Why when it rains, does it have to pour?

Actually, it's snowing, not raining. And it is snowing a ridiculous amount. After working nearly 30 hours this weekend and having a friend die in a horrible car accident; I drove home at 1 am last night, in my crumbling car, to find my house has no heat. Wonderful. 

After hours of homework while wrapped in blankets I fell asleep on the couch. I awoke shivering to find I still had to shovel myself out of the never-ending driveway. After doing this with relatively little mumbled cursing I went to start my car and warm it up!... not so much. Car's dead, and I'm stuck here in my freezing house huddled with my dogs waiting for someone to come and bring me to school. And since no one seems to want to drive out this far I am now in the habit of watching my niehbors to see if any of them are leaving. So far, only snow blowers.

This is probably turning out to be less of a post and more of an explanation for my apparent absence/tardiness in class today. 

But seriously, 

Why when something bad happens does it all have come crumbling down around you? 

 

happier post later I promise.

Dog Language?

I have two dogs. 

The oldest one, Sadie is an English setter, timid yet crazy at the same time in that, you-mess-with-me I'll-bark-at-you, unless-you-have-a-vacuum-or-other-noisy-object kind of way. She's pretty much a big baby.

 

The other one is Maya. She is still a puppy, about a year old and has the attention span of Dory from Finding Nemo. She's a weird little part Pomeranian, part Jack Russell terrier, part Mogwai type of thing. We call her the Tasmanian devil. She's claimed herself leader of the Pack and ruler of the household. 

So while Maya and I were having one of our completely one sided conversations about why we don't chew things up, she looked at me and nodded, like she really understood what I was saying. I doubt it, but it got me to thinking, what does go through their little furry heads? It's always seemed to me that dogs understand commands mostly because of the tone of voice we inflect while saying them. They clearly see when they are being praised or yelled at. But, do they have the ability to actually understand the words I'm saying? My grandparents dog's used to freak out at the word "camp," and Sadie definitely has an affection for the word "Walk" so they must understand what that meant right? 

I'd be interesting in testing this but my dogs are dumb and I'm not sure how I'd do it. 

But, what about communication between each other?

It often seems to me that they understand each other on a level that humans don't. Like the other day while Maya was tied to her leash outside I gave Sadie one of their little bacon treats inside. As soon as Sadie gobbled it up Maya went bezerk wanting to come in immediately. Coincidence? Or Dog psychic ability? OR... did she just hear me open the bag with her super-dog ears?

Hm...

Panties?

 

Today while folding laundry, I picked up a pair of pants from a nearby basket and it got me to questioning, as random moments often do… why do we in the English language call them  “pairs of pants”, when there is only one?

My first thought was, duh, there are two leg holes, but what about a shirt or jacket? There are two arms and hence two arms holes, so I guess the question is, why are these not pairs? And don’t even get me started on panties.

So why the difference?

Well, unlike pants, a shirt is basically a covering for the torso and does not require sleeves. That seems obvious enough, and I guess the same theory is supposed to apply to a Jacket (but that doesn’t quite make sense to me.)

In other English speaking countries, I have heard it common for them to speak of a pair of compasses (drawing), and a pair of nutcrackers.

And as for panties, even though they aren’t really a pair of anything, having ( I would think) no legs, the association probably stems from the expression, “pair of pants.”

Well, I suppose the English language never claimed to make any sense. 

Smoking or Non?

My first job was in a restaurant and I’ve been working in some form of one ever since. But it still never ceases to amaze me how often I hate complete strangers. The other day, a well-dressed family came into the restaurant and I greeted them at the door. “Smoking or non?” I said, looking down at their two young children, assuming they would like non. “Smoking” the woman responded with a smile.

I returned her smile half-heartedly and took them to their seat. I noticed that for the rest of the evening, both the parents not only let their coughing children run around in the smoke filled section of the restaurant, but they themselves chain smoked their entire way through the meal. As if that's not bad enough, later that same evening a pregnant woman came in to sit in smoking.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against smokers. And I know it’s hard to quit. But, I just don’t like to see kids exposed to that dirty air and I wish someone would claim it as child abuse.

Sorry, I’m just wondering what the hell they’re thinking.

 

Do you hear that?

It happens every once in awhile. While walking down the street, reading a book, or having a conversation with a friend. You know, that strange ringing sensation between your ears? “They say” it means someone’s thinking or talking about you and the ringing sensation is letting you know. According to my research, there seems to be no scientific explanation for the occasional ringing, but if it were persistent, a doctor would probably diagnose you with something called Tinnitus. Usually common with people over 40, it can be heard in the form of ringing, buzzing, tingling and it is nearly constant. But what about most of us who only hear/feel the ringing every once in a while?

  Say it’s true, and the ringing really does mean someone is thinking juicy secret thoughts about you. Wouldn’t it be wild if there were a way to somehow tap into the other person’s thoughts through that ringing? As if the ring opened a gateway into their mind? We do, after all only use a small portion of our brains, and I am continuously pondering the potential of the other parts. It would be interesting.

Or, what if the ringing is some other kind of warning? There’s also an old superstition that if the palm of your right hand is itchy, then it foretells money coming to you. (But don’t scratch it as that stops the money from coming!) And if it’s your left palm that is itchy, then scratch away, as that means you'll soon be paying out money. What if our bodies are giving us signs of the future all the time and we simply need to learn to read them?

… just something I was wondering.