The Difference Between Cats and Dogs

I found the following explanation on the internet, unattributed. Obviously penned by someone with experience living with both cats and dogs. :-)

The difference between dogs and cats?

Dogs look up at their human and think, "They feed me. They pet me. They love me. They must be God."

Cats think, "They feed me. They pet me. They love me. I must be God."




Pic: Molly, Madeline (a.k.a. Catilla the Hun), Max

HAPPY CANADA DAY!

In Which The Antiques Roadshow Comes to Dallas...and I have a Front Row Seat.

The PBS show The Antiques Roadshow came to Dallas on Saturday. KERA is Dallas' National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Station. I've been volunteering at KERA, answering the phones at pledge drives, for almost a year now. A couple of months ago, a call was sent out to their regular volunteers to work the Antiques Roadshow, and I got my response in early. Even though they needed 100 of us, I'm glad my response was quick, because they got all their volunteers quickly, and had a list of others waiting to take our places if we couldn't do it.

We had training on this past Friday afternoon, with the show to be on Saturday. Below is a part of a pic of my volunteer group from Friday's training. (I'm in the back row, to the very left of the pic). No pics were allowed to be taken on the Saturday, and even on Friday we had to get permission from the lighting people, and couldn't use a flash, to take this pic. Russell, the volunteer kneeling at the front of the our group, had the presence of mind to bring the camera and get the pic taken. Our ARS "boss", Justin, took the pic.



You can see the set being assembled behind us...the large panels are attached to make a circle, with the tables of appraisers at the inside perimeter, and the filming done in the center. We had a few spaces between panels to bring in our visitors.

Back to the Friday - we were given blue/gray polo shirts to wear, with the "Antiques Roadshow" emblem on the left breast. You can see, some of the volunteers are already wearing them in the pic. ARS employees wore black ones. The 100 volunteers were divvied up for different jobs - my group was "triage"; there were 20+ of us in that group.

The visitors to ARS start out in a huge room, in long lines, and in groups according to the time indicated on their ticket (11 different times, 7am to 5pm, on the hour). Mid-afternoon, I peeked into that area, and it was a veritable sea of humanity - I think there were about 5-6000 people there over the day, each with 2 items. I'm not sure how people got the tickets, but one couple I was chatting with, as I was walking with them to their first appraisal, said they paid $400 for theirs, and they were as happy as could be to have gotten them - I think they had more than 10,000 requests for tickets. And I think I'm lowballing, it might have been a 2 instead of a 1 in that number, I'm just can't remember all the producer said about it, during our training.

The next step is to enter the main room, where their items are seen by "generalist" appraisers, and they are given tickets for each item. The ticket indicates which category they are to go to. For example, at the end of the day, I had a book appraised (nothing exciting, I've sold my most interesting books!), and here is the ticket for it:



Clutching their treasures and their tickets, they come up to us, at the pink line taped on the floor, where we are standing, waiting to ferry them safely to the correct appraiser....or to the end of another line.

... and end of part 1, off to do life stuff. Everyone have a wonderful day!

Captions & Animal Pics Induce Smiles

Can't shake the blues, Calgon isn't taking you away (this from an old, OLD commercial), need some animal fun?

Here are some happy sites that should bring on a smile or two:

http://icanhascheezburger.com/

http://www.cuteoverload.com/
Cuteoverload was originally sent to me by that Novel Woman, thanks again, Pammy!

http://www.dogfessions.com/

http://www.dogvice.com/

And here are some fun non-animal sites:

http://punditkitchen.com
Captions to pics of politicians - Warning: I liked some captions to these pics, but punditkitchen is WAY too hard on Hillary for my enjoyment.

http://graphjam.com
Graphjam has graphs about all sorts of things. For example, the amounts of different brands of beer imbibed in Springfield...hint: Duff's does well.

Grammar Quiz from mental floss

The mental_floss Grammar Quiz



Score: 40% (4 out of 10)

I'm embarrassed to say that the 40%, that's my score. Not so good, but then I didn't know what one of the questions even meant (this is probably not valid as a reason, though...I actually should probably have more points deducted...). The quiz is a challenge! Only 10 questions, so just touches on a few points. Click on "The mental_floss Grammar Quiz" in the box above, to take the test yourself.

Mama Lion and Cubs Live Cam from Norway

Adorable cubs being cared for by their Mama Lion, in a zoo in Norway, via live camera:

http://atvs.vg.no/player/?id=16995

Grief. Guilt. Dealing.

This week I had a couple of revelations presented to me, that expanded my understanding - of myself, and of life in general. (I thought that sentence without irony, but typed it with rolling eyes. Will I always think in platitudes, I wonder?)

Grief. Guilt. Dealing.

Dr. Waltrip, a remarkable psychiatrist here in Dallas who, in addition to prescribing medications, also practices therapy on his patients, said to me this week,"We have two brains, an emotional brain, and a logical brain. When we feel emotions, our logical brain tries to make sense of them. When a loved one dies, sometimes those who are still alive feel survivor's guilt. Their logical brain tries to ascribe a reason for this feeling of guilt."

He was explaining to me a reason that I might have felt guilty for not closing my mother's eyes after she died. I didn't think of it at the time, but worried afterward that I should have done it, that she would have wanted it to be done, that others expected me to, that I should have protected her and didn't. I have felt this guilt for almost 4 years, and could only admit it a few weeks ago - I was so scared I would be told I indeed should have done so, that I was a bad daughter.

He continued. "Your neurons need to be fired - the ones that are telling you that you feel guilty and the ones providing the reason you feel guilty. Write a letter to your mother, and tell her you are sorry you didn't close her eyes after she died. Then, a week later, read your letter. That will fire those same neurons, in case they need any more stimulation." I said I would.

Then he said, "The next step will be to say good-bye." "Oh", I said with great certainty, "I'm not ready to do that." And continued to myself "...and I never will be."

He smiled a kind smile and said, "When you're ready..."