The Hounds Are Gone

In 1936, my grandmother wrote a letter to her parents in which she announced that her younger brother David had written her a "note with only 9 lines on it." She included a transcription:

Dear Mimi,
You did not write a letter to me. Daddy and Mother left on Friday. Nana is here. The hounds are gone.
Good-bye,
David.

I imagine the hounds racing through the woods chasing deer and then camping in an abandoned cabin, drinking whiskey, and toasting their freedom.

The Shit

Not sure the founders had @shitmydadsays in mind when they invented Twitter. They could have, though. It's that obviously a hit, that perfect a fit.

It's a 28 year old son living with his 73 year old father and writing down "the shit that he says."

A taste...

"The dog don't like you planting stuff there. It's his backyard. If you're the only one who shits in something, you own it. Remember that."

Teriyaki Science

My grandfather took a bunch of us relatives to dinner tonight.  Hibachi-style Japanese.  The shrimp the dude threw to Hal (the grandfather) hit him in the forehead.

They give you heaps of food at those places.  Hal couldn't eat all his.  Or drink more than three sips of his non-alcoholic (or, as he calls it "decaffeinated") beer.

So I took his leftovers home (because I don't like wasting food) for the animals (because I don't eat meat).  Food leftovers, not beer leftovers.

He had ordered the beef chicken shrimp combo and left pieces of all three meats.

Noticing this fact, I decided to conduct a very important science experiment...

I put a piece of shrimp, a piece of chicken, and a piece of beef in front of Beans the kittencat (almost a year old: maybe still a kitten; maybe a cat now; unclear).

He licked the shrimp first, kinda bit at it, moved on to the beef, ate it, ate the chicken, and then ate the shrimp.

Then I gave him just beef and chicken (because that was clearly the next logical step in the scientific process).

He ate the chicken and then walked away from the beef.*

As you can tell, the results of the experiment were inconclusive.

But Beans definitely knows that I love him.

*Note: The dog was very happy about this.

This Is a Farewell Kiss, Dogg

According to New York Times translators, as the shoe flew from his hand and toward President Bush, Muntadar al-Zeidi screamed:

This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog.

Gawker, seeking brevity and quite likely poetry as well, adjusted it to:

This is a farewell kiss, dog.

I figured I'd take the next logical step and add that second G

Animal Priorities

The dog food around here lives in a can.  A sort of miniature garbage can looking thing.  It's probably made of aluminum, but it has that saltstained look of galvanized steel.

Anyway, when I went to feed the dogs this morning, there was mouse in the can.  Just hanging out, looking up at me.  Fat, happy, and wondering what to do now that a huge, funny looking, non-mouse was looking down at him.

I figured Beans the kitten might be interested, so I caught the mouse in a ziplock bag. 

Beans was standing at the door and meowed when I walked up.  I opened the bag for him.  He looked in, sniffed, looked back at me, meowed again, and turned toward the door again.

I let him out and followed him with the bagged mouse.

He peed.

And then he came over to me, rubbed on my leg, had another half-curious sniff at the bag, took off full speed up a tree, leapt* down, charged at me, feigned an attack, and then galloped off into the bushes, daring me to chase.

Not in the mood for mice, apparently.

I let the mouse out of the bag, went inside, and told this story to the dogs.

Angus the little black dog yawned and went back to sleep.  Rollie the big yellow dog asked if it'd be ok if he went outside and wrestled with Beans a little bit.

I opened the door.

*Note: Leapt isn't a word?  It's leaped?  Really?  Weird.