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Little Orange Balls: A Completely Unsolicited Guest Post by K.B. Owen

K.B. Owen is a true cyber buddy. She listened to me whimper when my computer crashed and when I had some medical stuff going on. And she sent me this amazing “extended comment” in response to my Tingo Tuesday post. I had to share it here. Because it is that awesome, and because it should give you some idea of how talented and giving K.B. Owen is. Check out her blog and follow her on Twitter @kbowenwriter! Kathy is truly one of the most wonder tweeps out there.

If you’d like to win a chance to win some December sidebar linky-love, you are up against K.B. and a bunch of other folks. The comments are amazing, and you can enter to win until November 30. Interested? You don’t have to be a blogger to win. Click HERE for details.

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My Grief Bacon, by K.B. Owen

My “Grief Bacon” story involves the blizzard of 2010 – aka “Snowmageddon, ” “Snowpocalypse,” “Snowzilla,” and “snOMG”… and cheeseballs.

Yep, cheeseballs. I know, I’m not proud of it. I’d much rather be carrying around this surplus fifteen pounds because of homemade butter spritz cookies, or macaroni and cheese, or even pie, but it’s really the cheeseballs that did it.

Target is partly to blame.

(No, really. But I’ll get back to that in a moment.)

So, anyway, the Blizzard was coming. The weather forecasters in Northern Virginia – who don’t see much in the way of snow on a regular basis, I might add – were practically wetting themselves in excitement. Our local weather guy has a “Bread-O-Meter” that he pulls out when he makes snow predictions on the air. It’s named after how fast the bread goes flying off the shelves when folks around here start panicking, even when there’s only a dusting of snow on the ground. For the first time in the 20+ years that I’ve been living in the area, his Bread-O-Meter was a 10 – a designation he also refers to as “Run for the Hills.”

Hmm…looks like I need to get ready! I have to admit that I was excited. We don’t see much snow around here, and it sounded like we’d be digging tunnels out of the stuff (and we were). Time to inventory the gloves, hats, boots, flashlights, batteries, Parmalat, etc.

List in hand, I headed to Target because they have everything – food, DVDs, batteries, clothing – all in one place. We had to be prepared for a possible power outage, and since we didn’t have an SUV, we needed to be able to stick it out at home.

So I’m doing fine, making my way through the list, being sensible in my food choices (non-perishable, nutritious, etc), when I see…this ENORMOUS clear plastic bin of cheeseballs. As high as my knee, and the size of a tall drum. O.M.G. This was the sort of thing I’d pass by when the boys were little. They’d be sitting in their shopping cart seats, and point to it and drool.

Ooh! Can we get that?

Nooo.

Mmmmm....Cheeseballs
Mmmmm….Cheeseballs (Photo credit: phot0matt)

But this time, it was different. My survival instincts were kicking in. I knew those cheeseballs  would keep forever. Fat calories for keeping warm. And yummy.

In retrospect, I’m not quite sure what was going through my brain, but I put it in my cart.

The boys were super-impressed with mom plunking this huge canister of cheeseballs on top of the fridge. Hubster rolled his eyes.

The devil had entered our house.

But I was blissfully ignorant. I had visions of the pretty snow, of kids sledding and building forts and missing school, of me making hot chocolate and drying mittens and boots beside the fire while reading, my hubby home from work to hang out with us.

And you know what? That was all true.

But then we got a little bored, and the kids couldn’t really play in snow that was so deep they kept sinking into it up to their hips; hubby and I had work to do, but shoveling was all we could accomplish (and where to put the stuff was our biggest mental challenge). The schools were closed, the roads were closed, the stores were closed. And it was okay; we were making do. We knew it was temporary.

But the cheeseballs had become an extra guest in our house. That canister was so easy to dip into. It’s okay, I thought, as I filled another bowl. I’ll be shoveling snow later. So we’d play a board game, and I’d munch on cheeseballs. The boys ate some, too, but I think I was the one who kept going back to it, again and again, until it was gone.

I feel stuffed just thinking about it.

Here’s one of the pics from the blizzard. Our cars are in there somewhere.

There are cars under there, people!

• • •

My thoughts are with the folks who are experiencing yet another storm. I hope everybody got their batteries and their water. And their cheeseballs. Stay warm.

39 thoughts on “Little Orange Balls: A Completely Unsolicited Guest Post by K.B. Owen

  1. As a fellow Northern Virginian I have fond memories of Snowmageddon (ha, it is really called that, WordPress editors)! As far as cheeseballs, I was cured from their sly temptations in third grade. My friend Hannah found live orange creatures crawling around in the cheeseballs.
    “Ewww” screamed a lunch table of girls!

