An Inclusive Guide to Grocery Stores (From Someone Surrounded by Too Many)

The Paradox of Choice has never been more present than at the current juncture in my life in a variety of aspects, one of the most prominent being when it comes to selecting where to purchase my groceries. At my current abode, I have access to 6+ grocery stores all within about a 5 mile radius. Below is my guide to those I have been exposed to of late:

 
If you want to feel like you have absolutely no control over your wallet, your mind, or your resistance to free samples, Whole Foods is the store for you. This place will reel you in straight from the entrance, where there is typically an employee/wizard/witch mixing up a giant bowl of guacamole/crack for sampling.

This is literally the size of the bowl at the door.

Upon your journey through the store, you will be met with nonsensical "foods" such as Quinoa (surely pronounced Kwin-oh-uh, right? NOPE) and you will think to yourself, "hmm it looks gross, but it sure sounds interesting...and healthy....Look at it, it looks like little brown bubbles...I don't need little brown bubbles...I MUST HAVE LITTLE BROWN BUBBLES. Hmmm, I need some Swiss cheese, but wait, Imported Gourmet Gruyere? GIMME."

And don't get me started on the prepared foods section. I am more guilty than anyone of being suckered into this and spending $20 on one box of a smorgasbord of grub. The first few bites are delicious, but it almost always turns into an "I immediately regret this decision" scenario. And then there are moments like this: "SHUT THE FRONT DOOR - this salad has some meat called 'Beyond Chicken?' What does that even mean?? I have no idea, but will I ever get the opportunity to eat chicken from the beyond again...?"

Unfortunately, it seems that more often than not, if your baby carrots and cantaloupes are "certified organic," chances are you are thereby "certified elitist" and hereby..."certified jack wagon."

In essence, Whole Foods forces consumers to choose between "organic," super duper fresh produce/fish/meat/cheese and peasantry snacks such as Wheat Thins.

Verdict: Wheat Thins win every time.

"You don't know what you got 'til it's gone" has never been more true until I moved far far away from my local State College, PA Wegmans. Truth be told, I knew what I had when I had it, but the withdrawal symptoms associated with not having it are paralyzing (the nearest Wegmans is about 18 miles north which means probably an hour drive in the DC Metro area). Weggies is so much more than a grocery store. Not only are their prepared foods (slightly) less expensive and tastier than Whole Foods, but their own Wegmans brand foods are just delightful. I personally recommend their coffee, cereals, hummus, and sauces (my absolute favorite being their Asian Stir Fry Sauces - if you have been to my apartment in DC, you may have noticed the rather large safety stock inventory of their Sesame Garlic Sauce. This sauce is second only to ketchup. And I think we all know how I feel about ketchup).

Wegmans has steadily balanced itself on the fence between cheap and expensive, making it perfect for the mainstream consumer looking for quality products without the "we're team Globo Gym and we're better than you" feel. Wegmans has quietly been the "first mover" in many areas, and other stores have followed suit.

Most importantly, shoppers can get their high-end, healthy, organic fix, while also indulging in 2 for $5 WHEAT THINS!

When I first stood in front of a Harris Teeter, the usually dormant child residing in my mind snickered, "I'm not mature enough for this name." Upon entering the store, the "enamored by Wegmans" side of me repeatedly shouted "IMPOSTER!" Don't get me wrong, Harris Teeter is a very clean, well stocked, respectable establishment. However, they are no Wegmans. Don't let them fool you. Their prepared foods are severely lacking and are severely overpriced, much like everything else in the store.

People who hate on Trader Joe's are like people who claim to not like Justin Timberlake but secretly listen to his music on repeat via Spotify "privates sessions." TJ's is cheap, delicious, and they are who they say they are. They make their own foods and the employees are clearly evidence of a thorough, fun, and legitimate interview process seeking people who really live the brand.

My TJ's food recommendations:

Surprisingly delicious low cal dressing

Surprisingly delicious low cal dip

If you still need convincing after reading the label, I can't help but feel sorry for you.

Giant is the middle child of grocery stores - caught in between hand-me-downs and growing out of things to hand down. Giant is where coupon binder wielding women go to town. If you happen to need chicken broth, red seedless grapes, "steam fresh" frozen veggies, four boxes of General Mills cereal, and six 2 liter bottles of Pepsi brand soda in one shopping trip, Giant will provide you with the necessary completely random coupons to accommodate your needs for the week.

I must say that one of my favorite aspects of Giant comes to light during the holiday season. The little game of chess I get to play with the Giant employee and/or automated self check-out lady, "Would you like to print out your bonus points coupon now...or wait until October 31st?" Do I want to say 5%? Or wait and see if I can rack up enough to save 10%? OR do I want a FREE THANKSGIVING TURKEY? Granted all of this is entirely reliant on me 1.) stowing the receipt safely away and 2.) remembering to use it.

