20 posts tagged “cella's”

Daily Five, The

Gail Boushey

1. Aaron's had a cough for about three months. Being a good, responsible parent, I knew that when a young child has a hacking cough for more than 90 days, it's time to consult a physician. I brought him into the pediatrician's office and told them I was there for Aaron's 90-day cough examination, and they looked at me with such pride. Anyway, Aaron sat very still for the stethoscope, and did just a fantastic job of breathing. Top notch breather, my kid. He was a huge hit. The pediatrician thought it might not be a bad idea to send him in for a chest X-ray, and again, Aaron did a fantastic job. He stood in exactly the position the technician told him to stand. He wore the little lead kilt. He was such a trooper. X-rays showed nothing wrong, so we tested him for asthma. What the hell, we had the whole afternoon to kill. So he stuck his finger in the asthma tester and spent twenty minutes breathing whatever strange root and grub combo that they boil to make inhalers. While he breathed into the noisy boiling mask, I read him Clifford's Easter, and then, Clifford's Christmas. He sat quietly and listened to the story, and waited patiently while the doctor tested him again. He was unbelievable. I took him out for ice cream after that. And then we went home and played Mario. And dude. He threw such a fit when I couldn't get the star. It's like he had been holding it in all day.

2. We held a party on Saturday. It's the first time we've invited neighbors over for anything. Oh, and by we, I mean Jenna, since it was mostly neighborhood moms. So of course Saturday is the worst snowstorm we've had all year. We got six inches of snow, and several guests, including Jenna's parents, couldn't make it. That meant that the quick job I was hoping to make of repairing the garbage disposal with them was put off. But that was OK. Also, the roof started leaking. It has never leaked before. Never shown any sign of starting to leak, but about an hour before the guests were supposed to arrive we had a steady drip going right into the kitchen. I ran out to clear it up as best as I could. And in the end, we got by without a garbage disposal and the roof hasn't leaked since, but I'm a little shaken. This was our big opportunity to show off to the neighbors. Will we be known as the leaky house with the slow-draining sink that causes snowstorms for the rest of our lives?

3. One of my professors is talking me in to enrolling in graduate school for reals. OK, I thought, I can do that. But the application materials are due by Friday. So that's what I'm doing this week.

4. You can get Cella's on sale at Menards. They are 79 cents. Seriously, you guys. Sure, they've been sitting there since Thanksgiving, but they are seventy-nine fricking cents! Also, hats for a buck! Also, Cella's!

5. I really like Fiber plus bars from Kellogg's. We were staring every morning with a fiber plus bar and things seemed so simple, so joyful. Now, there is no place in town that carries them. We've got all these coupons for a dollar off, and we can't get them anywhere. I checked six places yesterday. Six! Huge gaping holes on shelves, but no fiber bars. It's like those damn Starbucks drinks. We checked Target twice a week for three months looking for the lite ones. Found them once. Why have you abandoned me diet foods that I like?!

Maybe I'll go eat a Cella.

5

Five

I'm following in Aaron's footsteps. Here are the characters I've portrayed this week:

1. Board member. Technically, I'm not on the board, but the annual meeting is in two weeks, and I solved the sphinx's riddle and stole the bells from the board president's hand without ringing any so I'm as good as in. I haven't been to a board meeting for a non-profit since the smokey cevapci-filled days of 2004, so it will be interesting to note the similarities and hopefully the differences on this new board.
2. Student. Tomorrow I register for classes at the college Jenna teaches at. Which means the next time she gripes about students I'll have to face up to the fact that she's really griping about me. However, since she's been griping lately about how the students have been leaving no gas for her in the car and not doing dishes often enough and spending too much money on Cella's, I think she may have been doing this all along.
3. Book-club member. I've never been in a book club before. Jenna and I are tag teaming this one so one of us can watch Aaron while the other attends. I'm looking forward to it.
4. Freelance writer. Sort of. Maybe. I did do some writing and not get paid for it!
5. Cewebrity. (Jenna calls it weblebrity). My Vox neighbor Sara did a post about Hippo Profiles, which was completely awesome, especially as it followed a Star Wars story she wrote when she was ten that could very well have been a story I myself wrote when I was 16. She also had some nice things to say about me. Sara was the blogger who nominated me for a [this is good] and the only person in the history of time immemorial who thinks it would be fun to be at a campfire singalong with me even after finding out that I only know the Weird Al versions of songs and I add childish rhymes to well-known Simon and Garfunkel tunes. There have been many days where I get frustrated with blogging, and her coments always get my spirits up again. Always, even when she threatens to eat my child's face. I don't comment as often as I should, and I just wanted to say thanks for reading, and thanks for posting. 

