Skunk, tables, books.

Three topics weighing heavily on me this morning: Skunks, Tables, and Books. 

Let's go.

The dog groomer sent this around, and I repost it here as a public service. I do not know if this is the best advice, but I sure would be willing to give it a try. As longtime readers will recall, the late Tralfaz had a couple of memorable tussles with skunks and lost both, because with a skunk, as with porcupines and wasps, even if you win, you lose. When we tried to de-skunk the boy we started by spraying him with water, and I can tell you it did not help. I think the water may have just spread the skunk juice around, or helped it penetrate his skin. 

I think the method from the groomer -- who has probably de-skunked dozens of dogs -- is worth a try. If you are a dog owner, I hope you will not need it. Still, better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. 

I did see a skunk waddle into the road the other morning while walking Izzy. Fortunately we were not crossing his path nor vice-versa, and he still had the good sense to go back the way he came.  

As for tables: You know also if you read this site that I am grateful for our trashmen, who make life much cleaner for the rest of us. Our local service is willing to pick up one (1) large item a week from each household, and in past years that has meant a mattress or an old easy chair. Last week it meant the kitchen table that my mother gave my wife and me as a wedding gift. 

We have had this set a long time. My wife never much liked it. We tried to replace it with another set more than ten years ago when elevated pub-type tables were in vogue, and she wound up liking that one less -- so that was relegated to the dining room and the old set came out again. A new new set has finally landed, and so the old table's time was up. 

That table lasted as long as it did because it was solid. It weighed a ton. I only got it to the street last Friday because it was circular and, with the legs off, I could roll it. Took out the legs and the leaf too. I was not sure the boys would carry it away, but they did, God bless ‘em. 

We still have the six chairs, which can go out in installments. No big rush. After all, a chair without a table is still a chair, but a table without a chair is a sideboard.

Finally, books. 

Just a quick announcement that Hans G. Schantz has rounded up a bunch of authors again to submit ebooks to the Based Book Sale. All books are 99 cents or less until September 11! Stock up on your reading to help you get through the anxiety of the election season and the stress of the holidays. I've got two books involved. Which ones? You'll have to look at the list and find out! 

New products!

As you undoubtedly know, going to the market is one of the highlights of my week. When I was a wee tot I liked going to the supermarket with my mom, and there's still something quite satisfying in it. Perhaps it's the hunter-gatherer in me. 

But often we gather things, or at least take a gander at things, we perhaps shouldn't. Here I am with a new edition of What's New In The Store, a.k.a. What The Hell Is That Thing? 

Sorry for the poor picture. What we have here is a room-temperature ice cream bar, not just dehydrated but hyper dehydrated, like the so-called "astronaut ice cream" on steroids. Those of us who remember that unusual but tasty treat were saddened when we found out that the stuff was not good in space because it was too crumbly, and crumbs are a menace to equipment in low- and zero-G environments. 

The bar you see above dispenses with the astronaut hoopla and goes right for the tongue: crunchy and flavorful, concentrated goodness for any time or place (except outer space). It comes from an outfit called Sow Good, although it is not made from pig milk. I don't know why they call it that. Maybe it's "sow" as in "sew." The whole things is weird. They make freeze-dried candy, and they made this freeze-dried ice cream bar. I could not resist trying it, even though it was pricey -- I forget how much, but more than five bucks. 

 

As it turned out, it was pretty good, with a strong fruit and ice cream flavor, like an Atomic Dreamsicle. Probably not worth the price. But as of this writing the company has dropped its ice cream line to focus on its candy products. Maybe they found out people don't want to pay six bucks for dry ice cream when they can get the real thing for a third of that price. Well, it was tasty, and I wish them well, and hope for their sake they can work that price point down. 

Now that you're in the mood for food, how about: 

Uh, yeah. "Smell funky? Get Skunky." Skunky is a pack of 25 rinse-free sponge sheets, useful for camping, for travel or water emergencies, for the nearly bedridden (you still gotta be able to move to some degree), or anytime you might get slimed and need to de-stink yourself without a bath or shower available. I think the name needs work, although it did get my attention. 

I did not buy a pack to field-test it. I didn't have to. I've been getting Scrubby Dog Bath Mittens for years, and they work the same way -- just add a little water. They came in very handy for the late, large mud-loving dog Tralfaz. I don't think Scrubby and Skunky are made by the same company, but it's the same principle.  

I think Skunky would be helpful for campers and for people who can't shower and don't have health aids to help. I don't camp and I'm not that far gone -- yet. 

We'll end with these beauties, which people Of A Certain Age will be shocked to see making a comeback:

Yes! Wooden salad bowls! They roamed the fruited plains of our great nation unhindered throughout the 1970s and 1980s, then suddenly seemed to go extinct around the time MTV stopped being a music channel. Scientists thought they were gone forever, but no! Like it or not, they have been spotted in the wild! By the time you read this, you may have a set of six with the big bowl and a large fork and spoon for serving in your cabinet! Resistance is futile!  

Bath or shower?

Commercials sure like to show gals soaking in the bathtub. I wonder. My mom always considered it akin to stewing in your own filth; she was a shower-taker exclusively and encouraged same among the rest of the family. My wife has no interest in baths -- she just wants to get clean, not make a big production out of it. (She saves the big production afterward, for her hair.) 

Me? I used to like a good bath sometimes. Like, when I'd worked out too hard and everything hurt. Or when I drank too much and had one of those killer hangovers, the kind where you have stopped feeling nauseated but want to sweat the remaining booze out of your pores. A bath could be very therapeutic at times like that. These days I don't drink and barely exercise, so I pretty much stick to the shower.

I do remember a bed & breakfast we stayed in years ago in which the bathroom had no shower. It had a huge clawfoot tub with shower attachment on a hose, so you could wash your hair and I guess spray off any filth you'd been stewing in. I loved it -- as a moderately big guy it was great to be in a tub that fit me so well. (Shower/tub combos always skimp on the latter.) My wife wasn't so keen for reasons cited above, but she did admire the decor. 

The last one to use an actual tub in our house was the dog. Izzy had gone beyond the friendly confines of the backyard, into an area where runoff goes from the pond, and became blackened from the chest down. Of course it was very cold outside, so there was no bathing him out there; I had to de-mud him just enough with old towels to get him inside to the bathtub where I could do the rest of the job. Normally he gets a good scrub-down once a month at the groomer, but here his perfidy resulted in an unscheduled and more thorough bathing. Puppy, thy name is mud!

I guess I would tell the would-be homeowner or apartment hunter that it's always good to have a tub in case of such emergencies. You never know. One time when I was a kid, Mom and I picked up a big feast from a restaurant and drove it home -- or rather, not all of it, because a loose lid led me to a bath of chowder in the passenger seat of the car. Fortunately it was not hot enough to cause serious burns, but getting into the tub back home and letting the cold water do its thing may have saved me from worse injury. 

Well, one way or another, you gotta get clean sometimes, a sometimes a bath is the way to go. Just don't forget the ducky, and the soap.