McPolack Movie Minute

Just finished watching Possession, a fairly decent uber-romantic flick featuring my old pal Gwyneth Paltrow sporting a baaaaaaaad British accent and the impossibly, and I mean impossibly, gorgeous Aaron Eckhart as a rumpled academic. I'm not normally an A. E. fan but in this movie, my god! I wanted to eat him up, with his perfectly loosely-hung softly wrinkled cordury jacket concealing an absolute Adonis of a body, and his impeccable jawline and sexxxxxxxy butt-chin hidden under a five-o-clock shadow of hair I'd let rub my face raw anytime. Oh, and other body parts as well.

My, my, I think I must be getting to a certain, um, robust part of my menstrual cycle.

I also think I'm getting more susceptible to cheese as I get older, and Possession is a perfectly ripened wheel of Brie, complete with bloomy rind.

Now that's writing!

Anyhoo, there's lots of Victorian longing but also -- consummation! And the A. E. character, as if he wasn't already gorgeous enough, refuses to sleep with Gwynnie's character because he doesn't want to ruin their chances at a relationship.

Ohhhhh, maaaaaaaaaaaaan.

And now I'm watching Little House on the Prairie and it's the episode where Laura first meets Almanzo...who she calls "Manly" for short. She carves their initials into a tree. Naughty Half-Pint! She's still a kid so it's awhile before they get married. But I think she loses her braids for a grown-up lady bun soon.

Romance is in the air!

You can take the Polack out of the Pappy...

...well, actually you can't. Try though we might, and we do try, Polackpappy remains a man unto himself. His current favorite mode of transportation is an ancient Volvo he bought off a couple of Russian immigrants. He souped it up, Polack style, by removing the driver's side front seat and replacing it with the passenger side front seat...and then he didn't bother to install the driver's seat in the passenger's place. So, when you go for a ride with Pp (as I often have) you have a lot of leg room because when it comes to the passenger side front seat, there's no there there.

Pp also likes to take his bridge out and give a semi-toothless grin and for many years he retaliated to my taunting his gut by chasing me around the yard without his shirt on yelling "Give us a kish! Give us a kish!" and beating his fatness like a tom-tom drum whilst shaking it up and down and back and forth.

He is no longer fat (and in truth was always more hearty than tubby) but still sartorially challenged. When he went with McMumsy to volunteer at a homeless shelter the other night, he was offered a room.

Yet for Christmas I bought him The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth because I knew he would love it. If there was ever a book you couldn't judge by its cover, it's him.

TV Watching With McMumsy

Last night, after getting back from the Eucharistic Adoration chapel (I know I sound super-Catholic; I'm not, trust me) where I went with McMumsy to say the rosary and pray, she and I sat down to watch some tv together. She started off with Greta van Sustern (McM is a newshound) and was flipping channels when I left the room to get something to drink. I heard her calling me from the kitchen and came running in.

"Look at this," she said to me.

I looked.

And screamed: "Oh my God! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Blinking? Blinking? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! They're blinking! What the hell is that?"

McMumsy had switched to TLC, which has of late become a bit of a freak show. Last night they were showing a, I shit you not, two-headed baby. And both heads were, it seemed, alive. There was a regular baby head attached to a regular baby body and then another head sort of growing off the side of the first one. From what I could see in my brief glimpses (I screamed and screamed and then left the room so I didn't get a super-good look) this second head had some sort of stumpy neck growing off it and the eyes on it were bright, alert, looking around, and blinking.

I personally found it horrifying and sick that they had this child on camera under the pretense of a documentary. Nobody is watching this for any reason other than to gawk at the freak. Unfortunately, McMumsy found it kind of amusing. Actually, I think it made her really uncomfortable, because she kept giggling, and she does that when she's nervous.

Anyways, my opinion of TLC has plummeted. I'm okay with freaky celebrities and stupid pundits and bad reality shows. I'm not okay with exploiting babies, no matter how many heads they have.

That being said, I did watch "The 650 pound man" on TLC the other night. He couldn't stop eating and died. What he could and did do was make a conscious decision to put himself in the public eye. That poor baby could not.