The right attire can make a big difference in an interview. And at the grocery store.

1. I had a job interview this morning. Hopefully it will result in an offer, but even if it doesn't, I felt good about it. The last interview I had was frustrating, and it kind of made the whole interviewing process feel like a burden, so it's nice to know that things can go as well as they did today.

2. I'm considering a few options for me to become more involved in the community. I have the opportunity to take some college classes to fill in a few gaps on my resume. I also have an opportunity to work for a local non-profit. And I heard about an opportunity to do some freelance writing about local events. Today, I was feeling optimistic and wearing the nice suit I never thought I'd fit into again, so I'm planning to try my hand at all of them.

3. Aaron wrote out a letter to Santa today. That kid is always full of surprises. Here is a three-year-old, for whom Christmas is basically wish fulfillment. As far as he knows, he could have anything he wants -- a full-sized monster truck, oceanfront property, rocks that give you superpowers when you dry them -- and what does he want for Christmas, more than anything else? A candy cane. I asked if he was sure, if there wasn't anything else he'd really like for Christmas. He changed his Christmas wish to two candy canes.

4. I went to the grocery store in my job interview suit. As was to be expected, I was treated like royalty. When the butcher found out that they didn't have any ground Italian turkey sausage, he offered to crack open a couple of turkey sausages from their casings for me. When I was browsing the deli, the lady asked if I'd like to sample something instead of throwing rancid macaroni salad at me like she usually does. And I was personally invited to go through the 12 items or less express lane, despite the fact that I clearly had 21 items in my cart. I was literally a king to them.

5. Looking for a great gift for any gift-giving occasion? Have you considered Cella's? You should.

Show us a picture of your favorite fruit.

It's Cella Time

Show us your favorite breakfast cereal.

It's Cella Time

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  How could something so wrong come from something so right?
• Good grief, that's a lot of adjectives.
• If this had been made by the people at Yoo-hoo instead of the people at Dr Pepper, would they have called it Diet Cherry Prune Juice Yoo-hoo?
• The good doctor did a fine job of choosing colors to represent chocolate and cherry flavored diet soda. Font's nice, too.
• Why is it that I can't say no to something with a cartoon cherry on it? It's a good thing most things with a cartoon cherry on them come with cherry-flavored food, or I'd be eating a lot of cartoon cherries and the air freshener in my car.
• I've heard that ounce for ounce, Dr Pepper has more caffeine than Mountain Dew. Wow. I was under the impression that even pure caffeine has less caffeine than Mountain Dew.
  
• It's bright pink. I did not expect it to be bright pink. I was expecting an unappetizing mixture of red and brown. It's not a good sign that I'm drinking something I expect to be the same color as roadkill.
• Mmmmm, smell those chemicals. Chemiclicious!
• Well. That tastes like Novocain is what that tastes like.
• One sip and I could hear millions of Cella's crying out in terror, then suddenly silenced.
  
• I don't taste any chocolate or any cherries! They could have called this Diet Novocain Chemical Dr Pepper and they wouldn't have had to change the formula.
• I wish I had some real Novocain, so I wouldn't be able to taste this.
• I can't believe how much of this stuff I have left.
• There's no Diet Chocolate Cherry Dr Pepper in my mouth right now, but my mouth feels like Diet Chocolate Cherry Dr Pepper! It's like the plot of a very wordy horror movie!
• If they made a Diet Strawberry Cherry Dr Pepper, you could combine it with this and Diet Vanilla Cherry Dr Pepper to get Diet Cherry Diet Neopolitan Diet Dr Pepper.  Please do not suggest this to Doc P.
• My own burps are making me want to weep.
• What did Dr Pepper get that doctorate in, anyway? Peppers?
• I'm almost done. I've made myself drink almost an entire can. Why? Because I paid a quarter for it, dammit!
• Hey that last sip was pretty good.  It's like the cocoa powder got lost under all that horrible, viscous ick. I'll have to try this again sometime.
  

