Today is Sunday, September 15, 2024. Elliot and I spent the weekend with good friends “Zander” and Nalah” and their adorable 15-plus-month-old daughter, Norah. So we left early on Saturday (after waking up at 8 a.m.) and leaving little Atticus after 9 or so. We drove to Jersey City first to stop for breakfast at Beachwood Cafe. Then we drove to Princeton, where Zander and Nalah live. We were greeted by Zander at the door around 1 or so. Lovely Norah was in the kitchen having her lunch. When we last saw her, she wasn’t walking and not yet talking, but now she was doing both with relative ease. The couple’s dog, an Aussiedoodle named Cupcake, was around also. He was showing off his new haircut. I remarked how different he looked and Zander replied that he had just gotten a haircut.

We had a hasty lunch consisting of my sharing one of the bagels I brought with us to their house, bought at Wonder Bagels, in Jersey City. Before long, Nalah came in around 3:30. Eventually, we decided to drive to Princeton and the main thoroughfare, which is called Nassau Street. We all got into the family SUV with Zander driving and Nalah sitting with Norah in the back. Miraculously, Zander found a parking spot directly on Nassau Street, right across from the university.

We immediately headed for The Bent Spoon, a popular ice cream spot for tourists and natives, located on Palmer Square W. This time the queue outside wasn’t tremendous, so we waited on line, while Nalah and Norah played in a park across the street. We eventually got inside, and I paid for Elliot and Zander who got some sort of sundae. I ordered one scoop of their banana ice cream and it was heavenly: rich and creamy.

We spent a little time in the park playing bean bag toss. Actually, I played with Zander mostly, while Nalah picked up the bag and dropped it wherever she wanted to. We then took a walk to Princeton proper and walked a little around campus. This marked my first time walking through the sylvan environs of Princeton. All the other times I’ve been to that area, I’ve only made it to the commercial hub. At one point, Nalah met a fellow Brazilian who spoke Portuguese. This lady had a young daughter several months older than Norah and they socialized together very nicely.

Soon it was time to go. Norah was getting a little cranky and it was time for dinner. So we all trundled back into the car and Zander drove back to their house, about 20 minutes or so away.

It was time for Norah’s bedtime, so we waited until Nalah eased her into sleep. It might have taken a while since we didn’t eat until past 9. But it was well worth waiting for, as Nalah prepared a true Mexican feast consisting of nachos with tortillas.

By the time we finished dinner, it might have been close to 10. At that time, Zander announced he was going to bed and we were discouraged from watching TV in the living room for fear of waking up Norah. So there was nothing else to do but to go into our bedroom and read a little. I brought only one book this time with me: Kurt Vonnegut’s While Mortals Sleep consisting of unpublished short fiction. The afternoon with Norah even tired me out, as I began to nod off after reading only a few pages of one story called “Jenny,” about a designer and his refrigerator created in the shape of a woman called Jenny. I did actually finish the weird story before calling it a night.

The next day, we woke up a little after 8 and drove to the nearest Dunkin’ Donuts since Zander and Nalah had no coffee for us. The coffee place was only 7 minutes away in Princeton Junction. Zander asked for some chocolate doughnuts so we brought back four (one for Nalah). We also bought three coffees, even though I wondered how we were going to drink that many cups of coffee. Anyway, when we got back, Nalah was out of the shower and was preparing a hearty breakfast consisting of eggs, bacon, pancakes, and cinnamon biscuits.

It was soon time to leave, as the couple was expecting a visit from Zander’s cousin around 11. It was so early that we decided to drive to Nassau Street once more, park, and then go to the Princeton Record Exchange, on South Tulane Street, and to the bookstore called Labyrinth, right on Nassau Street. We parked by a meter that indicated there was no money collected before 1 p.m. so we made it our business to return before 1. We had close to two hours to spend in town. So we hied to the record store first. Elliot decided not to go in, so it was just up to me to browse the entire store in less than a half hour. I could only pick up two music CDs: a Linda Eder CD and a Great American Songbook two-CD set featuring such vocalists as Judy Garland, Nancy Wilson, Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole, Mel Torme, and a host of others.

From the Princeton Record Exchange, we made our way to Labyrinth. Again, I was expected to browse the store without Elliot who sat across the street on a bench by the university. Again, I hurried through the entire shop, making it to the first floor that featured discounted books. I looked for the new novel that I’m expected to read for my reading club and couldn’t find it. The name of the book is All Down Darkness Wide by Sean Hewitt. The book was published in 2022, I see. Anyway, today is the day I would begin reading the month’s book. And I haven’t yet.

We started to make our way back to New York before 1 and because of a boatload of traffic in lower Manhattan and on the ramp heading toward the Holland Tunnel, I believe we got home closer to 4, even though we made one stop for gas in New Jersey. We also didn’t know that the Feast of San Gennaro was going on in Little Italy which led to some street closures and made us drive up cobblestone streets in Lower Manhattan an inch at a time. We could have used the George Washington Bridge route, but we didn’t. Oh well, we were very grateful to be home, no matter what time it was.

Oh, we didn’t have a cat sitter for Atticus this time, and it seemed he did well. He greeted me first since I drove the car and parked it, while Elliot did a little food shopping. He was sitting on the computer desk when I turned the key in the lock. He looked at me when I walked through the door and started to meow. As if to say, “Where were you all this time?”

It seemed that we had been away far longer than what the time really was. However, it was just wonderful to see the development in little Norah: how she can communicate in two languages, Portuguese and English, rather well, how she can make her wishes known very definitely, how she can control the situation by screeching at her loudest when she’s not getting the attention she demands. At one point, she even allowed me to pick her up to take her into her room before her mother prepared her for bed. For most of the two days, she enjoyed waving her hand, saying, “bye, bye” to anyone who was in her line of sight.

It was also fascinating to see how Cupcake negotiates his way around her. Cupcake likes attention too and sometimes he’s not happy when this little interloper gets it instead of him. I saw how Norah feeds Cupcake who stands dutifully in front of her high chair waiting to get scraps. At one point, I saw Cupcake vacuuming Norah’s high chair for scraps of food when she wasn’t sitting in it. He knew he would find something of an edible nature lodged in the folds of her chair if he could only get his tongue wrapped around it.

Anyway, we’re home and can watch what we want to watch and go to bed when we want to. And snuggle up to our cat if he allows us!

Have a good week.

Stay safe and be well.

Here is just one small view of Princeton, founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey. Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. As of 2022, it has an endowment of $35.8 billion. There are approximately 8,500 students on its main campus spanning 600 acres within the borough of Princeton.