I love the internets!

Specifically, I love the way you can find anything you want, or find out anything you want to find out, just by casting about on that loveable series of tubes. Many a time I've started on Google and followed a daisy chain of links, swung through the jungle from vine to vine, hopped from floater to floater and avoided the sinkers... Oh, any metaphor you want, it's all good.

Tonight it's the music that has me burbling with joy. See, I got to thinking about some of the old songs I used to love. Now just a few feet below me, and a couple of feet to the south, there's a cupboard wherein resides a tall stack of vinyl record albums, all in their immortal cover art, some with inner sleeves pristine white and others bearing artwork and doodles of my long-ago creation. Thanks to my husband's audio collection we even possess a turntable whereon these platters can be played. However, I can't sit on the computer (up here) and listen to them (down there); nor can I burn them onto a CD of my own making and play it in the car. And the thing is, tonight what I wanted more than anything was to go on a Steppenwolf jag.

Steppenwolf! Back when I was in my mid-teens and thought I was so much older, and wished so hard that I was older still, Steppenwolf got heavy play on the soundtrack of my life. "Born To Be Wild" of course, because we all loved Easy Rider, and "Magic Carpet Ride" was just so spectacularly psychedelic. But some of their best stuff didn't make it onto Top 40 radio. My favorite album of theirs was "Steppenwolf the Second", with such gems as "28" and "Faster Than the Speed of Life". There you stand, untamed and in confusion, Spread your arms and come to me... There was "Don't Step on the Grass, Sam", kind of a story song with a catchy guitar hook and a fabulous churchy organ, ending in a drug bust and the sound of a toilet flushing. There was "The Pusher", a another great one they'd never play on the radio because of the drug content (even though it was anti-drug!). It was a more innocent age -- though we sure as hell didn't think so then.

So anyway, I went to iTunes, and a few clicks later I had my Steppenwolf jag well under way. "Let the sound take you away..." Oh for sure, and it's all come flooding back, like I knew it would; and I know why the girl in the picture is smiling.

Shed Ender

I've mentioned before how infomercials have a special place in our family's entertainment pantheon. Young'un has several favorites that he'll watch whenever he's flipping channels and comes upon one -- much as I do with favorite movies. He's shared a few of these with his father and me, occasionally with the intention of convincing us to buy what's being sold, but other times just to introduce us to whatever he likes about it. That may be artistry, or comedy intentional or otherwise, or just a really cool gadget. I've written a couple of entries here about "70's Music Explosion", the Time/Life collection that's not for sale in any store, and features fabulously kitsch performance clips of people like Alan O'Day and Glen Campbell and the Starland Vocal Band. I'll admit it: I like that one as much as Young'un does.

So one day while I was at home on vacation, I had the TV on while I was doing one of my cleaning blitzes. Husband had been watching some sports event and he'd wandered off somewhere, and I'd just left it on that channel -- and gradually I realized an infomercial was under way. A man was running a comb through a dog's coat, and fur was piling up behind that comb like nothing I'd ever seen before! It was the Shed Ender. According to the spiel, the Shed Ender combs out the underneath hair that the animal is ready to shed, that doesn't come off with regular combs or brushes. (Visual: an arm holding a regular brush, just brushing the hell out of the dog, and no fur is coming off.)

Well! Here was something I could use. Cling doesn't shed all that much, and being a greyhound she has a short, smooth coat; but it does seem that every time I pet her I loosen clouds of fur. And as for Angel, I could walk around behind her for a day and gather up enough fur to make another cat. (Or at least a pair of kitten britches.) So I logged on and went to the site, and ordered a Shed Ender without delay.

Today it arrived. Young'un opened the box, got it out, and it was time to end some shed! We found Cling in the living room and began to comb her. At first she acted nervous, like she'd rather go downstairs or something, but soon she settled down and enjoyed it. We got quite a lot of fur out of her, so much that I half expected to see skin through what remained -- but no, she looked as sleek as ever. Next it was Angel's turn, and I really didn't know how well that would go. To my surprise she got into it almost immediately, and started purring! The Shed Ender got about a cat's worth of fur out of her, and when we stopped combing her she curled up and took a nap.

Have we preemptively removed hair that would otherwise have been shed over the next day or two? We shall see, shall we not?

He's so funny!

A conversation between Young'un and me:


Young'un: Dad says I smell like a Russian whore. Do I?

MamaB: *sniffs* Well, I've never smelled a Russian whore, so I couldn't say for sure. But I think you smell great. What are you wearing?

Young'un: "Russian Whore" by Tommy Hilfiger.


... and I laughed my arse off!