Popcorn Shop

Popcorn Shop

Originally uploaded by squonkblog

Mmmmmm – falling leaves, commuter trains going by, and the smell of The Popcorn Shop.   Nothin’ like it!!!

This is in downtown Wheaton, IL – where we grew up.  This place is (was?) in the Guinnesss Book of World Records as the smallest shop.  It was an alley that they made into a penny candy shop.  This is where I first met Swedish Fish.   You go in there, fill up a little white lunch sack with candy – and take it to the worker toward the back.  They’d pour your candy out and count it up.  They also made the popcorn in the back of the shop – the whitest yummiest popcorn ever – made in a big kettles.

We always stopped here on our way to the Wheaton Theater around the corner.

Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday Dear Julie, Happy Birthday To You!

It’s Julie’s birthday everyone!  In her honor, I’ve scrounged up a few snaps (my new favorite brittish word).

I love Julie’s face in this pic.  I also love how she’s COA.  You know how some people shrink from attention on their birthday?  Not us!

Attention – check

Presents – check

Cake – check!

Here’s two great pair of sisters (and a really cool brother).  Mom holding wee baby Julie, Bruce holding me (jodi) and Auntie M holding baby Andy.

Dancing

If you go to Matt Harding’s Site you can read about how this video (and several others) came to be.  He’s NOT photoshopped into these places. . . It gives me warm fuzzies all over. . .  2:38 is my fave.

Patriots Day

First off – a very happy birthday to all who were born on this date – no matter the year – including my favorite dutch twins – Heidi and Tanya!

I remember journaling after 9/11/01. I don’t remember how much I cried – but of course I was profoundly affected.

Since then, I haven’t had much emotion about that day. My mouth still drops when I see the towers crumble in replay. Hearing stories of loved-ones lost makes me sad, but I don’t think I’ve cried about it until today.

Channel 4 news showed a tribute that Denver area firefighters did today. Over 300 metro area fire fighters climbed 110 flights of stairs in a Denver high-rise in honor of the firefighters and police that gave their lives in service at ground zero. For some reason this just got to me. When I think of the stairwells of the Twin Towers and how they were filled with raw confusion and chaos – it makes me so sad. Our civil servants tried all they could to keep people calm, take care of the injured and bring people down to safety.

Why? Why should we honor them? Because they are everything that is RIGHT about this country. They gave EVERYTHING for us. Those smoke-filled stairwells became the resting place of many.

We need to remember – – – so that we never forget.

Face Food

My sis and I talk a lot about food here. . . and our children. . . and how we’d like them to eat healthier foods.  Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about Tony – Tony the Tiger.  Don’t most of the foods that your kids love have a face to them?  Toucan Sam, Snap Crackle and Pop, Captain Crunch, etc?  They/we love little characters that kind of tell us what our experience will be with a food.  It’s genius.  Enter CUTIES:

My kids LOVE Cuties.  And no, they do not call them clementines, or oranges – they call them Cuties.  I’d love to see more of this type of marketing of whole foods (not the grocery chain – the actual foods).

My other new favorite is Stach from Everybody’s Nuts.  Their Salt and Pepper pistachios are to DIE for – and they’ve got the cutest little spokesnut.  My son is allergic to pistachios – and my daughter likes to suck on the shells but not eat the inside. . . so my theory isn’t totally working, but I think I’m on to something.