Safeway is Giant with a different logo.

Weis Markets just doesn't care. Weis is the kid in high school who never went to class and never studied, but somehow managed to stay afloat. Weis is cheap and makes no excuses. Weis is Weis and they are fine with Weis. Even their website features the slogan "Unmistakably Weis." Yup.

My vision of Weis will always be dominated by the borderline pathetic, barely breathing, but strangely lovable Weis right next door to a giant Giant in State College, PA. This Weis usually has 4-5 cars in the parking lot (which lines up nicely with the number of employees in the store...which unearths just how many customers there aren't) while the neighboring Giant boasts a filled-to-the-brim parking lot as well as its own gas station.

Bless you, Weis Markets. I literally don't know how you are still alive.

Walmart is the Ringer of grocery stores. Despite what even I would think, Walmart's products are actually pretty decent. Their produce, bakery, and the like aren't too shabby and are obviously not crazy expensive. Moreover, brand products are almost always less expensive here than anywhere else - sometimes up to an entire dollar less. And when you're like me, mindlessly blowing money on prepared foods at various higher-end establishment, the extra dollars saved on my Pop Tarts and bread goes a long way.

Happy shopping! Enjoy the Paradox of Choice.

An Open Letter to Duck Dynasty

Dear Duck Dynasty,

THANK YOU. 

Thank you for teaching me that something as random and seemingly arbitrary as perfecting the art of duck calling can be worth millions of dollars. Thank you for proving me wrong - when I first heard the name of the show, I assumed it was a cartoon. When I first saw a commercial for the show, I thought it was a joke. When I first watched the show, I smacked myself for so being so blatantly cliche and judging a book by its bearded, down-home, camouflaged, scantily-toothed, good-hearted cover. Thank you for putting pure, simple, fresh entertainment back on television without the need for a Kardashian, a celebrity judge, a rose ceremony, or a "real" housewife. Thank you for the most bizarre, yet most appropriate and clever opening scene I have ever seen on a reality TV show. 

Most importantly, thank you for introducing the world to this guy. 

Meet Si. The rugged brother of Gandalf the Grey in the new age. "Wake up, have a sip of tea, mow a little grass, and if you get tired, take a little nap." Please take a moment to view this MTV-worthy remix of Si's famous slogan:

Without Si, we would not have "Yo Beard" jokes. "Yo beard is so fat not even Dora could explore it." I mean, look at his face as he rattles these off, one after another, like Bubba listing off kinds of shrimp in Forrest Gump.

Without Si, we would not have learned the true language of love. And the Turkey Dance that comes along with it. Who doesn't want to see an old bearded man with fake wings attempting to entice turkeys to mate?

Without Si, these kids would not have been exposed to a potential reality of the trials and tribulations associated with being Santa Claus...or one of his minions. "My parents told me the truth, look how good I turned out." Amen, brotha!

And within all of the unique, bizarre, breath-of-fresh air episodes, thank you, Duck Dynasty for sneakily weaving the importance of family into a completely off-the-wall reality show about duck mating and hunting. Even if you perhaps toss in some scripted lines every now and then, I'll take a few "fake" sentences from a family that genuinely seems to believe what they're saying over a Botox-ridden, put-me-on the-front-page-of-TMZ-please yuppie any day. 

And you know what, even if some of the "characters" practice their lines or their jokes ahead of time, and even if it isn't entirely "reality," so what? It's a show called Duck Dynasty. I didn't exactly go into watching it with a reality detector. But I most certainly come out of watching you with a smile. A goofy, what-the-heck-did-I-just-watch smile. 

Those who know me know that few things make me giddier than quoting movies and TV shows, and Duck Dynasty, you possess an underrated vault chock full of keepers. 

So thank you, Duck Dynasty, for seemingly mindless, yet subconsciously mindful, harmless, goofy, entertainment. Long live the beard.

Peace, love, & Cocoa Puffs,

Tara 

Tomorrow

You know those days where you are just overflowing with things you want to say, but you either:

a) Don't know how to accurately articulate them,
b) Perhaps should not be articulating them at all,
c) Can't even make sense of all those thoughts yourself as it is?

Today is one of those days.

So here is what I will say. Today is Wednesday. It is overcast and muggy outside. I am sitting at my desk, with horrible posture as usual, right leg crossed over the left, both butt cheeks sound asleep. I am sitting here unable to come up with something interesting to write about. I attribute this to there simply being so much I want to say that I can't filter one thing from the next. I can't make sense of one part, let alone the whole thing...and even if I could, I am not even confident that I would be able to figure out what I should say versus what I shouldn't say. And as I reread that, it gives the impression that the thoughts jumbled in my noggin are all stressful, potentially negative thoughts, but alas, that is not the case. Sometimes even the good stuff can be garbled and confusing.

