Guest post

Hey there! I thought I'd take a break and let my Momma C post. She has a list she's been working on...

20 Random Pet Peeves:

1) People-parents that don’t get pet-parents. I recently read a letter to Miss Manners (or Dear Abby) where someone took the time to complain to the columnist that her friends signed their holiday card from each “member of the family” including their dog. The advice seeker wished justification for her rage that the pet-owner “equated [their] dog to [her] children.” Miss Manners explained that this was not, in fact, what the animal folk were doing and wished that the parent wouldn’t be so sensitive. Some of us really do consider our dog a part of the family, and wish breeders no harm.
2) Incessant cell phone usage. Uh, really, do you need to be on the phone in the restaurant, in the grocery store, in the car, in the mall, in the woods, walking down the street, crossing the street, in the elevator… This peeve is directly related to…
3) Getting hijacked into someone’s little world from being subjected to her end of an insipid cell phone conversation. Has reality television really convoluted our sense of privacy to the point where folks don’t comprehend that most people around them are completely uninterested in their lives? Cell phone users seem totally oblivious to the folks in their actual physical vicinity. Your neighbors in space do not need to know about that cute guy too. Really.
4) Cashiers that don’t acknowledge your presence. There was a time in our country’s short history when customer service was king. Remember those old commercials with the gas station attendants with little paper hats? Some of us, when checking out of the grocery store, would still pay that little extra to have someone smile and say “Did you find everything that you needed?” Yet, I have, with increasing frequency, been able to go right through a check-out line without as much as a “Hey,” and, most likely, without any actual eye contact being made. Frankly, I can’t just blame this on the sorry state of customer service training. We (the collective “we” known as American consumers) actually brought this upon ourselves, as we demanded the U-Checkout Stands and e-commerce and all those wonderful other ways to speed things up and avoid human contact by all means.
5) Automated customer service telephone menus. Another victim of the Decline of Civilized Customer Service, this technology forces us to accept the loss of personal interaction as inevitable, convincing us that all of our problems can be solved through a series of vocal “Yes,” “No,” and number prompts. Since my blood pressure seems to rise dramatically every time I call one of these lines, perhaps I won’t live to see humans replaced completely.
6) Script-reading help-line technicians. I know, I know, I want it all. So you give me a human, because I bitched about the automatron. Well, give me back the robot if all you’ve got is a guy in India, asking me “yes or “no” questions while slowly scrolling through on-screen manuals. Better yet, send me the on-screen manual. OR, even better yet, make my product stable and free of gliches in the first place.
7) Telemarketers. Yup.
8) Telemarketers who, after I tell them that B. is not in, ask to speak to her husband. B. has been known to tell telemarketers, after being asked for C. and then asked “Is there a husband?,” that a husband does not exist on account of “her being a lesbian.” I wonder where that is on the “yes” / “no” script.
9) Saying something is “very unique.” Unique is unique. I can’t say I’ve never said this, but I’ll be that person that calls people out that do.
10) Inappropriately calling friends out in non-safe spaces. This requires a much longer explanation, I’m sure. I will be the first to accept someone’s constructive criticism and empowering enlightenment of hidden oppression, but sometimes certain situations call for some semblance of tact.
11) Describing something as “ironic” when, really, it’s not. This still makes the list after all these years. Ever since that damn Alanis Morrisette song, it STILL bothers me.
12) The colloquialism “Beyotch” Do I have to explain? Really?
13) The Melting Pot idea. I remember growing up in the seventies, watching Sesame Street, and feeling glad that the US was all colors of a distinct multi-cultural rainbow. Then in the eighties, I chanted along with the Schoolhouse Rock chorus, “The Great American Melt-Ing-Pot,” with its pretty swirling and whirling, not realizing that the resulting fondue was a pseudo-homogenized culture assimilated to some Dynasty-aspiring norm, a watered down version of what each of the component parts brought. To extend the spoiled dairy analogy, a well-balanced cheese plate - with a soft ripened triple creme, an aggressive blue, a tangy Trappist washed rind, and an aged boorenkaas – is more agreeable to me than a fondue or fromage forte where I can’t tell each individuals’ characteristics or origins. It’s just my preference.
14) The bootstrap theory (related somewhat to “The American Dream”). Some people claim it works. I personally think it’s flawed and more often creates…
15) Oppressed persons that oppress others in order to rise up. So, the theory goes, if you don’t succeed, then it’s your own damn fault, not the fault of systemic modes of oppression or yet-to-be surmounted historic injustices that keep folks where they are.
16) People who think they are Righteous but do not work for Justice. We once had a great Sunday School lesson with a theological scholar who broke down various Biblical texts that used the word “righteous.” On many occasions, the same root word that translates to “Justice” was used to translated to “Righteous,” such that in the case where we learn “Blessed are the Righteous,” the meaning is not so much “Blessed are the upstanding,” but rather “Blessed are the Just.” A minor nit-picky point, but a powerful one, I think.
17) Deer Ticks. Yes, the lyme disease-carrying insects you get in the forest. I was getting a little heavy handed and didactic, and, since Toby was so kind as to let me "hijack" his blog, I thought I’d throw in some pet peeves that were less conceptual, and more tangible.
18)Dandruff. I try really hard to avoid it, but I think my hair products add to the problem.
19) Unnecessary staff meetings. Again, it should go without saying.
20) Long winded blog posts. Cuz really, who has time to read that nonsense.

