That's what I could buy with my $15 Albertson's gift card. Or parts of it
anyway. Won it tonight by playing the Monopoly game. Yay me!

I also heard that all of the Safeway's and Albertsons in this area will soon
be Haggen. I am not sure how I feel about this. I grew up with a Haggen
within walking distance of my house. So my mom would have me walk up there
on occasion for things like a tomato, celery, a pound of hamburger or
perhaps just to get out of her hair for a while. They were fine for things
like that but not where we normally did all of our shopping.

My dad preferred another Haggen that was a few miles away because they had
this odd little clothing section and also an expanded garden shop. I had
considered applying to be the garden shop manager but decided against it
after learning the parameters of the job. I would have to drive back and
forth between the two stores to make sure all of the plants were kept
watered. That wouldn't even be an issue for me now but at the time I had a
1970 Ford Maverick that liked to break down on me at least once a week.

The clothing that they sold in those days was quite nice. Boutique type
stuff. May not have even been owned by Haggen. Not sure. I think they
even had shoes for a time and perhaps some gift items. My mom seemed to be
partial to it so it was great for when my dad had to buy her a gift. But
that was then and this is now.

The Top Foods (owned by the same company who owns Haggen) went out in this
area but the one in Woodinville has already been converted to a Haggen. I
went in there one day when I had some time on my hands and only needed to
buy a couple of food items that Target didn't have. Overall I was shocked
at the high prices! They took out some things, like the salad bar and tried
to make it very upscale looking, although I'm not sure how upscale the
products really are. They had what appeared to be a nice selection of
cheeses but I needed no cheese that day so didn't do much other than glance.

I did need some candy as I had low blood sugar while in there. They had
what appeared to be an extensive selection of bulk candies until I began
actually looking at the wares. Nope. Really crappy, cheap candy, some of
it displayed in several different places. Such as one kind of red colored
candy in 4 different spots. No brand name listed for most of the stuff and
it was all a "may contain traces of...". So I wound up not buying any. I
can't remember now what I did buy but not even all of what was on my short
list and I carried one thing out in each hand. No bag. I can't remember
what the item was now, but some sort of prepared, refrigerated thing that
sells for around $3 at Winco and they wanted $7something for it. No thanks.

Does anyone have a Haggen in their area? The person who gave me the news
about this said that she read an article and overall they are purported to
have good prices on standard things like eggs and milk. And I know that
their brand has good prices. I haven't tried much of it. I think I have
bought canned vegetables and they were fine.