Ope, It's Sugar Sports Season!

Sugar Sports 2020 has begun.

Joy costs $1.99 a box.

It started earlier this week with my finally buying... tada!... cordial cherries! I know these are just a cheap brand of cordial cherries, but I absolutely love them. I can't stop eating them once I start, which is why I wait until Thanksgiving week to buy any.

Sugar Sports aren't supposed to start too early. They last for about a month and a half.

Kara and I practiced for it for the past few weeks with different batches of cookies. She made chocolate chip cookies at least twice, and I made lemon cake mix cookies. I ate almost all of them because my family doesn't like lemon as much as I do. Now I know what to make when I want a pile of sugar without sharing. Hehehe.

Sugar Sports this week has included mountains of pumpkin pie and several varieties of pumpkin pie cake and pecan pie, zucchini bread and mini pumpkin muffins.

Kids turned loose on the cookie decorating.

We've had sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles and marshmallows and chocolate chips and Redhots--however the kids chose to decorate them. Then we ate the cookies plain, too.

We savored delectable buttery sandwich cookies with an icing filling. I won't be admitting to how many of those I ate. (Thank you to my brother for making them, and to Kara for helping him.)

The kids had candy canes as they put up the Christmas tree.

Aunt K made apple crisp; we ate the leftovers for breakfast (healthy, right?). Uncle G made cinnamon applesauce Jello. Aunt S made the best cranberry salad. Aunt J had an entire platter full of various brownies. I made sugar cream pie.

Then there is apple cider and pop and fancy creamers in coffee.

We had stollen and muffins for breakfast. Honey and jam on biscuits.

To cap off the evenings with company, we had ice cream in four different flavors.

Don't forget all the whipped cream. Whipped cream in coffee, whipped cream on cake, whipped cream on pie, whipped cream on cookies, whipped cream just because.

Then there are the testing sites--kitchens, that is--of all the doughs and batters and sweet concoctions that are produced in it.

Ope, just remembered the sugar cereal. We found one that is green with "Elf" written on the front of the box. Just another variety of sugary corn that sells because a popular movie character is on it.

In case you're not familiar with ope, it's a nonsensical word used in the Midwest as an introduction to just about any sentence. It's pronounced with a long "o" just as it's written, and it sounds best with a slight Minnesota accent.

• Ope, missed my cue.

• Ope, after you.

• Ope, too much salt on that.

• Ope, gotta go.

• Ope, they just put a new building over there.

• Ope, there's my neighbor.

• Ope, almost ran into you.

• Ope, ran over you.

• Ope, watch da door.

• Ope, we gotta new stop and go light.

• Ope, did you see da Bears play?

• Ope, did you see da Bulls play?

• Ope, forgot to take out da trash.

• Ope, dere's Bob gettin' trashed.

• Ope, dere's a moose coming through your front door. Ope, that's just Martha.

• Ope, de Apocalypse just started.

As you can see, it's fitting in almost every situation.

Just don't say it to your wife, as in: "Ope, missed your birthday again."

That could be dangerous.

Better to say: "Ope, dat's da biggest diamond da guy had. Happy birthday, pretty lady." After that, it might be safe to say: "Ope, get me a beer while you're up... pretty lady?"

P.S. It's not my birthday. What I wrote just now popped into my head for reasons unknown to me. And I'm stopping now before this descends into further depths of nonsense.