Sophie's Story

I feel sorry for the Texas Rangers. (I'm referring to the baseball team, not the law enforcement agency.) In case you haven't heard, they lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in the last game of the World Series last night. It doesn't matter that the series had to go to a full seven games. It doesn't matter that the Cardinals won game six in extra innings by one run. They lost. Period. That's the way it is now. Everyone wants to be a winner because as we all know,"Winning isn't everything;it's the only thing". "There is no such thing as second place. Either you're first or you're nothing." (Gabe Paul) This is the main reason why I have never liked to compete. I don't like the concept that the only thing that matters is winning. That you should do what ever it takes to win. Nothing matters more than being on top. My dislike of the whole "winning" idea came on early. It started in phys ed class. I had (and still have) no at

Someone I know is part of an anti vaccine group on Facebook. Sometimes she comments on posts from this group and because we are friends on Facebook they show up on my page. A week ago or so there was a story about how the pharmaceutical industry manufactures diseases in order to create a market for drugs. She commented that this has been going on for years. To say I was furious is understating just how angry I was. Thermonuclear pissed (excuse the expression) was more like it. I work hard to help my customers get well and stay that way. To imply that part of my job is to make people sick offends me. Now I know that I do not manufacture drugs, but as a pharmacist I am part of the pharmaceutical industry as part of my job is to distribute prescribed medications. To me it sounded like she believes that the pharmaceutical industry deliberately causes harm to fellow human beings for profit. The thought is obscene. It took awhile, but I did calm down. This was not targeted at me. The person

I enjoy the annual trek to Door County, Wisconsin every year. I like the shopping, the sights, hiking through the state park and talking with the innkeeper in the morning before the rest of the guests come down for breakfast. After a week I am ready to come home. I miss the cats, cooking my own meals and sleeping in my own bed. C is usually a little sad when we pack up the car to go home. I feel bad for him, so this year I thought I would help by making the trip home a bit more enjoyable. I suggested that we try to hit every cheese factory we could find on the way home. I had a name for it, it would be the Wisconsin cheese tour. He seemed to think that was all right. We packed up the car,said goodbye to the innkeeper and headed to the first stop, a place called Good Eggs. It's a little stand open from 7 am to 1 pm that makes custom omelets and then wraps them in a burrito to eat. When C craves eggs (breakfast at the B and B is muffins, fruit soup,granola and cereal) this is where h

I don't think it's any exaggeration to say the the Green Bay Packers enjoy one of the most devoted fan bases in the NFL. Football is almost like a religion there. C and I usually spend one day in Green Bay when we are out here. Since we have been to Lambeau several times we usually just eat at Curly's Pub and then find something else to do. This year was different. The Pack had won the Super Bowl this year. Since we had not really paid our respects to the shrine of football for a few years now seemed to be a good time to do it. When one visits the shrine of football it's always a good idea to dress appropriately. When Aaron Rodgers first took over as the Packer quarterback, many people were upset. It seemed unthinkable that Brett Farve would not be at the head of the team as he had been for so many years. I bought an Aaron Rodgers jersey because I felt it was important to support the quarterback. I packed my jersey along with a matching green Packer ball cap. The day be

C and I usually go to a certain restaurant the first night that we spend in Door County. C pointed out that we are on vacation and we don't have to do the same thing all the time. He wanted to do something different. I had no problem with that. We drove a bit looking at different places. C thought pizza might be good. There are many places one could go for pizza in Door County, but C and I prefer the Bayside Tavern. When we got inside it was busy. We managed to find a table after a short wait. The waitress took our drink order and dropped off a couple of menus. We looked at them. Pizza was not listed. When the waitress came back, C asked her about it. It turns out they don't serve pizza on Friday. Friday is fish fry day. We had seen the sign about the perch fry on Fridays. Normally we are either not there on Friday or have something else planned. We decided to try it. I should have known. Many bars in small towns in Wisconsin have some sort of fish fry on Friday. I had never be

I was locking the narcotic cabinet at work when I looked down at the key in my hand. I never really looked at the key before. No one ever really looks at their keys, unless you are carrying a bunch of them and are trying to figure out what key you need at the moment. If you take a piece of metal shaped in a certain way,put it in a small slot of a certain shape and then twist you can get into places. OK..It sounds pretty silly, but that is all a key is. A simple piece of metal designed to fit into a slot that has been designed to match. That is the system that helps to guard our homes,cars,storage lockers,bikes and narcotic cabinets. It just seems too simple. I started to think about the whole subject of keys. Keys have long been a symbol of temporal power. You could tell who was in charge by looking for the person carrying a large ring of keys. (Now the person in charge carries about six kinds of electronic devices.) If you have a key to a place it means you have the right to come and

There have been several news articles about bullying lately. Several of them have mentioned the need for laws to protect children that are bullied in school. As someone who was bullied for most most of her time in school, I should be very pleased. I should be jumping on the bandwagon and advocating for tough laws so that no one will have to go through what I went through. This is a no brainer, right? Instead I am a bit ambivalent about the subject. It's not that I don't want to protect children from bullies, I do. I'm glad that the subject is finally being taken seriously. When I was in school bullying was just kids being kids, boys being boys. If you are being picked on then you are probably doing something to provoke that kind of behaviour. My problem is that I don't think that laws and policies will work. You can put up all kinds of legislation. States can require teacher training, can attempt to institute a "no tolerance" policy and have requirements for d

Hi! This is Scamp. C has been complaining that there is nothing good to watch on TV anymore. I agree. I'd rather watch fish swimming in a bowl than some of the stuff that I see. (Note to self, ask Sophie if we can get an aquarium) I have an idea. C and I should star in our own TV show. We can go around the country in a really cool car and have adventures or maybe help people. C can wear that neat brown hat that I like so much. I think it's a good idea. I would need a stage name since I will be famous. Scamp just won't cut it. I like SuperSkamp! Doesn't that just sound cool? I like spelling Scamp with a 'K'. It looks more powerful that way. C would need a new name too. I like Charlie or even better Carolina Charlie since that is where he is from. We could call the show "The Adventures or SuperSkamp! and Carolina Charlie" Each episode would find us on the way to someplace where we would have an adventure or help some human or some cat that needs help. At