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    • Archive for August, 2009

    Coffee, Coffee, Coffee!


    2009 - 08.18

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    Posted in Kitties & Puppies & Marriage | 2 Comments »

    Occasionally, a new acquaintance will ask me, “Do you like coffee?”

    In the words of Lorelei Gilmore, “Only with my oxygen.”

    What better way to start off the morning (or the afternoon, or a walk around the mall, or a trip to Kentucky…) than with a fresh cup-o-joe?

    So the waking hours of each day are a ritual: I toss off my cocoon of cotton, don some clothes, and take Savvy out to do her business.  She and I come back in and beeline for the kitchen, Savvy for some fresh water and I for the selection of roast beans stored in the freezer.  I stare at the brightly colored cylinders arranged along the freezer door shelf.  A virtual geography lesson of  Ethiopian dark roasts, shade grown blends from Nicaragua, free trade Arabica, and other limited availability coffee beans await my decision.  Savvy nudges my leg for an ice cube.

    The Bolivian blend, I decide.  I cradle my selection close as I peel off the green plastic lid, breathing deeply of the earthy cloud that sighs from the canister.  Each bean frozen in time by the ice box, their slightly acrid scent is fresh and strong.  Savvy crunches on her cold cube, the hollow snapping punctuated by the tinkling noise of beans being measured into the grinder.  And then the beans are messily sacrificed to my hungers.  (The first loud/scary sound Savvy learned to ignore when joining our family was the grinder.  Its whirling crunch is just too common for her to fear it.)  And so I pulverize each bean, chopping and dicing with the spinning blades that twist the coarse mixture into a smooth funnel.

    Into the filter…I silently meditate as I pour the chocolate-coloured waterfall.  And now for water!

    I cross the kitchen and reach for a mug to measure out the perfect “cup”-sized quantities of water and my ritual suddenly goes horribly, horribly wrong.  Savvy is lucky there is no mug indentation on her doggy noggin.

    Me: “Eeeeee-EEEEW!”

    Hubby: “Ew?”

    Me: “Eeeeeee-EEEEEEWWWWW!

    Hubby: (Stumbling in from the other room, eyes still clouded with dreams of sleeping in) “‘Ew’ what?”

    Me: (Hands flapping in the manner unique to those of us who like frilly things) “EEE-EEE-EEEEE-EEWWWWW!”

    Hubby takes the mug and looks past the blue ceramic lips to the shiny bowl that should have been holding my coffee at this point.

    Hubby: EW!  (This in response to, what I assume was, the spider waving vigorously to him).

    Why are the spiders after me?  Why do they seek to spoil all that I hold dear?  They lie in wait under the soft pillow of my bed, they lurk outside the shower (oh great Giver-of-steam-filled-relaxation!) to hold me hostage, and they skitter across my most beloved of shoes as if mocking me to see if their family has taken residence in the leather boot’s toes.

    I dare say the eight-legged freaks are thorax-deep in a Napoleon complex–but the chill of Russian winters is nothing compared to the icy retribution of me without my coffee!  THIS MEANS WAR!

    The poor soldier died in the garbage disposal.  By the pump-action of my recently-purchased pesticide, his comrades will soon follow.

    Velcro On Tippy-Toe


    2009 - 08.08

    Posted in Kitties & Puppies & Marriage | 1 Comment »

    My dog has stalker tendencies, and she’s learning from my cat.

    Savvy is a Velcro dog.  I don’t mean she’s chosen velcro over elastic or snaps in the great “what’s your favorite fastener?” debate, I mean she’s the type of doggie that sticks to you like glue.  Some rescue dogs do this as a result of being abused or neglected, others from a lack of confidence.  Savvy, however, just does it because she’s nosey.

    For instance, when in the kitchen, she offers help with the dishes (“I can lick the gravy off that, if ya want me to!”), putting away the groceries (“Did you remember to get more apples?  I don’t see any apples in this bag. . .”), cleaning out the pantry (“This can of Chef Boyardee is definately expired–I’ll take care of it”); ya know, the usual.  These behaviors are perfectly normal and, since she more or less just observes with those big chocolate eyes, kinda cute.

    But we co-habitat with the Great Bandido, and such is her Power that all things innocent will be tainted by mischief.

    Lumbering German Shepherds are not the first creature to pop into my head when I think “stealthy,” but drat it all if Bandit hasn’t changed that.  After months of watching Bandit silently stalk about the room, Savvy is learning from the nonchalant ninja.  I rifle through my purse, my subconscious dimly aware that Savvy must be in the kitchen because I hear the ticking of her nails on tile, the wet lapping of her tongue in the water dish, but suddenly she is tripping me as I shift my weight.

    “From whence didst thou come?!” I cry out in surprise.  The sable stalker lolls her tongue in a silent giggle and trots off to stare at me from her favorite corner.  She watches.  I wait.  She lays her large skull on clumsy paws, trying to look harmless.