  2. Ah yes, the allure of cheeseballs. I once bought that tub of balls for my son’s preschool class when they asked for a parent contribution of snacks. I figured since the kids loved those cheese curl things so dang much that if I bought that, it would last not only for whatever party they were having, but for months afterwards. I’m pretty sure it didn’t last quite that long. Those things never seem to.

    For Snowmageddon, I was trapped in my house (MD here) for 4 days straight with 2 young boys and NO husband, as he was stuck in Toronto. Good times, good times. Oh wait, no it wasn’t . . . I was going plum crazy by day 2. And I didn’t have any cheeseballs to distract me. Drats.

    1. Wow, Misty, you had a tough time of it! If I’d known, I would have launched some balls your way (whoop it up, Renee! I just said “launch some balls” LOL). 😀

  3. You had me at ‘snOMG,’ K.B. I am so stealing that! I mean, borrowing. Imitation is the sincerest form of…okay, listen. Trade you – I have some cheese balls somewhere.

  4. Absolutely precious! I adore K.B., even more so now—if that’s even possible. Her story’s so well scripted, I now feel chock-full, make that stuffed, with cheese balls. Fantastic post. Thanks for the fun, Renee! Really dug everyone’s comments and your original post, too. 🙂

  5. Cheeseballs, huh?
    We’re having a winter wonderland/snow warning/snOMG kinda day here too.
    But cheeseballs?? I’m thinking red wine..

  6. Renee, thank you so much for elevating my comment of cheeseball shame to full-blown-post status. You’re a dear cyber-friend, and I can’t wait to meet you in person one of these days! Muah!

      1. Oh, I’ve known Perry longer than I’ve known you, Renee! We’ve been in each other’s mashes and comments for a while. IYKWIM. Not too long of a while, mind you, since we’re both so young. 😉

        1. Gasp! You have? You mean, I don’t get to be a yenta here and try to match you up? And I don’t mean in a J-Date kind of way. Just in a he’s cool, she’s cool, we’re all cool kind of way. Dang. 😉 #ConnectorAtPlay

  7. Smowmageddon!!! It was an annual event in Northern New York, oh…for the first thirty years of my life. The first of the year brought January thaw and then February freeze up, when all the thawed snow turned to ice, freezing water pipes, outdoor oil drums, car gas lines, batteries, rubber tires in driveway “puddles.” Glad it was when I was younger…

    1. D’Alta! I know of what you speak. Remember that year we all lost power and it was May! And it was freezing. Misery! There should not be snow in May. Not like that kind of snow. Oy! There wasn’t even a chance get out and get cheese balls for that one. 😉

      1. Do I ever?!?! CROP walking in heavy wet snow, dragging my Lab-Dob mix through the muddy mix. Poor dog. I put a t-shirt on him. Covered with muddy muck by the time we finished. Hot bath for both of us at the end-NOT AT THE SAME TIME!!

  8. You KNOW how much I LOVE BALLS! Balls of food are my favorite things ever, followed closely by food on a stick.
    I’ve seen these giant tubs of orange balls. I’ve been tempted by them several times. But I can NOT bring myself to do it, and after reading the comment above about the orange creatures, I’m even MORE glad that I resisted.

    1. I LOVE food on a stick. Beef on a stick = the best. It’s true. I used to eat grapes on toothpicks. Just because. But have you ever tried to put a cheese ball on a stick? It doesn’t work. I guess that’s the way the cheese ball crumbles! 😉

  9. Good gravy! I can’t imagine that much SNOW! (Living here in Southeast Texas.)

    I’m in love with the term “grief bacon.” Cheeseballs sounds like a perfect candidate. Fabulous story, Kathy!

  10. Renee – You called it. Kathy is a gem! I loved this story, especially the line about letting the devil in! Perfect! At first I thought this was about the other cheese balls – those softball sized hunks of processed cheese covered in nuts. My babysitter told me this morning she gained 7 pounds from eating those with her mom non-stop over the past two months. I was impressed. Note to self – step away from the cheese ball aisles. Both kinds. Great post!

  11. Ha! I remember that storm. We were in Cleveland at the time, land of much snow anyways, but it was still a lot of snow, even for us. I can totally relate to the rationalizing and the repeat dips into a large container of non-healthy food. Oh, I’ve been there. Great post. Thank you!

      1. Rochester + Cleveland + Snow = STUCK ON THRUWAY!!!!

        Thank God I was celibate or menopausal when making that trip!! Heard too many pregnant and stuck on the Thruway stories. Up in the far, frozen North, we had snowmobiles and cross-country skis. I was really young then… 🙂

  12. As much as I pine for the the days of living somewhere with seasons, I would probably be in trouble in quite the cheeseball fashion.

    “What do you MEAN I don’t need the 10 gallon container of hot chocolate? It’s cold! We might be trapped! EATALLTHETHINGS!”

    (Loved your story. 🙂 )

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