animals

The Trouble With Living Things

July 28, 2014July 28, 2014 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

I was never allowed to have a cat. Except for one brief moment, when I was five years old. My mother and her boyfriend rented a farm house where we did not farm anything. We had a couple of dogs. One was black lab who played with me in the snow and stole my dolls to use for chew toys. I loved the dogs, but I wanted a cat so badly. I begged until Mom finally relented and let me get a kitty.Kittens play non-stop and engage in feisty kitten activities like scratching couches, pouncing at curtains and making sneak attacks at shoe laces. My mom didn't care much for that, so with each scratch or pounce, I watched in helpless horror as she shot my kitten with a pellet gun, shooting hard plastic pellets at my pet. It didn't last long. One day, the kitten was gone. I was told it had gone to live in the barn that...

Camping in Sweden: Bork, Bork… Quack!

August 14, 2009December 2, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

Entering Sweden and making our way to Malmö was pretty uneventful. I was still battling the sickness I had acquired during the night that we had spent camping in Germany. We weren't planning on doing much of anything in Sweden, other than relaxing and spending a night in our tent before heading back to Germany. We didn't foresee any problems. We didn't foresee any weirdness. Rest. Dinner. Sleep. Breakfast. Should be easy. We arrived at the Malmö Camping & Ferie Center and went into the office. It was the usual thing: the guy showed us a map, pointed out places to pitch a tent and where to pee. Good enough. So, we were ready to pay. "You also have to buy the camping card," campground employee guy informed us. "A camping card? What's a camping card and why do we have to buy it?" He looked at the two of us as though we might be completely daft. We looked at him as though he might've been drunk....

Le Scénoparc: Home of the Bovine Poop Chute

August 7, 2007November 24, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

On the second day of our vacation, Olivier, Cat and I were safely in Parensol. After lunch, we took off with Olivier's mother, Corinne, to go to a place called Le Scénoparc. This is basically an outdoor park with bovine animals and information on the origins of bovines. A Moo Cow Zoo. When we arrived, we saw a couple of locals with heads bowed worshiping the large, prehistoric bovine head near the entrance.We walked through the park looking at the yaks, bison, reindeer and cows... then we happened upon a couple of goats. The goats aren't afraid of the humans, as Olivier and his mother have demonstrated. In fact, I don't think the goats gave a shit about much besides noshing. But the highlight of the day for me was when we came across a giant cow shitting out laughing, squealing children. A large sculpture of a cow had been constructed of wood and some engineering genius had decided that this...

Puking Peril on the Way to Parensol

August 6, 2007December 1, 2020 by Rasmenia Comment Closed

The first day of our vacation, Olivier and I were riding in the stuffed rental car with our yowling cat in the backseat on our way to Parensol in central France to spend the weekend with Olivier's parents. Cat was safely snuggled in her little traveling bag. About 30 minutes into the trip, we were on the Périphérique heading away from Paris when she began her signature "I'm about to blow chunks" wail. No hot, meaty smell wafted from behind, so we assumed that all was well. That was fucking stupid.We stopped a couple of hours later at a rest stop to eat. I held Cat's bag in my lap while trying to feed her bites of turkey through a wee hole near her head. She didn't seem to interested. We walked to the building to grab some coffee and have a pee, taking turns holding Cat's bag as we went inside. When I came outside, Olivier announced that he had discovered...