Gifts

After having a bit of a mini-meltdown on Christmas Eve where I yelled at everyone in my immediate family and cried and refused to go to "Goddamn midnight mass" (sorry, Jesus!) I woke Christmas morning feeling a wee bit better. Here are highlights of the booty haul:

1. 5 1/2 quart saute pan. I used to go and "visit" this puppy at Crate and Barrel in Harvard Square. It was purchased for me by my well-to-do little brother. Thanks, bro!
2. Big antique wooden mortar and pestle and antique sterling silver carving knife, both purchased for my by Polackpappy, who offered up a lesson in mortar-and-pestling to go along with the first gift. To which my brother said: "I think she knows how to use it. Wasn't the m'n'p the first tool invented by the cavemen?" To which I said "Pp, I'm only half Polish, remember. I think I can figure it out." Thanks, Pp!
3. Fancy polarized sunglasses, courtesy of Dr. Moo. They're normally three hundred dollars but she got 'em for around twenty bucks. They make me look like an alien but I think they'll be great for doing outdoorsy stuff in the snow. The only caveat Dr. Moo offered with them is that I am not allowed to wear them when I'm with her because she thinks I look like an idiot in them.Thanks, sistah!

The other big highlight of the day was when Dr. Moo and I almost killed Babcia. We were trying to help her up the stone steps leading to the front door of the McPolack homestead and had the genius idea of having Dr. Moo shove the Babcia hard from behind whilst I yanked hard from the front. We succeeded in knocking B right over onto a big piece of granite. Whoopsie. Luckily, she was okay.

Thanks

For all of the nice comments and email. Though the clutch is I believe currently dying on my car, I am feeling better. I think I keep expecting that life should be simple and easy, when that's really the exception to the rule.

As Ahnold Scwharzwartzy might say, I need to stop whining.

I sat and held a new life today -- my friend OSB's week and a half old little girl -- she nestled her wee soft head in against my neck and fell asleep. I haven't held such a tiny baby in a long, long time. It was a good thing. She's beautiful and perfect.

And I know an extraordinarily large number of extraordinary people.

Tonight it's Christmas Eve and the family is coming over for roast beast and ribbon candy.

Merry Christmas (and Happy Hanukkah!), everyone.

Peace, love, and smushiness.

McP

Aaaaaand it gets worse

So. I arrive at the McPolack homestead to more bad news:

1. People think Babcia is poor again.
So my Babcia is one of the ten most stubborn people on the planet. She refuses, and I mean refuses, to spend money on much of anything. She has plenty of it; she just won't spend it. The women who come to give her a bath and clean her house bought her a whole new outfit and two big boxes of food, including a fair-sized chicken because they think she can't afford that stuff on her own. To them I say: Good luck getting her to wear the outfit, and all the food is going to end up at our house.

2. Sluggo, my parent's darling fat kitty, has a congenital kidney problem and probably needs to be put to sleep.
He's lying in the vet's office right now, catheterized. We're waiting on Dr. Moo's opinion but in all likelihood he'll be put down tonight. The other option is to bring him home to see how he does -- and his prognosis is not good -- which mean's he'd be dying. Over Christmas.

I think it's time to start feeling grateful for the things I do have. I'm glad for my friends and family and health and that I am lucky enough to live where I do and have what I have. Even when things are sucking (nearly) beyond the telling of it.

Rejection

I'm having kind of a hard day today. First I locked my keys in the car and then I got let go from the freelance project I was working on. Couple that with the fact that large 'n fancy consulting firm will not be hiring me on for their next project, the whole stupid Potential Suitor fiasco, and the fact that the two new boys that contacted me on line have stopped writing and well, I am not feeling so hot about myself right now, like at all. I really don't get it. I seem to be the test case for how much rejection one person can take before crawling under a rock and dying.

The latest sayonara came from an educational company that was redesigning their web site and what happened was what I had worried would happen -- that the text I had written wasn't different enough. It was, according to the CEO, "lackluster," and they are going to take the writing in-house. The thing is, I was working with the CEO, trying to do what he wanted. In hindsight, what I should have done was -- oh, fuck, I don't know what I should have done. I just know that I feel really, really, really bad right now. Just sad and miserable. The one bright spot was Contagious, who was so nice on the phone when I called her at work, blubbering. I just.

I just don't know. This is, honest to God, the fourth see you later sister I've had in the past four years. I'm afraid that I'm lazy and not focused or ADD or, well, I just don't fucking know.

Why McPolack and Whole Foods shouldn't mix

1. Because, at least in the Arlington one, the parking lot turns her into an uberbitch.
2. Because she spent, today, 75 American dollars, basically on lunch.