Blessed are the meek. Have a beautiful day.

What's in a name?

Since I have doing this for a little while now, I thought I would re-introduce why I named this site the name that I did. This is mainly for you non-dog people out there, for whom the term "buttscratch" perhaps means "the middle of nowhere."

(I am nowhere near the middle of nowhere, and love my little space in the world.)

The blog title is derived from my constant desire for buttscratches. These are, more specifically, scratches on my lower back near the base of my tail. (I will not say what they are not - this is a family site.) Again, these things don't need to be explained to dogpeople. When I wake up in the morning, I walk up to my Momma B asleep in her bed and whine until she scratches me.

I would also like to apologize for not asking Momma C. She just doesn't do it right.

The Real Deal

I'M the original Good German Shepard!
'Nuff Said.
But just in case, you need more... The Good German Shepard

Gourmet

I have been dreaming of the Christmas Carob Cookies my mommas made me. While quite tasty, they do pale in comparison to the lovely little treats that came in my Advent Calendar. Each night in December (that is, each night until they shipped me off to Puppy Camp for the holidays), one of my mommas would open the next door on my cardboard calendar and pop out a tiny dog biscuit before bedtime. They plan to save the calendar and refill it with more homemade snacks each year.

My momma C considers herself a bit of a gourmet. She use to be a cheesebuyer before doing the videography thing and then becoming a CPA. After a hard week of number-crunching, Momma C takes great pride in being able to name all the cheeses at a party - a weird party trick, I suppose, but a surefire way to screen people for who you REALLY want to spend your evening talking. People that know their cheese (or at least appreciate it) are just good people.

The trouble with cheese is that the good stuff tends to be a little pricey, so "knowing cheese" gets to be a snooty thing if you are in certain crowds. The precious farmhouse, so-called artisan stuff can run from $15-25 a pound. Of course, if you cut out premium cable (which my mommas have) and going out to eat every night at the Applebees, I think you can splurge every now and then on some premium stuff (what happened to Tyler Florence?).

On the other hand, my momma will forever be known for her ability to appreciate both "high" and "low" culture. She is perhaps the only cheesebuyer to extol the glories of pasteurized cheese spread (c'mon, who doesn't like Laughing Cow and those little processed wedges from Germany. A little cloud of caraway heaven?). Please note that Momma C (or, "The Big Cheese" as her business cards use to say) also almost had a car accident while trying to eat Kraft Spray Cheez from the bottle while driving. Really. Think, windshield.

Momma C will always remember a story her dad told her when she was little about how his family use to looooove processed meat from a can (corned beef, Spam, etc.). They always had to have fresh food growing up in the Philippines. You know, vegetables, fish, rice. For special breakfasts, they had the imported stuff like Spam. For Christmas, they had Virginia ham and Queso de Bola (the big red Edam ball especially marketed to the Islands). Growing up in Maryland, Momma C ate the now readily available Spam at least once a week. (I think I'd love the stuff if Momma B wasn't a gosh-darn fish-etarian...)

Once, while working in restaurants, Momma C was inspired by the Annual Spam Contest and made a Spam and Cheese Soup. I hear it was too salty.

All and all, I don't care what my mommas eat, as long as they don't eat me. This may seem a little insensitive, since Momma C is a first-generation Filipino-American, who suffered through decades of being taunted with "Dog Eater" cries. She use to think this was just an outdated epithet though, and was saddened to see on the Dogster Blog that, despite its being illegal, hundreds of dogs are still eaten in the Philippines every day. Every day! (And I get to sleep in the master bedroom!) It is a multimillion peso "underground" industry there (roughly $1.1M US). Of course, as wretched as this may sound to most Americans (who spend many more millions of dollars on dog toys every year), I'm not sure most can cast the first stone with the monster steaks on their dinner plates. Or perhaps monster steaks wrapped in bacon. Or with those ducks stuffed in chickens stuffed in turkeys. I suppose, humans, with their superior intellect, also "won the right" to eat puppies too.

