It's raining, pasta sauce is pouring

So far, I love life in the city. So many perks--like having everything you need within walking distance, so much history and diversity...

And a few quirks:

Jason and I woke up and immediately remembered we forgot to put the trash out on the curb for collection last night. But when we dragged the bags out from the laundry room to take outside, we also dragged out a mouse. The cat couldn't catch it, but Jason's sandal did. Death, I found, (especially of an animal larger than your average bug) is particularly hard to stomach just moments after you wake up. We're guessing he found his way in through the storm cellar in the laundry room that opens up onto the sidewalk. We're also guessing he has lots of friends and family nearby.

For reasons unknown, the city didn't even end up collecting the trash on our block this morning as scheduled. The streets always smell on trash night. The streets smell surprisingly worse after everyone's trash has been sitting out overnight in the rain. Also, we had fish for dinner last night, and I just cleaned the cat litter box.

So, tonight Jason, Joe and I stopped at SuperFresh for a few dinner supplies. We just needed a jar of marinara for our soon-to-be stuffed pasta shells. The thing about grocery stores in the middle of a city is they're often small. And cramped. And sometimes when someone pushes by you in a narrow aisle when you're holding a jar of pasta sauce, it causes you to drop it. (You equals Jason in this scenario.)

The store employee who happened to be just a few feet away, kindly told us to please step back, he would clean it up. Then he kindly reminded us, along with everyone else in the store, to USE A BASKET, USE A BASKET, YOU KIDS ALWAYS THINK YOU CAN CARRY EVERYTHING IN YOUR HANDS, BUT YOU CAN'T. USE A BASKET, YOU GOTTA USE A BASKET, PLLLEEEASE. THIS WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU WOULDA USED A BASKET. GO ON, GET A BASKET, NOW, ALL OF YOU!

Walking home, it started to rain again. A lady in a passing car made a point to hang the upper half of her body out the window and sing to us, tauntingly, "It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring!"

I guess the joke's on her, though, because she wasn't wearing a raincoat either.