Today is Blog Action Day!  Take action by posting about the environment in your own way.

Noodles are an important part of our fragile ecosystem

Who Would Win in a Fight X. Noodle Shapes? The Environment?

Vermicelli vs. Endangered Species

Well, first of all, vermicelli is better than spaghetti because it's slightly less wormlike, and that's a good quality to have in a food. For a noodle, it's got a pleasant texture, and still lets you slurp it if you want to. On the other hand, vermicelli is Italian for "rodent prison", so that takes away some of the appeal. Apparently eighteenth century Italians used vermicelli to entangle mice and rats that overran their kitchens and restaurants. I don't know which enterprising young chef came up with the concept of cooking vermicelli and serving it to people instead of using it to capture disease-ridden rodents, but I sincerely hope that person was shot.

The problem with endangered species is that most endangered species are gross, like the Coffin Cave Mold Beetle or delicious like the Giant Panda. There's not a lot of incentive to save a vanishing animal when you either want to eat it or want to smash it with a sledgehammer and run away screaming. And frankly, if you're trying to imagine a world without Coffin Cave Mold Beetles, you're probably not devastated and crying into your Pandaburger. Still, saving animals is something deeply ingrained into us from a very young age, thank you very much Wonderpets and Go Diego Go, so just rename it the Chuck Norris Beetle and call Pandas Vermiursas (Italian for rodent bears) and rescue the damn species. Doesn't that feel better?

Winner: Endangered Species

Elbow Macaroni vs. The Ozone Layer

I like Elbow Macaroni. Both Elbow and Macaroni are fun words, and it's fun to put them together, like "weasel plucker" and "bumpkin rumba" and "fashion nugget". They also made Kraft a household name, and are a major staple of life for toddlers and college students, both of whom are more than content to eat bowls of the stuff in front of Spongebob Squarepants and then leave the bowls anywhere sitting around the house for weeks. Elbow Macaroni is also the only pasta shape other than the medium sized shell that can justifiably be used in a tuna salad, and that goes a long way for me.

Remember when the ozone layer was disappearing? Those were troubling times indeed. Set one foot in the Arctic Circle and it would combust like an over-microwaved marshmallow. Everyone was talking about ozone back in the early 90s, which was kind of funny, because it sounds like a word that Cosmo made up ("Thirteen things you must know about your man's ozone!") Thankfully, someone managed to take care of that at some point, because no one really talks about the ozone layer anymore. Of course, nowadays you're supposed to slather sunscreen on in February even if you stay indoors, so maybe the problem didn't go away. We might as well work to bring it back, because you can probably never have too many ozone layers. You can restore the ozone layer using common elements found in your home, like antichlorofluorocarbons and ozone.

Winner: Elbow Macaroni
 

Farfalle vs. Littering

Why bow ties? I understand that, at some point, pasta manufacturers realized that people will eat pasta shaped like anything -- spirals, Scooby-Doo, Spaghetti-O's, genitalia -- seriously, what's wrong with you people?  But bow ties? The universal symbol for nerd? If I wanted to eat men's neckwear with my meal, I would have preferred some kind of garlic ascot. I guess the farfalle shape does act as a pair of little scoops for your marinara sauce, but why stop at two? Why not make a double bow tie and call it a windmill (actually, I'm sure those greedy pasta manufacturers already have. Is there no shape to which they will not stoop?)? Most of the points for farfalle come from the fact that it kind of reminds me of fahrfuerdnugen. Ich liebe fahrfuerdnugen.

Litter is a slap in America's face. Give a hoot, don't pollute. Keep America clean. Don't be a litterbug. Use the can, man. Littering makes aging Native Americans cry. As a kid, I equated littering with a crime somewhere between armed robbery and indecent exposure, all of which I figured were punishable by at least thirty years in prison, and eventually, hell. Of course, as a slightly older kid, I loved to open the car window as we were driving and throw out pieces of candy wrapper and watch them flail on the wind like a woefully unprepared skydiver, often supplying little screaming sounds. I'm not sure how I resolved these beliefs. I still bristle at littering when I'm not the person doing it. Also: the first time I saw a sign that said $1000 fine for littering, I figured it meant that someone thought it would be just fine if you threw a few hundreds out the window.

