My Huckleberry Friends

Doesn't that sound like something you'd see on a box of impossibly cute (and super cheesy) Japanese candy?

Come play with your Huckleberry Friends!

We have super happy day! 

(insert picture of dancing berries with vague humanoid features, 

fake looking scenery 

and smiling huckleberry bushes holding hands)

I blame my obsession with cheesy Asian candy on Choco Boy, the cookies I saw at a grocery once upon a time. "Have fun with your friend Choco Boy!" it advertised. And there he was, little Choco Boy (looking more like a mushroom) tongue sticking out and feet sliding everywhere as he attempted to hang on to the words. His sidekick, a tiny green-billed bird, looked as though he'd just been kicked in the head by Choco Boy and was spiralling off to the side, smiling in a rather dazed fashion, head surrounded by stars. The biscuits resembled mushrooms in the cover art. I was captivated. I bought the kids a box each. We exclaimed over their cuteness.

The cookies inside tasted like rancid oil. No one would eat them. That's hydrogenated palm oil for you.

While we were at the beach I managed to pick several quarts of huckleberries. These are the red variety of huckleberry, tart and juicy, and they were everywhere this year. I had some children (they might have been mine) helping me pick all those huckleberries, although sadly they were neither smiling nor frolicking when they were picking those berries. I closed my eyes a couple of times and pretended they were floating on little blue clouds over happy mushrooms instead of what they were really doing, which went kind of like this:

"How long do we have to do this?"
"How many huckleberries do I have to pick before I can go?"
"I could be swimming right now."
"Do you really need help doing this? Don't you like doing this?"
"How come you pick so much faster than I do?"

"FDPG is picking my bush!"

"Dominic is picking my bush!"

"I got here first!"

"No, I did!"

"Will you two stop arguing and start PICKING?"

"Wait! Where are you two going?"

Fortunately when we got home everyone remembered our huckleberry days in a more favourable light. Especially when we were eating the huckleberry jam. And the huckleberry crisp. And the fresh huckleberries on our dinnertime salads.

Phew. Thanks, Choco Boy.