macy's.  There is only one store that I patronize there (Ulta), and I'll bet that it may break its lease (along with other stores) if/when Macy's decides to shut down.  Danbury, CT is doing a little better, as at least two of its anchor stores survive.  But in JC Penney,  they have carefully hidden vacant space no longer being used inside the store, pruned in-store stock to the bone, and made one of the two checkout counters into a general customer service area.  This makes me think that this store may soon be gone.  Will any of the remaining tenants want to stay after that?

However, it's not just the big malls that are hurting.  Local strip malls are hurting too.  When I first started to commute to a job in Westchester, I passed by this strip mall.  All of the storefronts were rented out during the first few years I worked at the bank.  I'd stop by in the morning, pick up a buttered bagel at the bakery, a newspaper at the stationery store, and drop off my shirts/suits at the dry cleaners.  In the evening, I might pick up some fruit and veggies from the small market there and then go to the butcher shop a couple of doors down.  None of these shops are there any longer; most of the storefronts on this property have been vacant for years.  I wonder how the owner pays his taxes on this property, as I don't see the restaurant (not in photo) doing enough business to cover all property expenses.

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Several years, I wondered why someone might sell off a commercial property.  Today's real estate market has given us the answer.  In an era of informality, we don't need much formal wear or the places that service those garments.  In an era where fresh food is delivered to the house, why shop at a small market when you can either have it shipped to your door from Whole Foods, or go to Wegman's to pick out the foodstuffs yourself?  In an era where one reads the daily newspapers online, why stop into your local store for your newspapers or magazines?  

I expect that many shopping centers will be repurposed in the near future, some of them bulldozed for a small number of big box stores (as happened in Poughkeepsie), or to develop new housing projects.  What do you think is going to happen? Do you think this process was accelerated by the pandemic?

 

Maria. Maria. I just met a girl called Maria.

 

What a corny way to open up an entry.  But I figured that the focus of my day would be on just two things: (1) Having dinner with Maria, and (2) a Noisy Muffler.  And I was right.  Work passed by relatively quickly, and once I got into the zone, I didn't notice the 8 hours go by. So, the real day began for me around 5:00 pm.

After a quick stop at the house to change into something prettier than I wear to work, it was off to see Maria in Poughkeepsie.  Giving her a 7:00 arrival time was just right.  We both got to the restaurant within minutes of each other, and then we sat down to dine. This was Maria's first time at the Mill House Brewpub.  I've been there a couple of times before, and I expect to eat good food.  But tonight, both the quality and quantity impressed me.  Although we spent a pretty penny on the meal (both of us had drinks), it was well worth the price.  (Too bad she couldn't drink any beer - we'd have shared a flight of drinks.)  Due to the rain, one drink was my limit.  But what I had went well with my pork schnitzel.  Yum!

We talked about many things, but the focus was on the stuff occupying my mind these days: WDS, the Ex-Girlfriend, FH and the other women I've been chatting with lately. None of these things in themselves is that interesting.  But when put in an overall context of how people relate to each other, how people communicate with each other, then it becomes interesting.  We could have gone on forever, but both of us were tired. 

All too soon, we had to go home. It was well worth the effort to see Maria again.  And I hope that I can get together with her and her boyfriend next time.