On the wall

She was eighty-three, with sparse gray hair and liver-spotted, bony hands in mid transmute to distasteful claws. Polish on her manicured nails sparkled in the light of the overhead reading lamp and matched her crimson lips. She was rich but had had a hard life in the small Louisiana Bayou town she lived in since girlhood. Her husband was dead and had been a tough man and bit of a racist--a very successful businessman but didn't like 'the colod folk' She did not miss him. She had not grieved his passing. I could relate to what she said. My compassion reared like a cowboy's mustang.


Her granddaughter was living with a man who'd raped a teenage girl and she believed he should be hanged. I don't believe in the death penalty but I didn't object. Her daughter, living in Pennsylvania, is in her sixties and raising her granddaughters, a boy and his older sister, offspring from two separate trysts. She sends clothes and money and these children love their great grandmother. The Louisiana state wanted to take them after the rape verdict and she spirited them away to Virginia. I admired that. Louisiana rearing children? My compassion intensified.

She was an avid fisher woman in her prime. Her husband had a boat. She loved to fish. She loves to eat catfish, crayfish, salmon, orange roughy, has even tried a bit of sand shark. She also loves all animals and donates to the USPCA and Humane Society. She owned dogs and cats. She had six Labradors and still grieves the loss of the last one six years ago, a yellow female that contracted cancer. I sympathized. Spice came to mind and I stopped breathing for a moment.

"My greatest trophies I have on the walls of my living room," she said.
"What did you catch?"
"Two beauties," she said in her Southern drawl. "Real beautiful. Could even be mother and baby because I caught 'em the same day and place. And I brought them in myself. I fished good."
My interest was piqued. "What sort of fish?"
"Dolphins."
"Dolphins?"
Her eyes widened like mine, though with great pride. "Caught them off the coast of Florida thirty years ago."
"Dolphins aren't fish," I said.
"Sure they are. You can't eat 'em, but they is fish all the same. Company love them when they come into my living room."

I retreated to my novel.

Is your doggie chattel?

Saw an interesting segment on the telly the other night about people divorcing and their animals.

Apparently some married couples and co-habitees, not content to cause huge anguish (and damage) to their kids by raucously playing out the sad demise of their relationship, now are using their family pets as opportunities to inflict distress on the former 'beloved other half'. Some of them take off with the dog and cat and refuse to give the other partner visiting rights.

It's happening so regularly that people (including some judges) involved in sorting out the mess are beginning to wonder if the law that dogs and cats are chattel shouldn't change. By chattel, I mean possessions. Currently, the law is that dogs and cats are 'things' and the party who bought the dog or cat is the legal owner in law, regardless of whether or not the other partner cared or loved it.

The reasoning behind this sea change is that dogs and cats are really regarded as family members nowadays and should be treated in the same way as children when it comes to divorce/separation.

I agree a change is needed. The law's an ass here. (No pun intended.)

Feeding homeless doggies

Here's a very easy way to help feed hungry, homeless doggies.

Mimi, a kid from Oregon, was upset by the number of dogs affected by hurricanes and mortgage foreclosures, etc and has set up a website that's sponsored by a company that donates 20 pieces of kibble to animal shelters for everyone who plays the Bow-Wow trivia game on her site. Initially, it covered her native Oregon but has now expanded.
Since April, over 3 million pieces have been donated. That's a lot of full tummies.

Clicking Free Kibble and playing is a way to feel good about helping feed unlucky animals even if you're not a dog (or cat) owner.

They'll make sure Augusten Burroughs keeps his hands of it.

Obese cats and doggies: some thoughts

Now we're in the throes of summer, people are walking about the streets and parks with their dogs. I was watching one couple--a young man and woman in their early thirties and their young, very fat labrador (American breed because it was taller and had the boxy head)--the other day in a town near where I live and a thought suddenly occurred to me. Do people who are overweight also own animals that are overweight? I began to look around.

Sure enough, all the dogs that were fat belonged to overweight people? I couldn't believe it. Yesterday, I was in NYC to sign my Friday Project contract at my literary agent. Finding some time to spare, I went into Central Park for a bit of research. What did I learn? I learned it isn't just a Pennsylvania phenomenon. All overweight dogs in the park belonged to overweight people. And teh more overweight the dog, the more overweight the owner. So there was a decided correlation

Another idea popped into my head. If these owners managed their animals diets and exercise scrupulously, would they also begin to manage their own diets and exercise regimes too? It's very possible. Maybe that's the way toward a more healthy society. Focus on the fat percentage of our animals, not on our own weight. Hey presto.

The only other way I think the health of a nation can be improved is if the government mandates that we go to gyms in the same way they mandate that all children must be educated to a certain grade. As part of that initiative, they could give corporations tax benefits if they enroll their employees in gyms and pay fro the indigent to go to gyms, etc. they coudl alos impose higher taxes on corporations producing junk food, food with too many calories due to too much saturated fat and/or sugar.

It probably wouldn't go down well in the US where many people are hypersensitive about governmental interference in their private lives. But hey, we allow the government to set the rules for school kids attending school and we monitor their attendance. We do so because it's a legitimate benefit to society to have an educated population. So why can't we do it in this area. It's a legitimate benefit to society to stamp out obesity. It would produce a healthy population and we'd save billions of dollars on medical bills for heart disease, diabetes and a raft of other ills. And we'd have healthy dogs and cats, too.