    I sigh and leave the room to fetch something from the master bath, shutting the doors behind me.  From behind the closed door, I hear Savvy playing with her favorite toy: a tennis ball creation that’s shaped like a dumbbell and squeals like a very pitiful, very terrified squirrel.  *Squeak, squ-eeeeeeeeeeeeh, AAK!*  I hear the toy shudder as I turn the doorknob–

    I open the door and there lies Savvy, a furry road block.  She is calmly, serenely, lounging in front of the door.

    “Where is your toy. . . ?”  I scan the room, looking for the bright green shape that, only mere seconds ago, had been loudly protesting the joyful pressure of Savvy’s toothy grin.  Savvy watches me go, seemingly unconcerned with my confusion.  I search the front room and she waits, still reclining by the bedroom door.  I take my search to the kitchen, only to find the dumbbell next to Savvy’s water dish.

    “How on earth did you get all the way to the door–?” I begin to ask, when my own yelp cuts my query short.  Savvy pants up at me, her doggie breath so close that it bursts in hot gushes against my leg.  Not a single tick of toenail on the tile warned of her approach.  Savvy, the sable shadow, lolls her tongue in a goofy grin and slides down to rest on the cool tiles, her dark nails scraping loudly against the white stones.  She waits.

    On the counter across from me, Bandit appears.  I could ask her what she’s done to quiet the once cacophonous approach of my darling Savvy, but I doubt she’d tell me.  Bandit just blinks lazily and stretches on tip-toe, picking her way across the counter while the Velcro puppy and I watch.

    Perhaps, with a bit of begging, I can persuade the Hubby to let me hang a very large bell around Savvy’s neck.

    (Watch As My Opinion Is Deemed “Hate Speech”!)


    2009 - 08.03

    Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

    Government assistance programs are the foundation for the moral decay of the U.S.  That’s right, I said it.

    You are not “entitled” to health care, and a free education is not your “right.”  All we as Americans were promised is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  The PURSUIT of happiness (go watch the movie; not once does Will Smith turn to a government savior and whine, “but you ooooowe me!”).

    In recent years, it seems like more and and more people think they were promised a guarantee of happiness, and they will even go so far as to argue that if there isn’t a guarantee of it in the constitution, then there should be–because life has been too hard for them since they were born a woman, minority, below the poverty level, etc.  (Of course, the writers of the Declaration and the Constitution were all white males, so perhaps we should ask Sotomayor to revise a “wiser” foundation for our society.)

    Even Representatives and Senators have adopted the word “entitled” into their vocabulary when discussing proposed laws that have not yet even been passed.  How can I have a legal right to something, be “entitled” to something, when it is not yet law?

    All this pandering to soothe the ego of the growing number of people dependent on government aid has publicly excused a mentality of ungratefulness.  Welfare is no longer something that one is thankful for, no longer a bridge from a time of hardship to the recovery, it is something “owed.”  Moreover, it’s apparently too little; “How dare you give me such meager free money?”  Such is the mindset that leads to generational welfare dependency.

    Am I claiming that all government assistance recipients act this way?  Of course not!  Unfortunately, such is the climate of our society that the media isn’t interested in highlighting the happy, and the government lime-lighters aren’t tripping over themselves to publicly address the contented.  Many administrations have used fear and a sense of urgency (or else certain doom awaits!) to sway the opinions of the masses, and this time around is no different.  People are losing jobs, but it has yet to hit the record 12% reached during Carter’s administration.  And no Capitol official can make a fail-proof plan to save anyone; we were told unemployment would level out at 8% if only we passed the stimulus plans that have us more deeply-entrenched in debt than ever before, but the numbers are already tottering around 9%.

    What ever happened to “Ask not what your country can do for you”?  Nowadays, we ask “How much can we bleed from those rich, evil fat cats before they scream?”  We can either let the “evil” wealthy keep their “dirty” money and use it expand their “greed-filled” empires to provide more jobs, or we can beat them with a rod for their “detestable” practice of capitalism, raise the taxes on both their personal income as well as their businesses until their profit margins choke, and then curse them for laying off employees when they can barely keep the lights on.

    What favors are we doing for people when we tell them the “fat cats” providing over 50% of the free fish are evil men?  What favors are we doing if we don’t constantly push a fishing pole into the hands of assistance recipients and tell them, “You have to learn, because I won’t always be able to do it for you”?  What favors have we done if we enable a lifestyle that is founded upon a dependency, and convince the dependent that they are utterly incapable of helping themselves?  We shouldn’t be growing dependency in this country, we should be doing our best to shrink it.  In the face of a push for socializing health care in America (yes, I’m using dirty words), I think of Margaret Thatcher’s quote, “The problem with socialism is that you very quickly run out of other people’s money.”  If we continue to tell people that they are “entitled” to other people’s money, that one person making “too much” money for himself and his family marks him as inherently evil and thus a suitable target for Robin Hood taxing, where will the line be drawn?  How can we stop the diseased spread of envy when someone will always have just a little more, and “more” has been deemed wrong?

    When there is no more “other people’s money,” who will have lost the most?