Okay, so I got some fancy cheeses and good bread and crackers and salad and nursing mother tea for a visit to my friend OSB and her new baby, which will take place this Saturday. I also bought some 11 dollar a pound blue something or other coffee because it was roasted this morning and smelled so good (and it was harvested by the fascinating people of Batak) and somehow I spent nine dollars at the salad bar, nine dollars that will be passing through my digestive tract within the hour.

But the bakery man double-wrapped the bread and let me know how to keep it fresh until Saturday (freeze it, then partially defrost and heat in the oven for a few minutes at 375) and the nine dollar salad is going to be dee-licious and, dagnabbit, OSB has bought me innumerable lunches over the years I've known her and I really ought to buy out the whole store, just for her.

Next week, it's back to the Market Basket with me. But for now, I am looking forward to lunch!

Cookie, cookie...dookie?

Had a slow, discombobulated day today. Did only about an hour and a half of real work and when you bill by the hour and you work from home that sucks. But I am still ahead of the curve, deadline-wise, which is great. I'll need to get more ahead tomorrow, though.

Went to my German friend's home to hang out with her and L. I got two different packages of tasty homemade cookies -- 8 different kinds in all, from butter stars to jammy linzer cookies to macaroons. We ate pizza and chatted. Gf and L are very easy to chat with.

A high point of my day was stumbling (I swear to God I stumbled) upon this crazy link which I just had to share. Especially tantalizing are these photos, especially the nudie bum shot where it looks like Mr. Muscle Chef is fixing to drop a giant dookie. (Or would it be a wee dookie? Do the poos suffer the same fate as the twig and berries when one becomes as musclebound as Muscle Chef is?)

Tree Trimming

Sunday afternoon was the annual McFamily Christmas celebration, held at the palatial home of my newspaper-running uncle and his wife the gourmet chef of whom my Babcia says "She's French but she's nice." When I tried to explain to Babcia that this was a bit like someone saying to her "You're Polish, but you're smart," she was hearing none of it.

Each year French Auntie prepares a sumptuous feast -- lots of nibbly treats like shrimp cocktail and cheeses and various delights wrapped in phyllo, followed by one big phyllo-wrapped treat: Beef Wellington.

This year my brother brought his girlfriend. As we were chatting in the kitchen, one of my uncles walked in. I warned the girlfriend in a low voice not to ask said uncle anything about his love life. Then I proceeded to ask said uncle how he was doing.

Uncle: "Well, I had a friend trim my tree for me. An acquaintance, really. She hung that godawful ornament I won at last year's Yankee swap on the fireplace mantel." (McFamily X-mas also includes what can turn into a rather vicious Yankee swap; Babcia is still pissed at one cousin who tried to get her Olive Garden gift certificate last year. He's a supreme court justice in NH and she had an article of him with his picture that she'd saved from the paper. After he went for her gift card she tore the picture up and threw it away.)

Me: "Mm-hmm"

Uncle: "She did a fine job trimming the tree."

Said uncle chatted a bit more with other relatives about his tree and then as he went to leave the room he said to me, under his breath:

"She was totally nude. I loved it!"

Now would be the time to inform you that this uncle is similar in looks to Al Pacino and is a retired, divorced airline pilot who lives alone. He developed a taste for 25 year olds while doing international flights and he, to put it nicely, really gets around. And he's not afraid of talking about it.

Anyhoo, I got number one in the Yankee swap which is the best number you can get and I was glad to see Fortune smiling upon me again even as Dirty Bastard was whispering in my ear.

Polack Versus Veterinarian

Post-tree trimming, after Dr. Moo and I caterwauled along to my McMumsy's poorly-played Christmas carols (to be fair, McMumsy has only been playing piano for a couple of years and Dr. Moo and I were singing horribly for dramatic effect), Dr. Moo, PolackPappy, Tess the Wonder Hound and I were hanging out in the living room, looking at the tree.

Dr. Moo gets very irritated with Pp as he is constantly telling her things she already knows as a vet, like the difference between a vein and an artery. She was scratching TWH's ears and commented on how stinky they were.

"Those ears are stinky because of the ear wax," pronounced Polackpappy.

Dr. Moo, who, of course, knew this already, gave Pp a dirty look, groaned, pointed at herself and said "Veterinarian."

Pp pointed at himself and said in the same tone, "Polack."

I laughed and laughed.

Neat Stuff

Lookee here, it's nine generations of the Mc in McPolack.

