Holiday hysteria - it's a gas.

I realize that after admitting the following transgression Heraldo will never make out with me in the backseat of my car again, but while accompanying Bee to her holiday party in Crescent City yesterday, I bought toothpaste at Walmart.

The checkout line was so long that I started to wrestle with the wrapper of the large box of peppermint candy I was also purchasing so that we could eat some while waiting. (They were those delectable melt-aways. I couldn't help myself.)

Suddenly Bee nudged me. "Did you see that?"

I hadn't.

"Some guy just stole something and ran out the door. He threw the box right there."

Not wanting to pry myself away from the task at hand of ripping the plastic off the peppermints, I didn't look up. "What'd he steal?" I asked her.

She giggled. "Beano."

I laughed. "Ha! Yeah, right." I had finally gotten the box open and handed her a peppermint.

"No, seriously. He slipped the Beano out of the box and into his pocket, threw the box down, and ran out the door. Look."

I looked to the place where her finger pointed, and there it was. An open empty box that used to contain Beano.

Why things like this strike me as hilarious is a mystery unto itself, but I laughed until the tears rolled down my face and my stomach hurt and the Walmart clerk looked questioningly at Bee while wondering if she was going to have to call 911.



For a split second on our way out the door I felt a twinge of guilt that neither one of us said anything to an employee about the shoplifter. But then I just shrugged my shoulders because, truly, a person who has to steal Beano from Walmart doesn't really need any more problems in his life.

Mmmmmmm....cider

Walking around the Farmer's Market today on a mission to pick up some Oaxaca Mama salsa, I was reminded by the gigantic piles of gorgeous produce all around me that September is Local Food Month here in Humboldt. As previously mentioned, every day should be about eating locally as far as I'm concerned, but if you haven't discovered the bounty we've got going on here, now is certainly a good time.

My suggestion? Get yourself down to Fortuna right now and pick up some Clendenen's apple cider. This little roadside stand complete with an orchard in the back has been pressing cider since 1909, and they're still doing it the same old-fashioned, unpasteurized way. Pasteurization takes away that just-picked-from-the-tree taste, and Clendenen's refuses to do it and lower the quality of their cider. Thanks to the whole nasty Odwalla E. Coli outbreak in 1996, you can't buy Clendenen's cider in stores anymore - only from the Cider Works itself. And that's not such a bad thing because then you might get to meet Clif.

Not only does Clif Clendenen make the best freakin' cider in the world, he doesn't let a majority of irritating Fortunans who constantly complain about having to drive clear to the metropolis of Eureka to buy underwear (will somebody puhleeze open a damn clothing store down there so they'll shut up already?) sway his opinion that a big box like Walmart won't be anything but a sprawling blight on the town he obviously loves. Clif rocks. He'll tell you all about which apples went into the cider you're buying, since it varies based on what's ripe. He knows the subtle differences of the myriad of honey bottles warmly glowing in the window. He'll even show you the cider press if you'd like, and if you're really lucky to be there on a day that they're making it, he'll give you a sample straight off the press.

I always grab a few bottles when I go - at least one to share with an uninitiated friend who will be frightened by the warning label but immediately converted by the taste. And another to put in the back of the pantry. The beauty of unpasteurized cider is that in a few weeks when you pull it out, it's fermented, bubbly and tastes like the sweetest apple champagne.

And unlike thinking about a Walmart invading your town, the splitting headache you'll have in the morning is totally worth it.