I do my regular shopping at Star Market (now owned by Albertson's), and go to Trader Joe's every once in a while, mostly for treats.

We used to have Star Markets here in Upstate NY! I didn't know they still existed. They had a conveyor belt that took your groceries outside that was pretty neat.

Yes, Ralph's is a West Coast chain. Until we moved here, I didn't really get the joke in "The Big Lebowski" that whenever the Dude is asked for ID, he says "I have a Ralph's card."

I've now achieved " Gatorade tastes good" level of sick. And checkout at Target was trying to quiz me on what meds work best (she had just started feeling sick ) and I was all CAN'T TALK.

Food Lion and Ingles are the most convenient.

Anything else is around an hour or more away.

They had a conveyor belt that took your groceries outside that was pretty neat.

We used to have that, too! Still have Star, no longer have the conveyor belt. Some of the Stars are now Shaw's and I'm not sure why.

ION, everyone has to read this best-ever work advice column. [link]

Guys, how are so many people just unaware of basic facts??? HOW??? We're not in some sort of crisis of violence against the police, FFS.

We're not in the middle of a massive epidemic of violent crime.

AND A FUCKING NATION IS NOT A MOTHERFUCKING BUSINESS YOU IGNORANT FUCKWITS.

Ahem.

Venting here so as to keep it off Facebook, but I seriously want to cry.

I hope you are on the mend soon, sarameg.

The last couple years I have found it more convenient to go to one family's farm stand just outside of town for fresh produce, rather than the farmers' market which is located two blocks from here, but is not on days when I have much time to spare. The fact that the farm stand is open every day, takes checks, and is across the way from the orchard we like to go to, makes it much more do-able. For not-grown-in-Minnesota needs, there are Aldi and Fareway. Since Fareway price-matches other stores' ads (i.e. they do the leg-work and fix their own prices to match without me taking competitors's sale papers in with me), not to mention the very well-run meat counter (you should see how well they wrap their meats, leakage is rare and it unwraps so easily that I seldom have to touch the meat with bare hands when I place it in the pot), we don't go to Hy-Vee much any more.

Plei - not sure if that is from the discussion I am trying to have on my FB or not. It is so hard to keep it to a open/constructive conversation when I want to say - WTF PEOPLE. But I have some friends who I otherwise consider to be intelligent who are supporting Trump and I just don't get it. I'm trying to be as open minded as possible in graciously discussing their comments.