Neat stuff.

However, I shall have to email the site's creator, as he got my middle name wrong.

Super Cute

I love my cousin Michelle. She's 15 and 3/4's and she's being home-schooled. She does ice skating and she went to Barbizon modeling school for a little while, until her parents figured out it was a scam. She does have the model look -- she's tall tall tall and thin and pretty -- and a pretty good attitude about herself and life in general. She wants to be on America's Next Top Model but has to wait until she's 18. When she was younger she did a goat costume class at a country fair -- that's where you and your goat dress up as characters from a book -- and she went as Willy Wonka and dressed her goat as an Oompa Loompa.

I just got an email from her giving me advice on boys. She's an American original.

I'm It

I've been tagged by California Eating (Hi lady!) The rules are to write 10 random/odd facts about oneself and then tag 5 others.

Here are my random/odd facts:

1. I like to lay in my clawfoot bathtub on Sunday nights with a clay mask on my face and some Queen Helene in my hair and read the Style section of the NY Times. I am especially fond of the wedding announcements.

2. A boy wrote a song for me once. He was a folk singer in Vermont. It was a really bad song.

3. I've fired a bb gun, a Ruger, and a Glock. I'm a pretty decent shot.

4. When I was little I used to bury the roadkill I found on the side of the road and once I rescued a baby mouse from the jaws of my pet cat. I tried to save it by putting a band-aid on the cut on its neck and dripping milk into its mouth off the end of a Q-tip. It died.

5. I can never seem to get all the dirt out from underneath my fingernails, no matter how hard I pick.

6. I ate a handful of live ants in the fourth grade. I was taking a wilderness survival class and we were learning what was safe to eat in the woods. They were crunchy and tasted like lemon.

8. I have watched 3 kitties die horrible deaths, right in front of me, after being run over by cars.

9. My middle name is Arethusa.

10. When I was meditating the other day I had a vision that part of me died. I am excited to see what will arise from the ashes.

Okay. I tag Contagious and Male Mannequin . I don't really know many other bloggers.

Wink, wink

So I was on the phone with Dr. Moo sharing the boy news as she is apparently too busy to read my blog.

McP: "Two guys winked at me on Salon"

Dr. Moo: "Mares wink at stallions they're interested in. The wink with their vulvas."

McP: "Oh, gross."

Dr. Moo: "Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh."

Christmas music that I love

In heavy holiday rotation with some McPolack notation:

A Christmas Together -- John Denver and the Muppets. Especially great is the last song. The Muppets sing "Oh bring us some figgy pudding." Miss Piggy yells "Piggy pudding?" Gonzo replies "Figgy pudding. It's made with figs." Miss Piggy says "Oh." Then Gonzo says "And bacon."

A Charlie Brown Christmas -- Vince Guaraldi Trio. I like to dance like the Peanuts while listening to this one and if I'm PMS'ing while they play the song that runs at the end of the tv special when Linus wraps his blanket around the sad-looking tree and all the Peanuts kids stick their heads in the air and open their mouths and sing, I cry.

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas -- Burl Ives. I love Burl Ives.

The Christmas Collection -- Burl Ives. See above.

Joy to the World -- Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Those Mormons may be a wacky murderous Polygamist cult, but they can sing.

James Galway's Christmas Carol. James Galway and a British chorus. I especially love the Hallelujahs on the Zither Carol. They make me feel warm and tingly.

Christmas -- Mannheim Steamroller. Just kidding. I fucking hate Mannheim Steamroller but I somehow have this cd. I like to give it dirty looks.

On the BFKPS front...

...he actually asked my German friend out today, the idiot. She responded with a tactful, firm note explaining that they were all very drunk on Saturday and he misunderstood and that she is very close to her boyfriend and shall not be dating any other men.

And we have Baby!

My friend OSB had her baby today -- a girl, just under 8 pounds and 19 inches long. Her name is Ella Haas Morris. And poor, poor OSB had back labor for 72 hours. Yipes. I'm looking forward to finally meeting the wee one and am very very excited for OSB and her husband. Yee-haw!

surprise

So my phone rings last night whilst I am eating dinner and watching Arrested Development, which is only getting funnier and of course is going to be cancelled. Anyhoo, I see it is the McPolack Seniors calling so I pick it up.

"Hullo."

It's Polackpappy. I say hi, ask him what's up.

"Well, your mother had invasive heart surgery today and she's doing fine."

