One of the Many Things I Learned from My Dog

One of the Many Things I Learned from My Dog

by Rasmenia Comment Closed
Human beings have a weird tendency to project ridiculous ideals on themselves. Until someone or something sets them straight and they learn to embrace and live with who they really are. For me, it was my dog and a cherry tree. Yeah, a cherry tree. And my doggo.Several years ago, my husband Olivier and I bought a house out in the countryside. Like many people in the same situation, we wandered through the empty rooms seeing nothing as it actually was. We only saw everything as it could be. None of the rooms appeared empty. We were operating under a hallucination, each corner filled with our furniture. Our wall art, bric-a-brac, and books. From room to room, projecting ourselves into the blank spaces. Each of us meandering through our own personalized holodeck.Outside, we inhaled the scent wafting from the lavender bushes and craned our necks to gaze up at the tops of the tall pines in the front yard. We...
Read More
Absinthe, Art & a Spiny Devil

Absinthe, Art & a Spiny Devil

by Rasmenia Comment Closed
La fée verte. The green fairy. Absinthe.No one is quite certain as to the details of its origin, but absinthe was made famous here in France. Of course, it had a little help from guys like Picasso......and my personal favorite, Degas.There are plenty more, but you get the idea.Many people, when they think of absinthe, automatically think of Paris somewhere around the late 19th century or early 20th century.Maybe other people think of this movie.For most people, absinthe conjures up images of artists, writers, bohemians...Paris cafés and cabarets.I doubt that there are many people who associate absinthe with this.What the hell is that? Well, that is Eurycantha Horrida. But, you can call him Spiny Devil Walking Stick. Doesn't he look delicious? Imagine Spiny marinating in a nice bottle of absinthe for who knows how long.Nope. I'm not jerking you around. It's true. For the low price of only $156.66 (€107.15), you can have this:Personally, I don't understand the appeal. If...
Read More

Cold Medicine Inspires Brilliant Ideas

by Rasmenia Comment Closed
It never fails. If I have nothing to do, no one to see and nowhere to be, I feel great. If I have plenty of things that I have to do, places to go and a busy social calendar, my nose will turn into a snot faucet. My throat will become sore and I will cough up mucous in an endless stream in between violent sneezes.I was sick at my wedding. The last time I went back to Colorado to visit friends and family during Thanksgiving, I had a horribly contagious cold.It never, ever fails.Now that the Hotel Massoud (a.k.a our home) is booked solid from September 7th to September 22nd, I'm all hopped up on cold medicine and have sneezed so much that the cat has made herself scarce, refusing to be in the same room with me.I think Olivier is enjoying this, though. I can barely speak, which means that I cannot effectively piss and moan about anything,...
Read More
Puking Peril on the Way to Parensol

Puking Peril on the Way to Parensol

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...
Read More