Paradise Chased

When Puppies Go Bad

[Written in the summer of 2006, in the three-week period I was trapped in the kitchen with a new puppy who had separation anxiety.  Posted May 20, 2009]

"Belle Weaver is flying into the nation's capital today to receive an award for saving a family member's life... Stories such as hers, of heroism and quick thinking, are always inspiring. But this one has a twist, and not just because Belle is 3 years old.  You see, Belle Weaver is a beagle. She used her owner's cellphone to call 911." (Washington Post, 6/19/06)

“I want a mobile,” said Lucy, my four-month old puppy.  “Oh, right,” I retorted, “like you’re gonna use a mobile to save my life.  You’ll just be chatting with all the pups in the neighborhood, costing me a fortune.”  She looked at me solemnly, then sprang up in crazy leaps to lick my face.  “I can order pizza,” she said, between slurpy dog kisses.  “I’ll think about it,” I muttered, as she snuggled into my lap, utterly adorable. 

Cynics? No.

April 24, 2009

I'm jumping on the Susan Boyle bandwagon.  I think she can handle it.  She seems unusually sane (much like our current President. Is an international outbreak of sanity quietly unfolding? But I digress...).  What interests me in the Boyle phenomenon is how often people referred to themselves as cynics when discussing their reaction to her performance on "Britain's Got Talent."  They were cynics before she sang, and big-hearted converts after. 

Post Theocracy

April 17, 2009

Holy Thursday evokes a spirit of contemplation and renewal in Ireland.  In particular, the contemplative realization that, ye god, the pubs and off-licenses are closed tomorrow (one of only two days in the year on which they are closed) and a renewal of the home alcohol stocks in an evening rush of panic buying.  A day without drinking.  This shall not be.

Scapegoats

March 31, 2009

Just when it seemed the current financial crisis would overwhelm our capacity to understand, when the cause and effect diagram was hopelessly criss-crossed with double-arrowed lines of blame, we were rescued.  Not by our own personal bailout, but by the emergence of villains.  Evil bankers, evil corporateers (thank you American AIG bonus recipients, for keeping it going) and incompetent politicians (true evil seems to imply the type of brainpower that people are, for some reason, unwilling to attribute to politicians) are being hauled from their glittering lairs to face the glare of public hate.  We have our scapegoats. 

Governed

June 18, 2007

Ireland has a government.  We didn't have one for awhile.  Not for three weeks, since the election, or possibly seven weeks, from when the election was called.  I'm not entirely sure.  I didn't want to mention it previously because it seemed like it might be a good time for an outside power with nothing else on its schedule to invade the Celtic Tiger.  Might be a nice acquisition for some militarized country with a rotten economy, like North Korea, or Burma.  But too late, we've got a government now; we're safe.