Month: December 2022

Dash the Dashing Scholar

It’s almost been a year since we got ‘cha, Dash! And in that year you have slithered your way into my heart of hearts with your warm affection and inane antics. You have awakened our otherwise sometimes dim and dull household into a veritable circus!

Case in point. Notice the book in the picture? This is the second time I have found one of my books in his bed. He truly looks like he’s cozied up for a long afternoon of reading.

But books aren’t the only odd thing Dash absconds with. Have you ever seen a dog scamper off with an attachment for the vacuuming machine? Or an errant toothbrush? The scariest object of theft was when he came prancing into the living room with a razor sticking out of both sides of his mouth.

It is most fortunate that Dash allows me to pry open (sort of) his mouth to remove his found treasures, and doubly fortunate that no damage has been thusly done.

New Year’s Resolution for Mom — put things away and up high! (Dash can jump in the bathtub and grab whatever is on the tub). New Year’s Resolution for Dash — stop being so cute when you steal something.

The Rotisserie Chicken Rodeo

My reverie of rotisserie chickens goes back many moons when I was on the cusp of giving up my vegetarianism and the smell of rotisserie chickens roasting away in Wegmans pushed me over the edge.

Ever since then I have been addicted to the rotisserie chickens from Wegmans. They were juicy on the inside and pleasingly crunchy on the outside and I relished feasting on at least one every week. In short order, they became my favorite food.

These little epicurean treasures were just $4.99 – a very economical choice as one chicken afforded me at least two or three meals.

However, little by little, the chickens got smaller and the taste not as good. Then, one day and out of the proverbial blue, the price of what had become ridiculously little birds rose to $9.99!

Goodbye Wegmans rotisserie chickens.

Rabblerouser that I can be, I started a thread on a social media site about the outrageousness of the new price on the Wegmans chickens. Many people hopped on my bandwagon with comments containing similar outrage as well as suggestions for alternatives. It became apparent that rotisserie chickens were a sought-after staple for many besides me.

Hello B.J.s.

Yep, my alternative of choice became B.J.s where the birds were twice as big and ten times juicier, for just $4.99. However, along with this came the rotisserie chicken rodeo.

The word evidently got out, because the rotisserie chicken tray was often empty, and a hoard of people was gathered around it and the oven that was in the process of roasting the beautiful birds that find their way into the tray. When the bell signaled the chickens were done, the crowd of people that had gathered to wait for a chicken, or two or three, began to crush forward. Elbows found stomachs, bodies pushed into other bodies, and some outright butted in front of others. It became a rodeo stampede. All of this for a (delicious) $4.99 rotisserie chicken.

So, the moral of this story is, go to Aldis, buy a chicken, take it home, and roast it yourself.

Social Media Viciousness

Several weeks ago, I was given a writing assignment to look at the Quora social media app, and in doing so, I signed up for an account. I am now getting daily digests as a result. The way it works on Quora is that you pose a question that anyone can then answer.

I am astounded and frightened by the many mean, vicious, and downright cruel people in this world, and they abound on social media. Here are some examples of what I mean. The following threads are about Meghan as in Meghan and Harry.

This is a response to the question:

Do you think Prince Harry regrets marrying Meghan Markle?

He is too naive to regret marrying her! She has bewitched him! If you see him with his brother and father and granny and apl members of his family before meeting her, he was perfectly fine. She convinced him he has all these issues and by the way there is no way in hell that Miss Manipulator was suicidal, she really should get an Oscar for that great acting!!! and PLEASE!! when she tried to say she knew nothing about the ROYAL FAMILY before meeting Harry I almost threw up in my mouth! 😂😂😂🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️WOW what an actress! she sure missed her calling!!! All I can say is…Lady leave Harry and the kids, let them go back to his family and you go on your little merry way back to Hollywood, you homewrecker golddigger! 🤮 you make me sick. You and Oprah are so phony! 🤮🤮🤮🤮😡

And here’s another response to the same question:

Of course I’ve never had a personal conversation with him, but the photos, the body language and most of all, the sadness in his face show me (whether or not anybody else) that he does regret making such a huge mistake, alienating his entire family, perhaps allowing her to fake 2 children of all things. I think Harry has about had enough, but I don’t believe he’s brave enough or strong enough to walk away and apply for a divorce. He must truly feel that by not acting like a decent human being and allowing his wife to tell the obvious lies she told on National tv, he has ruined the love the entire nation had for him. I’ve never seen one person throw away absolutely everything just for a person that they KNOW is a user, a liar, a troublemaker, a leech and a money hungry, grubby never was. I feel somewhat sorry for Harry; I continue to see the sad little boy looking so lost among all the flowers laid for his beloved Mother. William was just as hurt, but perhaps better able to cope; again, I’m not an expert on him. Nevertheless lm afraid that Harry will never be able to find his place again in the RF; nobody is going to ever trust him again. He’s going to be a thorn in William’s side forever, I’m afraid. Harry will drift aimlessly for the rest of his life wondering what happened and what went so wrong. Will he blame everybody but himself? That remains to be seen. Let’s all hope so as none of us ever want to see him go thru this again !

I cannot wrap my head around how these people are coming up with their comments! What kind of inside information do they have or are we talking good (scary) imaginations? What has Meghan possibly done to them? Indeed, there is a significant trend diverting lots of bitterness toward Meghan.

On the Other Hand!

However, in fairness to Quora, there is some very good information that does not contain the vitriol shown above. Here’s an example.

Have you ever seen an animal do something heroic?

My mom was dying from liver failure and I wanted her to be able to say goodbye to my horse. I brought her out to the stable in a car then drove her to the stall. She could get out and get into a wheelchair on her own. I told the horse to be calm, to be nice and not to move. I put a small flat wide feed tub like 14″ around on my mom’s lap with yummy treats.

My horse just rested his gigantic head against her face and blew his warm breathe into her lap. It was like he knew how fragile she was, that she was just terribly, terribly sick. I was so ready to step in to protect her from him, but I never needed to.

He was a 17.1hh 1300 lb ex-racehorse (they call them OTTB) and he was normally quite fast and unsafe. He threw 8 people in the 17 years I owned him before he died. So it was a miracle that he was perfectly still and gentle touching her for such a long time. She just rested her face against him. I couldn’t have been more proud of him. He had always been loving with me, and perfectly good natured but I was genuinely shocked that he seemed to understand completely what he should do.

She said “Oh course he was lovey, he loves me”. I just smiled and tried to hide the fact that I was crying happy tears.

Talk about extremes, eh?

Some would advise me to dump Quora. I’m not going to dump Quora because there are truly spiritual and caring gems, as well as solid content, sprinkled within. Likewise, as of now, there are other social sites I sometimes think of deleting, but instead, I am deleting the trolls and ogres and sending positive energy into the universe, instead.