Community Blogs
Stumbling the Walk
It’s Almost Over, Time to Get Started
My employer is a small company in Ohio. In the department I work in, politics was mostly a right wing circle jerk. We are talking card carrying members of the “you’re either with us or against us” crowd. Men who would give you the shirt off their back, then turn around and spout the most racist, misogynistic drivel you can imagine, and not even realize it. The only way to distract them was to steer the conversation to either sports or lawn care. I got by pretending to cheer for the Buckeyes, when in reality I tend to lean more toward Michigan. [more]
Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)
Dog vs Hamster: A Death in the Family
I found Houdini sitting near his dish in the kitchen, ears forward, looking at me as if to say, “Oh, that rodent in Speaker’s room? Yeah. I killed it. I saved all your lives. You’re welcome.”
I gave him the finger, and shoved him out his dog door. Of course, he was only following generations of inherent hunting instincts, but when a dad sees his little girl’s heart broken, someone needs to pay. He’s a purebred Cambodian tunneling hound, and dispatching rodents, next to seeking treats, is his favorite activity. Especially during the spring and fall, he nails quite a few hapless field mice and brings them back to his lair, er, doghouse. That’s where I found the lifeless carcass of Huckleberry, wet with saliva and bloody about the head.
The scene in Speaker’s bedroom suggested a brief but savage attack. The cage lay broken open on the floor, and hamster bedding was everywhere, making the room look like one of Speaker’s stuffed animals had been a suicide bomber. Mixed in with the bedding was a scattering of hamster food and hamster poop. Hmm. An entire existence spelled out in a crime scene.
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Follow the Dirt Road In Your Soul to Humbug Mountain
Waiting For My First Taos Ghost
Being a white person is no excuse for not having seen a ghost. Navajos tell me I am tone deaf in this regard but I still would like to see one for myself.
Heather Anderson has seen ghosts all her life in Taos. Her favorite was the “man in blue” who ran into the yard of the Laughing Horse Inn around 1982 just as she and her teenage friend were getting into the hot tub.
“He saw us and looked surprised, like he had just come through a time warp or something,” said Anderson. “He had on a cavalry uniform with tight boots, pants with the stripe down the leg, a sword at his side and a crossed-sword insignia on his buckle and hat. We were naked and we watched him turn beet red.”
Locals will tell you of a ghost woman who can be seens some nights riding a white horse across Talpa Ridge toward the river. Gary Oline believes that his ghost followed him to his house in Talpa from Arkansas.
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Column: Savagemama
j.crew Lost This Mama’s Address
So, I suppose I’m a little more boot cut than skinny leg these days. Maybe this is why j.crew seems to have dropped me from their mailing list. In their place these women with graying hair and laugh lines have found me. And if I take a close look in the mirror I can see why.
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Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)
Halloween is Here; Dentists Rejoice
Well (heavy sigh), we’re just about there. Just a few more days and all the crazy rhetoric, the public tantrums, the advertising overkill, the flip-flopping, and the fretting over the money crunch is going to come to a head. I’m talking, of course, about Halloween.
A lot of people are really into Halloween. I’m not one of them. This country has some weird-ass traditions, to be sure. For instance, every year just before Thanksgiving our President issues a pardon to a turkey. This must be infuriating to Scooter Libby, who received a mere commutation of his prison sentence. I don’t even know what the turkey is guilty of, other than being delicious.
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Generation Recreation with Michael Pearlman
October Skiing Offers Rewards
A couple of early season snowstorms in the Bighorn Mountains was all it took to launch my ski season.
Even my friends who ride their bicycles in January can't understand why I'm committed to skiing in less-than-ideal October conditions. Even I have trouble explaining it to those who lack my devotion, except to say that it's become a rite of passage. The quest for early season turns, no matter how involved the effort or limited the reward, has become an established fall tradition.
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The Dog Blog with Kathryn Socie
View from the Fence, Watching a Battle Among Women Unravel
I’m a pacifist by nature, so when small wars break out around me, I silently protest and keep my distance. No surprise, while at a recent baby shower, when a woman turned to me and said: “Do you really think you can be happy just having dogs?” I nodded emotionlessly and shrugged half-heartedly, trying to deflect and defuse the potential for emotional onslaught and keep some semblance of peace. Despite my efforts, it is near impossible to stay out of the fray of this particular war among American women.
As if on cue, another woman began rushing in my direction filled with fury, ready to dive into battle. “If she chooses not to have children, that is her right and you have no place to criticize,” she exclaimed, sputtering. Sputtering. The two launched into battle. To have or not to have children escalated into issues of working or staying home with the children. Ugh.
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Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)
How To Write and Speak Good English
I hate how the word “literally” is used as a modifier, not as the opposite of “figuratively.” If you drank too much tequila and vomited into your wife’s purse, and you told her it literally made you feel like an ass, then you have actually taken the form of a donkey. If your lawyer is literally a baboon, maybe he can ride you into divorce court.
Local broadcasters and advertisers on TV and radio are always saying VEE-hickle when talking about a vehicle, which makes them sound like refugees from Hee-Haw. It figuratively makes me climb the walls. Local sportscasters talk about teams “chomping at the bit” to play another team. The correct term is “champing,” as in, “this team will be champing if they win every game on their schedule.”
These same talking heads and chattering dupes are also guilty of uttering the Holy Triumvirate of mispronunciation: excetera, exscape, and expresso. I love seeing a newscaster reporting that a couple of jailbirds have “exscaped” from the state prison in Deerlodge. Gee, do you think they rode out of there on their “escape goat?” I suppose they were imprisoned for committing a “senseless murder.” You know what murder would make sense? If somebody killed that asshole who made the Blackfoot Communications bullhorn commercial (“Attention people of Montana…”) that plays incessantly on the radio.
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Affordable Luxury and Sumptuous Dining
A Jewel in the Rough: Three Perfect Days at The Bentwood Inn in Jackson Hole
Autumn is a great time to visit Jackson Hole and Teton National Park in Wyoming. Most of the summer tourists have gone home, things move at a slower pace, and the National Elk Refuge begins to stir with wildlife descending from the mountains into the vast 25,000 acre meadow. [more]
Blog: Off the Reservation
Why Isn’t McCain Visiting Indian Country?Al Franken, the comedian cum Minnesota politician, visited the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, Red Lake Band of Chippewa and the White Earth Band of Ojibwe on Sunday, October 19.
But why isn't Norm Coleman visiting Indian Country?. And for that matter, John McCain?
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