attack of the killer tomatoes!

Okay, so since my last post was all doom and gloom, I thought I'd recount some of the lighter side of my life:

I had to do a little grocery shopping tonight at FM and was looking for some tomatoes for salad-time when I noticed a disturbing thing-all the tomatoes I could find were either from Ohio, Canada or Mexico. Now, while I do not begrudge free enterprise, trade or the like, I also want to support my local growers here in Oregon. Maybe it's the fact that I've been here for too long and the hippies have finally gotten me, or because we grew an ass-ton of tomatoes in our little raised bed gardens at our old house last year and I was hankering for some home-grown goodness...Whatever the case, I was not pleased with the selection. Then, after careful searching, I found some beautiful little cherry tomatoes grown in Eugene at 'Ladybug Farms'. Yay!! So I picked up a pack of them suckers and took off for some other pillaging.

The quest for tomatoes got me thinking about something my eldest asked me the other day-'Mom, why are tomatoes fruit?' I racked my brain and couldn't remember the reason why, sorry 7th grade biology! So in the absence of true knowledge I did what any 20th century fool would do and turned to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomatoes. See the section about vegetables/fruit.

Tomato tidbit-my littlest one, into shunning anything that can be classified as a vegetable, now enjoys the cherry tomatoes put in her salads-this makes me happy, and makes me think of the song by Pink Martini, "Hang on, Little Tomato".

The sun has left and forgotten me
It's dark, I cannot see
Why does this rain pour down
I'm gonna drown
In a sea
Of deep confusion

Somebody told me, I don't know who
Whenever you are sad and blue
And you're feelin' all alone and left behind
Just take a look inside and you will find

You gotta hold on, hold on through the night
Hang on, things will be all right
Even when it's dark
And not a bit of sparkling
Sing-song sunshine from above
Spreading rays of sunny love

Just hang on, hang on to the vine
Stay on, soon you'll be divine
If you start to cry, look up to the sky
Something's coming up ahead
To turn your tears to dew instead

And so I hold on to his advice
When change is hard and not so nice
You listen to your heart the whole night through
Your sunny someday will come one day soon to you

And last but not least, why did Heinz have to take the pickle off of its bottles of ketchup and replace it with a tomato? Everybody knows ketchup comes from tomatoes, except maybe people who spell it katsup and think it comes from the bloodied pulp of cats....maybe that's just me....Anyway, my eldest, referenced above, made this observation to me, and did not like the replacement of the pickle. She loves pickles and sees it as somewhat of an affront. I sort of agree with her.

All for now.