What a weekend, if it rains anymore I’m going to build a big boat and start and looking for pairs of animals. It’s hard to believe a year ago they were making all this noise about droughts around here, how quickly things change.



Margaret posted the link to the DEP website on her blog last year and I used to go to it on a fairly regular basis and watch the numbers change (morbid fascination). I don’t buy in to the whole panic thing and weather does usually go in cycles (rainy seasons and dry seasons). The question is with these things, how can the reservoirs be over 100%? Once they are at 100% isn’t everything else just runoff?

The room formerly known as our garage is returning to a semblance of its originally intended usage. I played hermit for most of the weekend and spent much time moving boxes and sheetrock. It’s amazing how much stuff you can cram into a space if you have shelves.

Also got out on Sunday with Irene (Hi Irene!) in an attempt to go see the Matrix. Anyone who thinks the economy is doing poorly, should have seen the Palisades Mall this past Sunday! I’ve never been there when it was as crowded as it was. There was no parking at all - a feat I didn’t think was possible. I couldn’t explain why the place was so crowded. I didn’t know if people were just tired of being cooped up in the house with their kids (due to another rainy weekend), or the fact that Jersey (there seemed to be a lot of Jerseyites there) malls close on Sunday due to the blue laws or the thought in most peoples minds that the sales tax was going up and mistakenly thinking they could make buys under the wire (it went into effect on a Sunday - June 1st).

They just raised the property taxes here and now they’re raising the sales tax too! I think the one on clothing purchases under $100 is the one that hurts working families the most and is really quite stupid. If they’re going to do this with the sales tax they should just repeal the state income tax and raise the sales tax a few more points to compensate. The only thing it’s really going to do is drive people to surrounding states where the sales tax is lower - it seems so stupid.

Anyway, we both made our way over there, having no idea the place would be the mob scene it was. It was very discouraging. It took me 45 minutes just to park - if I wasn’t meeting Irene, I would have given up after 10. I’m never that desperate to spend money that I can justify driving around 45 minutes to find parking at a mall.

We wound up leaving the mall and driving over to Nyack to have a cup of coffee. The Starbucks virus has even penetrated the ’burbs! Nyack is really beautiful though, it just makes me think about how this whole area is being overbuilt and how the congestion is ruining the character of a lot of the smaller villages in and around the area. There was this comic, Judge Dredd (yes the same one they made the movie from with Stallone in it) which took place in the future. They envisioned MegaCity 1 an urban sprawl which ran down most of the east coast of North America and in from the coastline a hundred miles or so. When I say urban sprawl, I mean unbroken concrete! Maybe not in a hundred years but then again, if you think what this area was like a hundred years ago it might not seem so far-fetched.