Good lord.

Readers may recall that Mcmumsy has tachycardia, a condition not necessarily life-threatening but not so good either that has sent her to the emergency room several times. I only discovered she had the condition because my dad came in one day when I was visiting and said he had to go pick her up from the hospital. The condition can be corrected by surgery. I vaguely recall McMumsy saying she'd be having the surgery, but she never specified when.

I mean, of course she didn't, because why should you tell your children anything that has to do with your health?

So I presented my case to Pp: what if something had gone wrong? I didn't even know she was in surgery. What if she had up and died? What would he have told me then?

Pp sort of chuckled and said "Surprise!" as in, that's what he would have said to me had it been the case.

Self-Approval

I just spoke with my friend L about what I will be wearing to the company party tonight.

L: "I'm so glad you're going!"
McP: "Me too. I've decided to wear the dress I wore on Halloween last year when I dressed up as Anna Nicole Smith. Turns out it's not as slutty as I thought it was."
L: "Who told you that?"
McP: "Umm, me..."

I haven't had the chance to look hot in awhile and baby, I am going to look hot tonight.

Miso Pretty

Dr. Moo has been having quite the time in obedience class with Tess the wonder hound. While the other dogs are learning all sorts of neat tricks, Tess is just beginning to know her name. Oh, and she doesn't poop in my sister's house. Which is for TWH an accomplishment.

This week in obedience class owners were instructed to "hide" behind a post in the middle of the room while the instructor distracted their dogs. When Dr. Moo hid the first time, Tess just sat there and howled while everyone else in the class laughed. The second time she hid it looked like Tess was headed for Dr. Moo. But no, as it turns out, she was just heading for a nearby mirror so she could admire her jowls.

In McPolack, Inc news, Miss McPolack just ate a whole lotta sushi, one piece after another popped in her mouth, because she was stressed about being at a meal with not one but two potential suitors. Now Miss McPolack has gas and is worried about eating herself into a house, as in the size of one.

Burn, baby, burn

One of the large 'n fancy houses I jog by on Brattle Street burned right to the ground last night. It was the home owned by the founder of Polaroid and it had been under construction forever as I remember seeing workers out by the garage the last time I lived in the city. It does make me sad when a lovely big old house is lost because I so prefer them to more modern structures.

In other news, we're getting snow, and since I'm not driving, I'm a little mad, because our county is the only one other then the Cape not getting 7 to 10 inches. Mr. weatherman, if I'm not driving anywhere and it's the weekend I want you to dump it on Somerville! At least until February when I may well be sick of it all. Ah, me.

Busy, busy

So I am under some serious crunch this week as I am back at job number one after some unpleasantness I will blog about later, and meeting with someone tomorrow about a second writing job, scope not yet to be determined, but I still have to prepare and it is nearly ten at night. Last night went to yoga as am not going to miss yoga. Tonight the McPolack parents came for a visit. McMumsy is 58 tomorrow. We saw John McCain speak at the First Parish church in Harvard Square, ostensibly about a book he's written for kids, but come on people, he's clearly testing waters for another run for office in '08. It was basically a question and answer session with a few real gems from the Cambridge loons, including one gentleman who took out a whole sheaf of papers and proceeded to try to relate bird flu to the brain worm that's been killing off deer and a lady who seemed very passionate about what seemed at first to be a viable argument -- campaign finance reform. She apparently just gets v. v. angry when she sees how much money is spent on running for office, as she works for a nonprofit. Her nonprofit? Nothing like the Red Cross, oh no. It was the Acton public library fund. Good lord.

Other highlights included the very cute sight of my mom and dad holding hands and nervously following me across the street in Porter Square, and McMumsy pushing her legs out straight in front her, sticking her butt in the air, and farting and then giggling while we were waiting for the T. After which she looked at us quizically and said "What?"

Aiyeeeeeeeeeee!

My lazy fucker of a neighbor is at it again. I went out to shovel the first snowfall (only the walk, not the driveway; I think I might not shovel it at all this winter and just take the bus everywhere as my work is in-town while lousy neighbor has to drive rather far) and discovered these seven foot by three foot cardboard boxes, and loooong triangular cardboard pieces, and huge sheets of plastic, just draped across the cans.

Take the time to fold the cardboard up and crinkle the plastic so you can fit it in the trash buckets, you stinky, stupid, scum-sucking bastard!

Ahem.

