After reading Omnivore's Dilemma awhile back, I have been scrutinizing the diets of domestic and farm animals whenever the subject arises.  Michael Pollan, the author of the aforementioned book, discusses in depth how we are feeding animals an unnatural diet in order to make them bigger, fatter, and in a hurry.  "Unnatural" here refers to one of the basic definitions of the term: Contrived or constrained; artificial.  Is your beef corn fed?  It shouldn't be.  Cows, Pollan argues (and after no small amount of research on his part), are suited, built, designed, etc. to eat and digest grass.  For poultry, it's a combination of grass and bugs, yet we feed these corn as well and dupe people by saying, "At least it's an organic diet!"

I'm not here to talk about this, though. Just read his book; it's very good.

Often I see a commercial for dog or cat food that is similarly duping people into buying it.  They lure us in with the real chunks of chicken or tuna, and then seal the deal with a few whole grains.  Because humans recognize this as a balanced diet (albeit, FOR HUMANS), many assume it is for our pets as well.  I promise you that if you plop down a selection of foods before a cat--meat, rice, corn, soybeans--the cat will dive into the meet and maybe lick at the others before deciding not to eat them.  Dogs, at least the ones I know, will eat everything you put in front of them, except for medication.  Those, of course, always wind up suspiciously untouched at the bottom of the bowl.

My real gripe here is with the bizarre "flavor" combinations cat food companies devise.  The worst, most gag-inducing one we feed my cat is "Flakes of tuna & egg bits."  Let it be known that the egg bits aren't even technically egg, and the finished product looks like a product my cat just finished vomiting onto the floor.

I am moderately addicted to Craigslist and have been since the Great Apartment Search of '08.  My current search for an apartment is on hold, since I currently make enough money to pay rent on my storage unit, and nothing else.  The free listings and missed connections are the ones I check twice a day (at least), and while I'm not really looking for anything in either, I do find a gem on occasion.

From the Free section:


The pervasive spelling errors really sell it!

An exchange amongst the Missed Connections.  This is one reason I would never post one; I do not want to be lumped together with a woman like this:



He seems like quite the catch!




And finally, an open letter to the guy from the coffee shop:

Dear Guy,

I want you to know that I am very flattered by your attention to me, but you need to do more than simply acknowledge that you are socially awkward.  You need to practice being less so.  When we talked that first time, you admitted to as much and proceeded to look at me like you were starving and about to eat me.  It made me uncomfortable, and I was sure to tell most of my friends about it.  Now I'm blogging about it, so that covers some more friends as well as some strangers.

The second time we saw each other, you talked to me like we were old friends, expressing great disappointment that I was leaving as you were arriving and even saying as much as, "but I hardly got to see you!" in a whiny attempt to get me to stay. Please allow me to apologize for my behavior.  I forgot it was Thursday, your usual day; if I had known it was Thursday I wouldn't have gone.  Sorry about that. 

Here are some quick tips to determine whether a girl is interested in you. After you introduce yourself by making her take out her earbuds and turn away from her laptop, if she puts her earbuds back in instead of accepting your offer to continue the conversation, she's not into you, and probably didn't want to talk to anyone in the first place.  If, on the second meeting, she's with a friend and doesn't stop to talk to you, she probably wasn't there to see you.  If she stops going to that coffee shop altogether, congratulations!  You made her so uncomfortable her regular haunt and one place of reliable stability is ruined forever. 

While the traditional sentiment states, "It's nothing personal," it really is, and I hope you take it personally. No really, Guy, take it to heart.  If you change this particular set of behaviors, girls may not be creeped out by your over-eager, pushy presence and intense gaze!

Best of luck,

Emily

At the end of every session with a youth, mentors are required to fill out a progress note.  These are always written in third person, and mentors always refer to themselves as, "The Mentor."  Because these notes reflect the progress of the youth, the following moments had to be excluded from some of my p-notes.

"While walking around a park, the youth appeared fascinated with the high number of honeybees flying around.  As he looked closely at them, the mentor made multiple puns about bees."

"While waiting for the youth to arrive at day care, the mentor began to sweat through her shirt. In order to appear fresh, the mentor took old Subway napkins and wiped the sweat off her stomach. The mentor left a few napkins under her shirt as a wicking layer until the youth showed up."

"The mentor took the youth bowling and totally kicked her ass: 122 to 81."

"After the youth made a comment that the mentor suspected to be a string of rap lyrics, the mentor responded with a series of extremely white comebacks. 'True that,' 'that's just the street in me,' and and slow, deliberate, 'word up, homie,' were among them."

"The mentor was forced to suppress rollicking laughter while the youth explained that she wasn't grounded, she just wasn't allowed to leave the house or call or see any of her friends."