I am not a vegetarian. Despite the repeated announcements from my Momma B that, unlike a cat, I don't have to eat meat, I do eat seafood and, on occasion, other meats. I do not mean to cause a stir. (I tried to eat a chicken bone once, but Momma C wrenched it out of my mouth just in time to get her hand chomped.) I just hope that folks take the time that I do to wonder were the food came from before gobbling it down - whether it was a gift from a deity, or grown through the back-breaking toil of migrant laborers, or with the sacrifice of a happy turkey that grew up under a pecan tree in Alabama without getting poked full of drugs and hormones. I am compelled to bring up the musing of the old canine in Kafka's "Investigation of a Dog." (Momma C shared this with me while she was at Duke.) The dog had spent his entire life wondering from whence his food came. He's totally oblivious of humans and believed that he needed to water the ground to make the food come (sometimes "from the ground", sometimes "from the air"). While the philosophical pursuit consumes him, I at least see his appreciation for the vittles, knowing he mustn't tempt forces by quiting his ground-wetting rituals.

Momma C has started back on the chuck wagon (quite literally) but thinks she can fend of the Gods of PETA (or at least Reese Witherspoon and the Baldwin bros) by appropriating the Native American ritual of thanking the animal soul before consuming its flesh.

Now, is a blanket thank-you to all the souls okay or must she be able to discern each little soul that may have gone into, say, a sausage and address each one?

Venturing into 2007

Howdy, folks!! Tobias Poindexter here after a very long, long hiatus.

First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR!! This should prove to be an interesting year - with the Dems controlling Congress and the '08 elections a small but noticeable blip on the horizon. (Carolina boy John Edwards has left the Center on Poverty and thrown his big grin into the ring. We'll see...) In Iraq, we clocked the 3000th American military casualty before the big apple (and big Raleigh acorn) dropped. But things could be a-changin' - with Rummy gone and Secretary Gates in, Saddam is out of the picture (save perhaps his martyrdom), and focus is now on sectarian violence (i.e. "civil war" semantics). Too bad there's still the Taliban on the other end of the continent. (Osama Bin who-now?)

Locally, the Duke Lacrosse case is STILL rearing its ugly head. Yesterday, Mike Nifong was sworn is as DA in a "private ceremony," as the State Bar announced it has opened up its own investigation into Mr. Nifong himself. At the start of it all, my mommas were unapologetic Nifong supporters, because they had met him personally, appreciated what he had done thus far for the citizens of Durham, and didn't like the sensational national media (and the Raleigh New and Observer) telling us and our fellow Durhamites that we were putzes. But now is not the time to circle the wagons (lest we trap all that ill blood in). (Duke had a discernible drop in the number of kids who took their Duke acceptances this year, meaning the university didn't get many of their first choice students 'cuz of this thing. The alumni are a-steamin'. Remarkably, per Momma C's Duke Annual Fund Report, Alumni Giving was at an all time high last year. Talk about circlin' the wagons!)
At this point, if one is making the case for "justice," no "justice" can be served (for anyone) with Mr. Nifong still prosecuting the case. If anything (to find the last shred of humor in it...), Nifong's current actions (inaction?) may now prove how he never went after this case for political gain, as had been the cry when the accusations first came up in March/April '06, close to the DA primary. Any true politician would have dropped this case like a hot potato long ago. What a way to muck up your CV for life.

This year, Durham also had the auspicious achievement of lowering its annual murder total from 37 in 2005 to a mere 15 in 2006. (The 15th just happened the last weekend of the year. So really, it's more like 14...). The mayor's "pleased". Too bad non-homicide violent crime is on the rise.

But, as is hopefully apparent to those that read my musings (or those less coherent ramblings of my Momma C), we only make these commentaries because we truly love and care for this city, this nation, and this planet and all of its citizens, two, four, and other-legged.

Perhaps in 2007, I will try to be more upbeat and make sure to also balance my posts with the wonderful and the wondrous in our midst, like the British springer-mix Saffy who saved her people from imminent danger by warning them of a gas leak or the 6-month old puppy, prophetically named Hero, who save his people from fire in Indiana. (Thanks to Joy Ward of Dogster Blog for these!)

Here's to a better, bigger, brighter year!!