A rose by any other name.

Our Irish Setter, Rose, is very dear to us. She and her English Springer Spaniel sister, Kate, even have their own website, Rose and Kate's.

Rose is only 4 years old but she's been through a lot. When she was only 6 months old she was diagnosed with kidney failure which is fatal. Turns out the tests and diagnosis was wrong. She's fine.

When she was a year old she was bitten by a rattle snake. Yup. Brian was working in the yard and Rose kept pushing in front of him. Finally the snake struck Rose instead of Brian. She recovered, the snake didn't.

She's four years old now. Last week when I was brushing her, I noticed one of her canine teeth was a bit purplish. Odd. She was due for a check up and some immunizations so I took her to the vet. Her tooth had been chipped. The blood vessel inside had burst and was destroying the pulp inside the tooth. She had to have an emergency root canal. The dead pulp gets infected and travels down the root of the tooth into the jaw bone.

When a person has a root canal it's expensive enough, but with dogs (and cats) it's even more so because they have to go under general anesthetic. It seems puppies don't listen when the dentist says "open wide."

Dee

Do you ever get confused looking at all the diet books, websites, articles and blogs? I certainly do. Yesterday as I was grocery shopping (buying only fresh fruit and veggies and free range chicken of course) the headline "IS YOUR CELL PHONE MAKING YOU FAT?" hit me right between the eyes.

My cell phone?????

It turns out that cell phones emit Electromagnetic Frequencies EMF. EMF is interpreted by your body as a danger. The cells in your body freeze up in response to what they perceive as an attack and hold on for dear life to the toxins trapped within them. Trapped toxins lead to a sluggish metabolism and weight gain.

Of course the article went on to say that there was this little microchip that you could buy that counteracted the EMF and coaxed the body cell's to loosen up and start acting normally. The result was weight loss.

I dunno. It seems fishy to me. Oh, that's the other way to counter act EMF. Consuming 4 to 6 grams of Omega 3 fatty acids, or fish oil.

Oh well.

Dee

Fricasseed Troll -- or how to get rid of wild pigs

Have you ever been complacently posting on a board, and suddenly, without warning a troll shows up? You know one of those nasty little critters whose sole intent is to disrupt the discussion and turn all attention to itself? Well now you can do something with them.

Stun the creature with a well placed retort, then coax into the open with the promise of lots of platitudes. While the troll is mesmerized with its reflection, slowly squeeze the life out by totally ignoring it. Trolls can be stubborn and keep resurfacing, so diligence is required. On occasion a troll will try to escape by whining with a high pitched poooor meeee, poooor meeee, call.

After the troll is sedated, remove all double entendres with a freshly sharpened wit. Be careful of the narcissist gland, it is located right behind the full-of-it tendons, and must be gently cut out, other wise the bile is released and the entire troll is useless.

If the troll had a backbone, it would be best to discard it, but it doesn’t, so that’s a chore you won’t have to face. Remove all skin, both thick and thin. The female troll usually doesn’t have a lot of substance to it, but what is there, is tough and stringy and must be marinated. The salt brine mentioned in a previous post works well, but in a crunch, piss and vinegar will do.

After several days in the marinade, chop the troll to pieces and dredge in well edited prose. Season to refined literary taste and garnish with verbiage.

Then feed the whole d@mn thing to the wild pigs. They will never return.

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Dee

Here are a few authors, books, and services for writers that I've found interesting.
Jan Cleere

Luke and Jenny Books

Tangled Stream

Janson Literary Services

Rick Novy

Allison Books

Jeri Castronova

Susan Wingate

Marcia Fine