In the Eyes of a Dog

We have an older dog named Copper who turned 15 several months ago. She's a sweet old dog, and having spent a few days here at home over the holidays, I've seen a lot of Copper. The poor thing does the best she can -- she is blind and for the most part deaf, so she navigates around the house by bumping into things and taking alternate paths in territory that is still, even in a limited way, familiar to her. It's sad to see this, but actually, Copper doesn't seem to mind in the least. And when it's dinner time, she still jumps around as best she can to show that she's still very much in the game.

But lately, I've been wondering what's going through her mind. After all, dogs do dream -- we know that because we see them kicking, barking and running in their sleep, chasing after something which only they can see. Yesterday, I watched Copper as she lowered herself gently to the floor to take what must have been her seventeenth nap of the day, and it almost looked to me that she was thinking of something, trying to elicit a memory.

Concurrent with this, my wife has embarked on a massive scrapbooking project, trying to catch up with our lives for the last twenty years, and in some of the pictures, I see a younger, more mischievous Copper. As I watched Copper yesterday, I wondered if she might be thinking of any of the moments in time captured in the old photographs -- hanging with her old canine buddy Cody, long since departed, or Tonto, her feline partner in crime all those years ago. I can't help but think that in Copper's little mind, some of those scenes are still vivid, and that she calls them back on demand at times, just as we recall the pleasant, and sometimes unpleasant, memories of our own lives. I wonder.

Of course, the sad thing about this, depending on your point of view, is that every year of a dog's life is worth seven of ours. We dote on our pets these days, buying them all kinds of crazy toys, special diets, and even college team sweaters, but in the end, we can't extend their lives to match ours, though often we wish we could. So as this new year starts, I think I'm going to add to my list of resolutions a reminder to put myself in my pets' place from time to time, to try to see the world from their eyes. After all, to our pets, we are the world.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Sleepwatching

I have a confession to make. Wait...don't get excited...it's not going to be that kind of confession. The thing is, as much as my friends and family talk about what they watch on TV, I'm just not there. Periodically, I will sit down to attempt to watch a television program, but in all honesty, I can last only about forty minutes -- that seems to be the magic number. After that, I am out like a light. TV is, quite simply, the best sleep aid that I've found.

This forty-minute rule is a real problem for those watching TV with me, because invariably, I'll wake up at about two minutes before the hour (we're assuming a hour-long program here) and ask everyone what is happening. They, of course, having watched the entire program, will be anxiously waiting to see how the episode plays out and do not have time for needling questions from the peanut gallery. I can't say that I blame them, but until recently, I have not found a fix.

The obvious solution to this problem lies right in the aisles at Best Buy, those same aisles that are so clearly labeled "TV Shows" in yellow and blue letters the size of Rhode Island. But of course, that's not the only solution. Hulu, YouTube, and Netflix each offer full episodes for free viewing at any time. I've known about all these for a while, but as of late, I've become jealous of my friends who have seen everything on TV, so in order to engage in conversation, I've had to sample the series offerings, and now I'm hooked on a few.

So what's the issue with all this, you say? Well, the issue is that by catching up on all these programs (I'm now watching three series, I think), I am not keeping up with FarmVille on Facebook, which in turn is causing me anxiety, because land is lying fallow, crops are withering, and gifts from other FarmVille denizens are piling up to the sky. There are not enough hours in the day to live both a virtual and a real life. Something has to give.

Well, anyway, there it is. I would write more, but I have to go watch another episode of True Blood. See ya!

Something to Sink Your Teeth Into

What is it that so continually fascinates us about vampires? The latest series of Twilight movies has once again rekindled massive interest in this odd cultural phenomenon. I've noticed that many of my respectable adult female friends are hooked on the School of Cullen, and I must admit to more than a passing fancy for that femme fatale vampire slayer Buffy myself. I saw the original Twilight movie and understood the attraction. Something must be going on here.

Recently, our area has been the site for filming of the new CW TV series The Vampire Diaries. I haven't seen this program, but I must say that the promotional poster for it, which I saw months ago in L.A., is strangely alluring. You have these good looking people lying out in the middle of this deserted field with only a raven for company, and yet, they don't look at all miserable. The very fact that a brand-new TV series about vampirism can appear in the midst of the Twilight frenzy speaks volumes about our interest in this niche of the supernatural.

A few months ago, friends told me about the HBO series True Blood, so lately, I've been catching up on that as well. The premise of True Blood is that the Japanese have managed to create a synthetic form of blood called "True Blood", which is sold as a bottled beverage...you can even find it at convenience stores. Vampires consume True Blood instead of us, and therefore, they can live out in the open, at least at night. The main character is one Sookie Stackhouse, a petite blonde bundle of energy who, from all indications, appears to be destined for something better than her life as a waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana. As it turns out, there's not much to do in town, so when razor-toothed Bill Compton appears on the scene, with those brooding eyes and gentle heart, otherwise savvy Sookie is captivated. What a roller coaster ride she's on now, though. There's no such thing as a free lunch, because Bill's friends see Sookie herself as lunch...wait, make that dinner...they don't do lunch. Oy, veh.

