A while ago

-A while ago, I asked whether job ads could specify that they needed a native French speaker, as opposed to someone who can speak fluent French. I think we have our answer.

-A similarly long while ago, I noticed that Despaña (look at me with my effortless keyboard shortcuts), a Spanish grocery in SoHo, was opening a branch on Nassau Street of all places. I've long thought that Princeton was begging for a branch of Le Pain Quotidien (not that that's the most amazing place on earth, but it seemed a good fit), but this... I'd have never even thought to hope. The sign was up, but first I could find nothing about it online. Then there was some evidence of something stirring, but it wasn't open. Then it was, but with hardly any stock.

Then finally, the moment arrived: cheese! So much cheese! There weren't prices on any of it - either because the place is new or because it's Princeton - but I did the have-to-ask asking, and the prices seemed quite reasonable (as well as significantly lower than Whole Foods - amazing for a gourmet shop in town).

Now I'm just waiting for a Sunrise Mart. It could happen!

-An even longer while ago, everyone was obsessed with the Delia*s catalogue. I don't think I ever ordered anything from it, but I must have wanted to. Think age 10 or 11. I hadn't realized it was a store, but there it was, at a mall my husband and I had gone out of the way to in search of a power cord. A mall-mall, not like the strip-malls and occasional dingy indoor ones where we live. A real indoor one, snazzy and potentially appealing to teenagers.

Delia*s, though, had one flaw: juniors sizing. Which is not vanity-based - more like tweens-inflicting-body-image-issues-on-one-another-sizing-based. Which, fine, I'm not the target audience. But not fine once it emerged that the only galaxy-print skirt left was in an XS. I'm a lot of things, but one thing I'm not is a juniors XS.

On our way out, we saw this giant poster (for scale, note the size of the door-accessibility button), because it's impossible to go to an authentic Jersey mall and not be in the 1980s.