You know there’s something terribly wrong when you, who have a voracious appetite, only finish half your dinner, and then turn your nose up at breakfast. And then to placate someone who cares for you, you attempt to eat a little something only to have it double whammy you. Such is what I am going through right now; just not quite in the manner you might think. A pattern is slowly beginning to emerge. In recent years, it seems that each time I go out of town and leave Abby at a kennel, she comes home with tummy troubles, usually within 3 -7 days of coming home.
It all started last week when she refused to eat some spilled blueberries. I make mention of this, because as most know, Abby rarely refuses any sort of food. I thought it odd, but she is getting up there in age, and I wondered if she wasn’t becoming a more responsible eater, less of a glutton (ha!) Then someone suggested that it just might be sympathetic anorexia for Mary Kate (Olsen) and Abby is putting her little paw down her throat so she can keep her girlish figure. But Abby doesn’t even know Mary Kate, so that’s not it. Besides she just doesn’t give up food, eaten or already eaten just because of sympathy, for anybody.
So now, the little miss is spending the day at the very expensive Vet’s. Let’s hope its nothing more than a stomach virus or some such malady. Lets also hope the bill doesn’t top $300.
An Army Ranger and a Marine found themselves sharing the latrines. The Ranger finished first and walked out without washing his hands. The Marine watched in disgust, finished his piss, washed his hands, caught up to the Ranger and said, “In the Marine Corps, we were taught to wash our hands after taking a leak.”
The Ranger replied, “In the Rangers, we were taught not to piss on our hands.”
My friend Paul from Knoxville sent this to me today. Reading it makes
me see how shallow my life sometimes seems. Perhaps this feeling is compounded after reading a book by Mitch Albom, called The Five People You Meet
in Heaven.
The book’s premise: in order to understand your life and your place in the
world you have to live it, and then when you die, 5 random dead people from
your past explain it to you. Sounds a little strange, but its actually
a wonderful book. Anyway, this column kind of turned me up side down.
But who said we were always supposed to be comfortable throughout our lives?
Enough about me, here are first Paul’s words, and then finally, Ben Stein’s.
From Paul:
For many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column for the online web site
called “Monday Night At Morton’s”. Now, Ben is terminating the column
to move on to other things in his life. Reading his final column to our
military is worth a few minutes of your time because it praises the most unselfish
among us; our military personnel, others who protect us daily and portrays a
valuable lesson learned in his life.
Ben Stein’s Last Column:
How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today’s
World?
As I begin to write this, I “slug” it, as we writers say, which means
I put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is
“eonlineFINAL,” and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing
this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I loved
writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end.
It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the
world’s change have overtaken it.
Read the rest here: http://www.eonline.com/Gossip/Morton/Archive/2003/031220.html
For the hard to please gardener in your life, why not get them one of these? It’s always interesting what one finds while perusing other pals blogs. If it weren’t for my pals, I might never learn a thing!
Anyway, the last time a titan arum, or corpse flower opened in the northeast was in the 1930s, at the New York Botanical Garden. Fewer than two-dozen have flowered in the United States since the titan arum bloomed for the first time in cultivation, at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England, in 1889.
Currently at 59.25″ inches tall, the corpse flower has grown from 2″ on May 20th to its current towering height. The folks at UConn are predicting the flowering should occur soon, as the characteristic stench that accompanies the blossom’s opening is growing beyond all endurance. And, if you live in the UConn area, you could even go visit the mutant flower and get a whiff for yourself. Sounds like such a fun thing to do on a summer day. Shame I live in Maryland…
Not to cast aspersions on my host provider, but when the server migration
occurred, I lost 1, count ’em 1, entry to the blog and it was about this web
site: Bush/Zombie Reagan in ’04. Any number of things
could have happened to cause the deletion of this entry, including my own determined
if deluded fingers hitting the delete key.
But no matter. I am putting it back up, because as much as I dislike Bush,
I really believe Zombie Reagan can make a difference in this country as Vice
President. Who else can one say is quite so resilient, if not necessarily, in
one piece or all that great smelling? Certainly not Cheney. And I like their
ideology. The Zombie Reagan press conferences called “Eat the Press” are compelling (and funny!)
for what was not said.
Best of all, though, is that the site, while a creation of sick and twisted
mind (gotta love him!) raises funds for Alzheimer’s research.
It’s not too late. You can help make a difference.
Just wanted to give everyone a heads up: Spiderman 2 is fabulous! Go see it this weekend if you get the chance. It is better than the first one, with greater character development, more action and an excitingly paced plot. I laughed, I cried (yes, I’m a sap) and sometimes, the action had me jumping out of my seat. I was also pleasantly surprised by a plot twist. The sequel is somehow better than the original — bring on the next sequel!
One thing, I was struck by, yet again – Kristen Dunst needs to go see her orthodontist and ask about the option of getting invisalign for those snaggly canines. With what she probably made off of this film, surely she can afford it…
Okay, now back to my vacation…