Winner: Littering, and the preventing thereof

Lasagna vs. Global Warming

It is a family tradition for us to have a lasagna every New Year's Day. It is an ordeal. It has six cheeses, five meats, two sauces, and it takes three days to make. By the time the lasagna is done, my parents are ready for the year to be over already. I like lasagna. I kept reading Garfield for years after everyone else had given up on him because I felt a real lasagna kinship. That, and Garfield's name for his teddy bear was my father's nickname for boogers. But mostly for the lasagna. It's like layer upon layer of different Italian cuisine, and also, lots of extra cheese.

There are plenty of scientists who will tell you that global warming is a hoax, but then there are also plenty of scientists who will tell you that cavemen used to ride dinosaurs to the cave-store, and the pyramids were designed by ghostly martians, and Cella's chocolate covered cherries are not good for you, so screw them. All I know is that as soon as we get one warm day in April, everyone's all "Is this global warming? This is global warming, isn't it?" and then when it gets chilly again in May everyone's all "Well, so much for global warming. What a crock." It's more complicated than that, people. Is there empirical evidence that global warming is a legitimate phenomenon, with causes that can be controlled by human behavior? Well, yes, but not on this blog, and face it, that's really as much as you're willing to search right now, isn't it?

Winner: Lasagna

Manicotti vs. Preserving the wetlands

My dad calls manicotti "sewer pipes." And you thought vermicelli was unappetizing.

Did you know that watering your lawn does not count as preserving the wetlands? This tidbit brought to you by the Preserve the Wetlands in Actual Ways Instead of Just Watering Your Lawn Association.

Winner: Preserving the wetlands

Use your noodle! Don't pollutle!

I'm in the self-service fruit of the month club. It takes a little extra work than the kind you sign up for through Harry and David's or whatever, but it's cheaper, there's no contractual obligation, and you don't get stuck with a month's worth of something ridiculous, like limes.

Here's how it works: When you go to the grocery store, buy fruit. Try to change it up every month. That's it.

You don't have to be a fanatic about it. I tend not to run out on the first of the month with visions of plums dancing in my head; instead, I'll gradually shift over from one fruit to the next. If it's a particularly good fruit, like cherries, and they stay in season and don't skyrocket in price, unlike cherries, I'll go longer than a month if I can. Flexibility is a real selling point in the self-service fruit of the month club.

Some people measure their year by sports; to them, fall is when all the baseball teams I like stop playing and all the football teams I like start sucking right off the bat. Other people, especially elementary school teachers, measure their year by holidays. Aaron's doing this right now. He knows it's Mommy's birthday, then Halloween, then Thanks-for-giving, then Christmas, and then his birthday. (He's really excited about his birthday.) Unfortunately, in his head, these are all occurring in the next two weeks. I'm expecting a significant amount of righteous toddler indignation right around October 20 or so. These are fine methods, but they lack edibility.

I measure my year thusly:

Oranges

January - Oranges. For whatever reason, the oranges in the grocery store look pale and lifeless until some point in January, usually January 9th and about 11:24 AM. Then they turn day-glo orange and expand to twice their normal diameters and that's good orange eatin'. Right now, the thought of eating an orange fills me with distaste, ennui, and a little sleepiness, but come January, and I'm ready to sign up for Navel Academy. Sorry.

February - Tangerines. While others are shopping for their valentines and chasing groundhogs and revering presidents and just generally wishing that February would be over already, I find myself thinking of crated fruit. I've gotten my first dried-out, mealy orange and I'm ready for something new. Preferably something I can peel with my fingernails. And not a banana. So I pick up a crate, wondering if we'll eat them all before they go bad. Then I pick up another crate, and then one more. And then they go bad.

Fruits collection

March - Pears. It's time to move away from citrus, because starting in March, it's nothing but heartbreak. In fact, March is a dismal time of year for fruit. It's like the good fruits are observing Lent and giving up their own existence. Except Easter doesn't arrive until late May. Pears are pretty much the same any time of year, so I turn to them when my options are limited. So March comes in like "Hey! A pear!" and goes out like, "Huh. A pear."