Anyhoo. I shoved the giant pieces of cardboard and plastic off the trash bins using my trusty green shovel with ice-scraping lip, and when I take the trash to the curb tomorrow, as I do every single week, I shall not be taking the cardboard and plastic with me.

Bitch can deal with it himself.

I predict it will sit out there until spring.

Grrrr.

Lonely

Just finished watching The Station Agent, which I took out of the library; I highly recommend it. I identified with it, fairly strongly. As your better movies do, it got me to thinking, mainly on the nature of adult relationships, and I consider myself, at 32, a rather newly-minted adult.

I don't care to go to bars, or parties where I only know one or two people. I don't like to stay out late. And, for whatever reason, I don't date a lot. I don't think I'm ugly. I actually think I'm pretty attractive, and interesting. But I'm a touch odd. And fairly open emotionally, which I think weirds people out, and also with a tendency at times to need to be alone in my apartment, or just in my head. As much as I love social situations and hanging out with people, I find myself really relishing time to just be by myself. Today I had an opportunity to go with Potential Suitor and a bunch of his friends and some other people from where I'm working right now to go and see a movie. Problem is, it's a movie I didn't want to see. And I still can't decide if I like like Potential Suitor. Which probably means I don't.

Anyway. I still felt like it would be a depressing weekend if I didn't get out and do something with someone, so I called MC, the cool chick from down the hall at work who went to Louis Boston with me. We went downtown and spent several hours Christmas shopping, which was just about enough hangout time for me. I just get tired of being social after awhile. When I was visiting Dr. Moo last weekend, we spent much of our long walks, and one of our dinners out not talking, and she said to me that she wanted to find a man she could do that with and be comfortable -- just not talk in long stretches. That's definitely a husband material necessity for the McPolack women.

I don't really know where I'm going with this post, which I suppose is the beauty of the blog -- one doesn't really need a point. But if I were to have a point I guess it would be that I think I might be kind of a loner but at the same time when I do connect with people I want to really connect with them. I want to have the sort of relationships with people that make for interesting stories and feel satisfying, because I want to have an interesting and satisfying life.

Also I'm grateful that all my friends who have families of their own let me come and be loved as a part of theirs, because sometimes I really need that.

My Big Man-Legs

Are similar in size and shape with Jake Ryan's. You know, from Sixteen Candles? Check out the scene where he's talking with another beefy guy while doing chin-ups. I don't have the hair but I've definitely got the calves. Aye yi yi.

God Do I Love The Market Basket

Did a grocery shopping run to the Somerville Market Basket this morning. It's always busy and I have yet to go on a weekend, when I am sure it is an absolute disaster. There's sawdust all over the floor and a whole aisle of Goya brand food and stuff from Brazil and a league of nations walking through the aisles. I had a nice conversation with an elderly gentleman in the checkout line about the pharmaceutical industry. He's always calling his representative to give his opinion. His wife is on two kinds of nasal sprays and one of them costs 150 dollars alone. He was impressed by all the vegetables I was buying.

My family has a long and proud history with the Basket. I remember going in with my Grandpa after he'd had his stroke. The only words he re-learned were Jesus Christ Almighty, Fuck You, and No. He wanted to buy a big jar of pickled pigs' feet so he pointed at them and grunted. Then he gave me a whiskery smile when I grabbed them for him. I also remember him eating oatmeal rather sloppily. He was kind of a bastard, but that's a story for another day.

I also used to take my Babcia shopping there once a week when I lived with her. She'd zoom around with her grocery cart buying all sorts of crap, like Coffee Nips and jelly doughnuts. She would actually rub her hands together in glee in front of the dougnut case. I used to lose her in the store with some frequency, because it was filled to the brim with stooped-over white-haired ladies pushing carts.

Dr. Moo worked at the Basket in high school as a cashier and my brother was a grocery boy. Lots of girls from the store used to call my brother, as he was a particularly handsome grocery boy. When they called and my father answered the phone he'd say to my brother "It's another Market Basket ho." The Basket is also famous for chasing down shoplifters. At my home store, in Londonderry, NH, blue-jacketed grocery boys used to fly down from the office, leap over the dairy cases, and chase them out the door to tackle them in the parking lot.

But the best part about the Basket by far is that you can get a whole lotta groceries including a big bag of frozen shrimp, yummy organic cookies and a bunch of double-a's for your battery-eating Walkman for only 67 dollars.