Super-Dog

I was dog-sitting this afternoon, about 40 miles North of Pasadena, when I became witness to an incredible phenomenon. It's common enough, but this is the first time I've seen it in person.
   I was watching TV, with the dogs laying on the floor in the living room, when one of them grumbled, then she sat up and barked loudly. This dog almost never barks, at least not when I've been dog-sitting. She whined to get out, and when she was in the back yard she barked some more and then looked in every direction, like there was something to see that she was missing.
   My first thought was 'earthquake' but I didn't feel anything, and nothing in the house was moving or swaying.
   Fast forward to a few hours later, when I made it back to my place. I turned on the news, and I found out there had been a huge earthquake in Mexico, 7.2 (this is really big). Guess when that earthquake rumbled? 3:40 PM, right when the doggies started barking.
   Amazing. Incredible. The coolest thing I've seen in a long time, and I didn't even know what was going on at the time. The dogs heard/felt/sensed the earthquake hundreds of miles away, and knew enough to realize that it was something they needed to tell me about. Just... astonishing. Like you needed another reason to love dogs.

Tell My Shame

I have this thing wearing on my conscience, a personal failing that I've hidden for days now. It's always there, lurking in the darkness, my own Telltale Heart that's slowly driving me mad. I have to come clean before it becomes the end of me.
   I bought a copy of 'O' magazine.
   I'll give you a moment to pick yourself up off the floor. Yes, I did it, I have no one else to blame. I didn't even try to get someone else to buy it for me, like a teenager begging beer at the convenience store, I walked right up to the Vroman's magazine rack, put my hands on the Christmas issue of 'O' magazine, and surrendered my five bucks. And then I took it home.
   Why? Why would I have anything Oprah related in my house? For the chance to win free stuff from Ellen.
   Okay, hold on, let's back up. I'm digging myself deeper here. See, Ellen has her 12 Days of Giveaways, and, in grand Oprah fashion, is buying the loyalty of her audience with loot. And if you buy an 'O' magazine and read it to find the code to enter online, you can be one of the people who wins said loot without being in the studio audience.
   How do I know this?
   Oh boy... all right, here's what happened. See, I was in my apartment, minding my own business, flipping through the channels. The TV seemed to tune itself to Ellen and then there was a tiny micro-earthquake - centered on my living room - that knocked a bookcase over. I was stuck under hundreds of pounds of books, the remote just out of reach, and I was forced to watch an entire hour of Ellen before I could find the strength to dig myself out.
   Yeah, that's what happened... All right, I'm gonna stop now. Nothing to see here, just move along.

Where's My Giant Pineapple?

When I moved out to Pasadena a few years ago, I expected several things. Warmer winters, for one, which I got. A few celebrity sightings, which I got. An earthquake or two, which I got. And I expected to see lots of buildings in the shape of food. This one I did not get, and I'm still kind of miffed.
   When you think about Los Angeles you think about buildings shaped like food. You also think about rampant police corruption, plastic surgery, and Ponch from CHiPs, but mostly you think of gargantuan food-shaped buildings. At least I did. But Los Angeles has lost its only cultural roots, the food-shaped buildings aren't here any more. They're all gone, the Brown Derby, Tail O' The Pup, that one shaped like a hamburger. The only one left is Randy's Donuts, and that's waaaay down by LAX, not a drive I'm willing to make, even for doughnuts.
   Without a big hat, or a huge milkshake, or a colossal apple every few blocks or so, Los Angeles lounges in the California sun like what it is, mile after mile of urban blight. Just like the allure of 'Hollywood' disguises the terrible truth of the entertainment business, LA needs the architectural distraction provided by a hot-dog-shaped building to keep people from noticing how desperately ugly the rest of the city actually is.
   And even though I'm picking on LA, most cities in the US are ugly too. Especially with the highway-adjacent sameness you find everywhere, Wal-Mart and Target and TGIFridays with Borders and Home Depot and vacant shells of Circuit City. Our highways are sad, homely conduits leading us to buy more things at an outlet mall just like the one thirty miles away. It's depressing. But we can fix it.
   We should all tell President Obama that even though he's working hard on other stuff, he needs to put forward the Food-Shaped Building Act of 2009. We need more buildings shaped like something else, and it's time we started demanding them.

Earthquake Munchies

Like many residents of Southern California, I have an earthquake kit. It's similar to a tornado kit if you live in North Texas, or a hurricane kit if you live in Florida, or C.H.U.D. kit if you live in New York City. It's just a backpack with a lot of emergency supplies in it. I check mine once every six months or so (sometimes longer, I admit), to make sure nothing's ruptured or broken, and that remember what all I have. The coolest thing has to be a hand-crank flashlight. Sweet.
   There's toilet paper, and emergency water, and a first aid kit, and a survival whistle with a compass that doesn't quite point North all the time. There's rope and road flares and ponchos and light sticks and some 'emergency tool' that looks positively Medieval.
   There are also blocks of emergency food. These are survival food bars, intended for lifeboats and liferafts. They come six to a pack and it's recommended that an adult eat two bars a day. But I want to know if they're any good. I mean, if all I'm going to have while I wait for FEMA to come to my rescue are these bars that offer 'maximum survival capability' I need to know if I'm going to be eating carboard. Just because I'm in life-or-death circumstances doesn't mean I need to skimp on flavor.
   So I'm thinking about cracking one open for a taste.
   The only problem is, they might actually be good. In which case I would keep going back to the emergency backpack for 'one more bite.' You know, like when you have an open bag of chocolate chips in the pantry and you have to make sure they're still acceptable to bake with? So you go back once in a while for a nibble and eventually you have a bag in the pantry with no chocolate chips left. That's what I'm afraid of.

Freaky update: I just found out the company that makes the food bars has its West Coast plant about a mile and a half from my house. I may go by today and see if they have any samples, like they do at Costco.