Free-For-All Friday

Dogs + Alligators + Pumpkins + Squirrels + More

Man's Best Friend

It's been awhile since I've written about Sammy, our labrador-beagle-?? "puppy." I am continually amazed by his reaction to mealtime. When I let him out of his kennel in the morning, he sprints up the basement stairs to get to his breakfast. At suppertime he reacts to the phrase, "Are You Ready for Supper?", by barking & jumping around on his hind legs. I am left with these possible theories.

• He reacts with incredible joy at the news that he will be eating.
• He's afraid that if he doesn't rush to his dog food, he might miss mealtime.
• Maybe he's afraid that the squirrels--he does hate them--might get to his food before he does.
• Is he living a pathetic life, where the only two things that bring him unbridled joy are breakfast & supper?

There Is No Place Like . . . Illinois

Omaha World Herald (10/10):  "Somebody dumped an alligator in Lake Michigan. Authorities don't know who dumped a 4' long reptile into Lake Michigan, but they now know what kind it is. After initially believing that the animal spotted MON swimming near Waukegan, IL, by a startled kayaker was a caiman, officials now say it is actually an alligator." Brett Kavanaugh was responsible? You be the judge. *
* Judge . . . Get it?

California

Norfolk Daily News (10/10):  "2,170-pound pumpkin wins owner $15,000. 'One special seed' & months of care by an Oregon commercial pilot produced a massive pumpkin that tipped the scales at a global weigh-in MON in Northern CA. It was the 4th time his gargantuan plants were awarded top honors."  Apparently in the case of pumpkins, size matters.

Florida

OWH (10/11):  "Flight delayed after flyer brings along squirrel. Police had to remove a woman who brought an 'emotional support squirrel' on a Frontier Airlines flight headed from Orlando, FL, to Cleveland . . . The airline said rodents, including squirrels, are not allowed."  PETESS * is understandably incensed.
* People for the Ethical Treatment of Emotional Support Squirrels

Dept. of Shameless Joke-Stealing *

• "I like having conversations with kids. Grown-ups never ask me what my 3rd-favorite reptile is."
• "My 2-year-old has a superpower:  Everything he touches gets sticky."
• "We could live inside the school bus & my son would still find a way to make us late for it every ay."

* From Reader's Digest (Oct. 2018)

Political Potpourri

"We Americans are in the midst of a serious division regarding our own character:  Was America, & the West, founded on fundamentally good & eternal principles, principles we've sometimes failed to live up to, of course, but principles worth fighting for? Or is America, & the West, the font of evil, the source of suffering, & is all our prosperity merely the fruit of the poisonous tree?
          "Our ideals divide us, too.On the one hand are 'red state' Americans *, steeped in traditional Judeo-Christian principles & mores--Americans who believe that our rights are God-given & that liberty must be balanced by traditional moral virtue. On the other hand are 'blue state' Americans, steeped in egalitarian principles & mores--Americans who believe that rights spring from government, that inequality is a more pressing concern than individual liberty & that systems of traditional virtues merely mask hierarchical power structures."  Source: "What do we have in common?", column by Ben Shapiro in NDN (10/11).
* I am happy to report that Nebraska is a red state.