An Afternoon Visit to Princeton in Late October

It may seem like my girlfriend and I have a ton of mutual days off together, based on recently published blog posts. 

In fact, they are rare. We literally do not have a single day together on most weeks. But we made a point of taking one together in early September in order to visit the beach at Asbury Park. Then, she made a point of taking a day off so that we could enjoy a day together late last week visiting the Ted Mill Museum Village in Clinton, which was followed by a visit to New Hope, one of our favorite old haunts.

Then yesterday, my girlfriend was unfortunately forced to work a second shift on top of her first and normally scheduled shift. So instead of working her usual 7am-3pm shift, she was forced to work the 3pm - 11pm shift, as well. It was exhausting. She works at an assisted living facility, and many of the residents have dementia. Some of them follow her around all day, and more often than not, it is a demanding job, physically and mentally. She does things which...well frankly, I'm not sure how she does them. It requires an infinite level of patience and, again, the position requires her to do things which I'm not sure I could do, and certainly not on a regular basis. Cleaning some of the residents up, showering and making sure that they go to the bathroom and all sorts of things like that.

So a second shift - especially since it came so unexpectedly, as nobody took care of a call-off that had come the day before, with a full day and night before my gf arrived yesterday morning - was just too exhausting. She called out for today's shift, and then had a somewhat heated conversation with a coworker who called her earlier this morning. 

In the end, she had off, albeit unexpectedly. It also happened to be a day off for me, as well, although my schedule (admittedly erratic, at least on the surface) would have given me this day off normally. And she wanted to make the best of it. We had visited Princeton (the town, not the university) at one point last month, and noticed a sort of alleyway filled with sidewalk cafe style restaurants, and it was a beautiful day. We figured there was a good chance that we could enjoy one last sidewalk cafe meal during this warm season before the cold weather truly begins.

So off we went to Princeton. It turned out to be a bit more of a hassle than expected, because we kept going into places for her scrutiny, and she kept rejecting them. In the end, we went to PJ's, a place right off of Nassau Street, and one of our favorite haunts whenever we visit this town. She had a flat sandwich, and I had Buffalo Mac and Cheese, which was mac and cheese with bits of blue cheese and chicken, which would up being very tasty, but also oily.

The weather was a bit cool for her tastes, but it felt perfect to me. Indeed, we got our last outdoor meal at a sidewalk cafe this year, before the weather fully turns. Also, we enjoyed walking in the old town at Princeton on what felt to me a perfect, crisp autumn day. 

Below are some pictures from our day at Princeton: