One of my neighbors, her house is a black hole for pets.  They go in but they don’t come out (alive anyway, or they are brought there for burial already dead).  Apprently she had some friends visiting with their two rather boisterous canines.  I’m unsure how (I was afraid to ask for the details-yeach), but the dogs somehow got to her daughter’s new pet guinea pig, and dogs, well being predators….lets just say Piggies’ stay in my friend’s household was shortened. So Piggie went into the garden, buried in a dog treat box (the final insult I’d imagine), next to my friend’s friend’s boa constrictor.  Piggie did however, get the benefit of another recitation of the Clark Griswold’s eulogy for Aunt Edna.

I don’t think my friend ever plans on moving, but if she does, I hope the next people to buy her house aren’t gardeners. If they are, they are surely going to wonder about the former residents once they starting tilling the new perennial bed.  

My husband and I have, shall we say…design differences.  We were in Crate and Barrel today and I pointed out this table and said, “I love that table, I like that rustic look”.  To which my husband replied,

“Rustic?  Don’t you mean poor?”.

He’s such a guy.

The other night at dinner my husband and I had an extended conversation about the most life changing inventions (or discoveries) of the past 100 years.  This is a partial list

1. Electricity

2. Automobiles

3. Airplanes

4. The Internet (Thanks Al!)

5. Antibiotics

6. Immunizations

7. Nitrogen fertilizer

8. Birth Control Pills (my suggestion of course)

9. Deodorant (still hasn’t caught on in Europe in some spots)

10. Refrigeration

11. Television

12. The A Bomb

What we thought was most striking about this list is that every one of them save one (nitrogen fertilizer which came from Germany) was invented in the United States. This prompted a discussion as to why in which we determined that  capitalist systems provide incentives for innovation (of course, so does war, which we are also good at).