April - Green Grapes. How could it be April already and still no cherries? How could it be April already and still snowing? How could it be April already and school is still going, there have been no work-free holidays since New Years, TV shows are all in reruns, and all is bleakness and despair? Guess I'll eat a few grapes. That didn't help.

May - Rainier Cherries. I have an annual ritual. Every year I notice that Rainier cherries are cheaper than Bing Cherries. I do a double take. I think, will I be eating mostly Rainier cherries instead of my old favorite, the Bing? I wonder how that might impact my life, my marriage, my career. Then, a week later, Rainier cherries get more expensive, Bing cherries get less expensive, and I forget about the whole thing. Every year.

Fruit of the Year

June - Bing Cherries. Is there anything better than a bing cherry? For your sake, I hope you're shaking your head right now. Shake it! There are so many things to love about June. Or so I'm told, I'm too busy gorging myself on Bings to notice.

July - Peaches. Late July, the cherries disappear from the shelves, but rather than wear black all month and weep and rend my garments and gnash my teeth, I eat a bunch of peaches. Did you know that cherries and peaches belong to the same family as almonds and cyanide? It only makes sense that four delicious tastes would all have to be related. Hey kids! Don't really eat cyanide. It may be really ultra-delectable, but it's also pretty poisonous. Yes scrumptious cyanide is a mouth-watering and deadly food best left uneaten.

August - Nectarines. By late August, I've usually eaten a mealy peach, and that's downright heart-breaking. So I switch to nectarines. Surely this nearly-identical fruit won't suffer the same fate! Surely!

Apple basket

September - Honey Crisp Apples. A good Honey Crisp tastes like someone replaced your apple's juice with sparkling apple cider. It's the champagne of apples, except it's good. Like Bing cherries, Honey Crisps don't last very long in the grocery store, so enjoy them while you can. Here's a recipe I like with Honey Crisps. Take one Honey Crisp, and three Nutter Butter cookies. First, eat the Honey Crisp. Then eat the cookies. If you're still hungry, have another cookie. This is a great recipe for parties.

October - Granny Smith/Harrelson apples. By now, I've given up on the pretense of eating fresh fruit, and my fruit purchases are used for cooking into dessert. An October without apple crisp is like a cryptic crossword with out an anagram -- pointless.

November - Cella's. By now I've given up on the pretense of buying fruit at all, and I'm just eating desserts. Technically, Cella's have a cherry inside, but it's really less the kind of cherry they grow on trees and more the kind of cherry they create in a lab out of sugar and bits of angels. Sure, Christmas items have been on the shelves since late August, but the Cella's tend not to make their appearance until the day after Halloween, when Christmas is practically over.

December - Enormous Red Delicious Apples. If you want big red delicious apples, you can find them pretty much any time of year. If you want mutant apples so big that two or three of them overwhelm your crisper drawer, you have to wait until December. These juicy monstrosities have been a part of stocking-stuffing tradition in my family for years, so I always have to pick a couple up. Plus, the Christmas stocking I made for Aaron is large enough to hold most of a Buick, so these gigantic mega-apples help take up some of the space.

Oh, and in case you're wondering who would win in a fight, it's Cella's.

Canadian Satan

What fictional creature do you wish were real?

• Hippogriffs,
• Crumple-horned snorcacks,
• A lobster made out of Cella's chocolate covered cherries,
• Talking pumpkins,
• Latvians,
• Princess Zelda,
• The Trix Rabbit,
• Baby Einstein,
• Carmen Sandiego and Where's Waldo's love child, Waldiego, The Great Hider;
  
• The Hamburglar;
• Super Pickle;
• Monkey butlers;
• Krypto, the Super Dog;
• Optimus Prime (the Semi, not the Monkey);
• Bacon cows;
• Sea Cucumbers;
• Caramel Cod;
• The Giving Tree;
• Zombie Mozart;
• The rescue pack that can transform into anything you need;
• That one creature with the body of a lion, and the head of Eeyore;
• Sassy Parkay;
• Mecha-badgers;
• Anagrampa;
• Seraphim-flavored unicorns;
• Wookiees;

and

• The red Snork