I remember watching Dracula movies as far back as elementary school, which is quite a long time ago, and generations before ours were captivated by Nosferatu. The 1979 German movie Nosferatu the Vampyre was one of those films which was warmly received by the critics but not so by the public. If you want a few laughs, check it out. Nosferatu's overblown stick-like teeth and the film's awkward scene transitions (an outdoor dinner party cuts to a shot of the rear end of a horse) are worth the price of the video rental. Of course, for the most part, we don't seem to laugh at vampire depictions.

This thing just has all kinds of dimensions, and we could spend weeks discussing it, but the central question is: have you seen New Moon? Hmmm...I thought so. As for me, I'm going to continue catching up on True Blood and see what happens to poor Sookie. I'm worried about her.

A Little Something on the Side

The revered annual Turkey Day has once again passed, and the systemic remnants of tryptophan are rapidly dissipating but are soon to be replaced, once that next big holiday arrives. Speaking of, are you a fan of outdoor LED lights? Ah, that's fodder for another post. Let it be for now.

This year's Thanksgiving dinner planning for our family was cleverly orchestrated by my wife, a chef and baker par extraordinaire, and it included an email survey to our immediate family regarding the meat of choice to be served at the dinner. The main reason for this, as she stated, was that we needed something to go with the side dishes. You see, it's the side dishes that we actually crave, that tantalizing two to four (come on, be honest here) scoops of cornbread dressing, or "stuffing", if you're north of the Mason-Dixon Line, that sit there next to the turkey or ham.

Let us veer off the course into fashion for a moment. I know, I know...but bear with me on this. Consider that you've just purchased the LBD (that's Little Black Dress, gentlemen), a wardrobe staple, but the ensemble is incomplete until you find the perfect accessories. I mean, it would work on its own, but ideally, it needs just a bit of sizzle. Well, the traditional turkey dinner is something like that -- turkey, on its own, is not bad, and in fact, it's a culinary holiday staple of sorts, but without the right accompaniment, it falls just a tad short of its true potential as a feast headliner. You can put some gravy on it, but it is unfulfilled without green bean casserole, cheesy potatoes, and dressing, heaps of dressing. Oh, and cranberry something-or-other. Personally, I prefer my cranberry in martinis, but that's just me talking.

So, we did the Thanksgiving vote, and it appeared to work quite well. We ended up feasting on a turkey/ham combination with all these tasty side dishes and a number of incredible desserts that warrant their own blog posting. I will say that one of the "desserts", a vast array of maple flavored acorn-shaped muffins, has provided me breakfast all this weekend. The side dishes once again ruled at the dinner itself, lending credence to that belief that the best things in life don't always get top billing.

Like lots of males of the species, I confess that I'm already anticipating the next big meal, but I don't know if I can bargain for two cornbread dressing treats in a month. I'll certainly give it that old college try. (By the way, where I went to college, they didn't even have cornbread dressing -- it was "stuffing" -- whatever. Call it what you will, it was still the goods.) And all this kidding aside, I think that what I'll really be looking forward to at that next holiday is actually less about the food and more about just being together with family and friends, because that's what really accessorizes life. What better time to savor it than now?

The Trials and Tribulations of a Virtual Farmhand

Hello from a rainy morning at Cafe au Lait coffeehouse. It's nice to be inside on such a chilly November day, I must say.

So this FarmVille thing on Facebook is getting out of hand. I liked the original incarnation of this game, a scaled back SIM-type diversion that I could actually handle. Those of you who know me know that I am not a gamer by any stretch of the imagination, so for me to even become involved in something like FV is a bit of a stretch, but I admit that at first, I found the game strangely fascinating.

But as with almost everything these days, the developers have not stopped with a good thing. Now we have gentrified chicken coops, random storage sheds, animals that are supposed to move but don't, and just plain too much work to do, unless you're sitting at home with nothing else on the agenda. The same thing happened with Microsoft Word back in 2007, when a perfectly good product was dolled up beyond recognition into something that requires an advanced degree to be utilized to its fullest.

Earlier this morning, I saw the most disturbing FarmVille-related thing that I've yet witnessed -- an online offer for a book called "Farm Domination", a step-by-step guide which promises to make you the undisputed FarmVille champion of your county, state, nation, and hemisphere. I don't know about you, but something about that title does not sound right to me.

So FV folks, I say let us have FarmVille Lite, the FarmVille for the rest of us. Oh, and while you're at it, is there a way we can pick our farm's location, maybe add some weather, and bring on a plague of locusts so we don't have to do so much work on the farm? But wait...those would all be enhancements. Forget I said that stuff.