Spring is here! The long awaited time of the year when we have longer daylight hours as our clocks “spring ahead”. Spring plants are resilient as they rise up through clumps of hardened earth, and best of all we get to look at winter in our rearview mirrors!

I can’t imagine anyone entering a race to go as slowly as possible because for one, it’s counterintuitive and two, we as a society have become used to having things quickly, so much in fact, that we no longer have patience; after all we can get same day delivery from Amazon, instant oatmeal, meals in minutes with our microwaves, and let’s not forget the drive-through or curbside pick up at some restaurants, pharmacies and other retail stores.

Those of a certain age may remember seeing the movie, Mary Poppins and hearing the iconic voice of Julie Andrews singing, “A Spoonful of Sugar”, and as we know from the lyrics:  

The end is near!

Yes, a grim thought, but it’s all relative. The end of what? If it’s the end of the day, the week or the month, it doesn’t sound so ominous.

“There’s a sucker born every minute.” That quote, while often credited to PT Barnum, has not been verified, however, other sources mention that in the late 1800s this catch-phrase was mostly associated with gamblers and con artists.

A while back, a friend discussed her teenage son’s worrisome behavior saying that he couldn’t get up on time to get to school, was having difficulty focusing on the homework, and was overall lazy, not to mention moody and ill-tempered, especially with the family. While my friend assumed much of this was typical teenage growing pains, she also confessed that she punished him for his bad behavior.

I vaguely remember that day when I was a Junior in high school and the dress code ended. What I do recall so vividly was the following day when students, who just one day prior had been primly dressed, arrived to school leaving behind any traces of the early 60s simple and ordered lifestyle.

When you turn on the news and hear that certain members of a political party are claiming that the 2020 insurrection was actually a bunch of citizens touring the Capitol, you just gotta wonder if this was an excerpt from The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party!

There’s an old joke about the guy who comes across “something” on the sidewalk so he decides to conduct an in depth scientific study:

Every Thanksgiving, it seems we are bombarded with messages about people not having a turkey on the holiday. Don’t get me wrong, this is real, and considering that we are one of the wealthiest countries on Earth, it’s unimaginable that people go to bed hungry on Thanksgiving or any day!

There was a time when zoos housed wild animals in cages and or other small enclosures for the public to view. Fortunately times have changed for the better and anyone who has visited a modern zoo will see that enclosures have been replaced with habitats that are modeled from actual environments where the particular species lived in the wild.

Yes, you read that correctly, and I’ll bet you’re probably wondering what dieting has to do with dog training, so as usual, I will digress…

What’s old is new again, or as I like to say, those pretending to have knowledge about dogs are regurgitating outdated and idiotic advice to pet-parents on how to raise and train their puppies or adult dogs.

I have a fascination with time travel; in fact one of my favorite shows is Quantum Leap which, by the way, has been rebooted this year. How amazing would it be to visit past times to see how people lived?

Do you speak monkey? Yes, I know that’s a strange question, but humans seem to think that they can be understood by foreigners by speaking slowly and loudly, so I’m guessing that same logic would also work on animals with close genetic ties to humans such as monkeys. But I’ll digress…

Just Google “Dog Training” and you’ll see a long list of places, claiming to fix your problem dog. The choices can be overwhelming for the average pet parent, after all they have a dog that needs to be fixed, but have no clue who is capable of delivering results, so they have to go with a business image that speaks to the issue.

There are lots of good reasons to leave bees alone. Number one, bees do so much good for the environment, and two, it hurts when they sting! But today that’s not my point.

There’s an old saying that too many cooks spoil the broth, or on this HALLOWEEN day, we say that they spoil the caldron of witches brew!

We humans love our labels; no I’m not talking about designer clothes labels, but rather the way we toss around our assumptions about other humans, as though one had significant insight about the person.

On my way to catch the train last week, I saw a guy walking his dog, when suddenly I heard him command, “Drop it!”, followed swiftly with a hard slap on the dog’s back! The dog cried out, but apparently didn’t drop whatever he had in his mouth, so the guy again commanded, “Drop it!” and slapped the dog harder!