But that's the age-old pickle, isn't it? Those who know me know that I generally lack an adequate filter. I say what's on my mind, good or bad, and don't get embarrassed all that easily, for better or worse (no, that is not a challenge...) And this notion ("this notion" being all of the above) got me thinking about tomorrow.

If we are being honest with ourselves, tomorrow is not a tangible thing. Today is the tomorrow of yesterday. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. We all know this, but more often than not, choose to ignore it (and understandably so). This moment, the moment right now, as you squint at your computer screen, probably regretting delving into this blog post, is the only thing that is concrete. What a responsibility, right? Acknowledging and accepting that every fleeting moment bears the weight of a lifetime. Wondering about all of the potential "what ifs." Heavy stuff, sure, but along with that comes opportunity. Lots of it.

I think sometimes we expect too much of a given day, so much so that it often gets in the way of what each tiny piece of that day has to offer. Sometimes we live moments of silent desperation...silent excitement...silent bliss...we sit on these moments like inflatable donuts for butt injuries. We worry what they mean. We worry what any particular reaction or action may result in. We paralyze ourselves. Maybe if we all relaxed a little more about relaxing...we would be able to relax...enjoy moments and recognize them for what they are: reminders that we are alive. 

Sometimes we run so fast in preparation for tomorrow that we don't actually leave anything left in the tank for tomorrow. And then we inevitably waste tomorrow in preparation for the next tomorrow, hoping it will live up to the "hype."

 

But here's the thing...yes, the sun will come out tomorrow, but the sun is already out today. Sure it may be cloudy where you are, but it's sunny somewhere. And it may be cloudy where you are tomorrow too. Or it may be cloudy somewhere else. The point is, if you spend all of your time waiting for the sun to come out you'll miss out on all of non-weather related parts of the day that might just rock your socks. I for one was really happy for cloud-cover today. Made the 85+ degree, humidity laden air a little more bearable.

It will come across a little morbid, but the truth of the matter is, we are all dying. It's just a matter of when. Why not live in the process? Don't wait for it. Make "tomorrow" now. "Get busy living, or get busy dying."

Say what you want to say, do what you want to do, and don't waste a minute waiting for tomorrow to come. Don't chase tomorrow. Embrace today.  

The Beautiful Weirdness of Lately

The weirdness of lately has rendered me relatively enraptured. I think I've gallivanted across the entire realm of weirdness in recent months. It's been awesome.

As far as I'm concerned, weird is good. In fact, weird is great. Flaws are what separates real from fake. Give it to me raw, unfiltered, and authentic. 

 

According to Merriam-Webster, 'weird' is defined as: 

1.) Of strange or extraordinary character: odd, fantastic

2.) Fate, destiny. 

(Okay, yes, there is also a third definition that says: "of, relating to, or caused by witchcraft or the supernatural" but at the end of that definition, the word "magical" is listed as well...so that much is fitting for my purposes)

 

From eating ketchup with a spoon to slightly bizarre/irrational fears of the bottoms of shoes and shower drains (though I still believe these are completely legit...), I am fairly confident that I've got all facets on the Spectrum of Weird covered.

But the weirdest of all the weird things in my life is without a doubt life itself. Especially in recent weeks, I have found myself enamored by the beautiful weirdness of lately. When I think about what has transpired in the past few months of my life and how straight up weird it is that things are the way they are right now, I am flabbergasted. What if "X" had never happened? What if "Y" did happen? How different would my current state of being be? The tiniest of things can completely shift the course we are on and the direction we are headed. The smallest smidgen of fate or coincidence can yield entirely different outcomes. Life is not a prerecorded tape...it is LIVE. And as Bill O'Reilly knows, sometimes you just have to accept that and say "F*ck it! We'll do it live!" (warning...explicit language in that link).

For instance, if I hadn't absentmindedly forgotten my laptop and turned around halfway to the Metro this morning, would I still have ended up sitting next to and chatting with the most charming old man who told me I reminded him of Lucille Ball? Probably not. And anyone who knows me knows that something as simple as that absolutely made my Monday. What better way to start the week? Yeah, I'm weird.

 

Obviously that example is a on a fairly small scale in the grand scheme of life, but sometimes it is those seemingly small scale things that domino their way through to something much bigger. A random event, a spur of the moment visit, an instance where something or someone just clicks...moments in time where you're left sitting, smiling, shaking your head, and chuckling to yourself, "How on earth did I get here? What plot twist resulted in this? And how lucky am I that it did?" And it's not just random things happening to each of us that spur the ol' Butterfly Effect. How we act and react have just as much of an impact on our own fates and those of the people around us.

I say this: Embrace the weird. Flaunt the weird. Pay attention to the weird. Because the weird is what stands out, separates the beauty from the norm, and opens doors you may not have even realized existed in the first place. The weird is where the heart is.

WE ARE...WEIRD!

Screw normalcy.