OMG November 26, 2008

Dude.  So I’m in a friend’s room tonight with some people, and one guy is talking about his friend who accidentally ate dog on his pizza while in Thailand.  When the “eww-ing” died down, I said, “Hey, my uncle just told me that when he was here in Norway, he ate horse!” Instead of more “ews” as I expected, everyone just acted like that was the most normal thing in the world.  And then, get this: they said the sausage we eat here is made from horse!  Yeah, the smoky-flavored, almost black sausage they serve us every Friday night with our weekly rice porridge, the sausage that I LOVE with the rice porridge I LOVE…is horse.  Like I said, OMG.*

It made me feel really weird inside, all prickly between the shoulder blades.

Anyway, I’m over it.  But hey, if you’re super interested in Norway, I found this really cool blog called “My Little Norway” by an Australian woman who moved here with her Norwegian husband.  They live in the far north, above the Arctic circle…so she is WAY more hardcore than I am.  In the past week I’ve eaten deer and reindeer for the first time…and found out that I’ve been eating horse every Friday for the past three months.  So I don’t know where it goes from there…maybe in the North they’re eating polar bears…or Santa’s elves!  I’m really missing Thanksgiving right now…turkey.  Just good old turkey, man.

*Just a note for my Norwegian readers…in case you didn’t know, eating horse is pretty much taboo in the States.  It’s right up there with dog.

B.A. in Australia December 29, 2007

I got bitten by one of these guys at Anna Bay on Boxing Day. It was in the cards for me that day, I guess. I say that because earlier in the day, one of these ants came charging at me as I lay on my towel on the sand, minding my own business. My friend Jared killed it (after multiple failed attempts) and I was safe…or so I thought. Later, as we were grilling burgers for dinner, a red bull ant attacked the foot of my school leader, Jesse Lee. Jesse flings the ant off his foot, it lands on mine and begins to attack it ferociously. It hurt like a mother, I’m not going to lie. The pain spread from my toe, over the top of my foot, and up my shin. Then it all went numb. Pretty scary, huh? It was swollen, itchy, and tender for a couple days after that. I had to blog about it because, as I said to Jesse, it’s pretty much the most badass thing that’s happened to me in Australia…I mean, check out the mandibles on that ant! (Yeah, I used the word “mandible.” I’m a smartass as well as a badass.)

Ant Bully September 5, 2007

 

Hey, remember how I wrote that post about Disney movies making me attribute emotions, personalities, etc. to animals and even insects?  Well, once again that problem is manifesting in my life.  Due to the recent crazy high temperatures (I heard it was 117 degrees in Santa Clarita on Monday!) we’ve had a little ant invasion in our house.  And I feel SO guilty when I kill them. 

Emotional Animals August 29, 2007

 

Today at lunchtime my coworkers and I had a debate on the controversial topic: “Do animals have emotions?”  I say no.  “But Joy, aren’t you a self-described animal lover?” you may ask.  Well, yes, yes I am.  And as much as I’d like to believe animals have emotions, I just can’t. 

There’s No Place Like Oz August 21, 2007

 

Guess what?  I’m going to Australia!  Newcastle, to be exact.

Seeking Favor June 1, 2007

My poodle, Trixie, is getting groomed today.  Grooming Day is never a happy day in our house.  Ever since Trixie was a pup, she has been scared to death of the groomer.  We’ve tried taking her to different places, and even for about a year hired a mobile groomer to come to our house and cut Trixie’s hair in a truck outside so she would be spared the Car Ride of Terror.  I remember one time when the groomer showed up at our house, she had been there enough times for Trixie to recognize her.  When we heard a knock at the door, Trixie, in her ignorance, bounded toward the foyer barking joyfully.  But the sight of the groomer scared the crap out of her.  No, literally.  Trixie turned tail and ran away, two tiny turds falling from her butt after sheer terror loosened her bowels.  Okay, it was pretty much the funniest and saddest thing I’ve ever seen. 

Of Cats and Cheezburgers May 30, 2007

All right, this post very well might make me the target of hate mail, but I have to say it:  What the hell is with the “I Can Has Cheezburger?” site?  How in the world is that the #1 blog on wordpress?  I would rather read the same post by Sars on TomatoNationuntil my eyes fell out then have to deal with the visually and grammatically assaulting Cheezburger site.  Okay, fine, I’m not a cat fan.  But still: are that many people tickled by strange pictures of various cats with not-so-funny and not-so-cutely-misspelled captions?  And the ads, the graphics, the difficult navigation…it’s really horrendous.  Okay, I just had to get that out there.  And before you throw that brick wrapped in a death threat through my window, let me just say this: the original “cheezburger” picture?  That actually is pretty funny.

Bad Samaritan May 24, 2007

The other day on my lunch break I drove past a Chinese restaurant, and in the parking lot in front it looked like a bag of dry rice had spilled all over the place.  There were about five pigeons pecking around it, really chowing down.  Then a thought crossed my mind: don’t birds’ stomachs explode if they eat dry rice?  Something about the rice grains expanding in their tiny digestive systems or something.  That’s why people don’t throw rice at weddings anymore.  But who wants to be covered in birdseed on the dash out of the church.  Not very romantic.  Anyway, as I was thinking this, I also wondered for a split second if there wasn’t some kind of Good Samaritan law regarding animals.  Like, should I have slammed on my brakes, hopped out of the car, and shooed them away from certain death?  Surely if I saw a group of humans participating in an activity that would, unbeknownst to them, result in their gastrically explosive demise, I would say something, right?  Maybe next time.