Au Cochonnet Marin

I did it!

After 2 years without a pet we just adopted a kitty: Princess Kate. That was the name that was on her cage at the adoption center and we decided to keep it.
She looks very regal indeed.

She is a baby, just 5 months old, but she is very poised in spite of her young age.
She is not shy and accepts human beings readily.

The good people at the adoption center told me to first keep her in a small room to gradually let her get used to her surroundings, but I had other ideas.
I wanted Kate to get the lay of the land right away, so I let her wander whether she pleased.

She duly inspected every room, climbed into the bathtub, jumped on my computer station, walked on the keyboard and finally settled in the basket that I had prepared for her in my office. She took to it like a fish to water.
She sniffed the lining, massaged it for a while and without any further ado went for a snooze.
She now looks like she always belonged here.

When it comes to animals, I rely on my own sensory appendages.
I let the beasts come to me instead of me going to them.
It might take a while, but it usually works.

When I was in the army, I started to talk to a new guy who was bunking next to me.
So what do you do in the civilian life? I asked.
I am a car thief, he said.
I said OK, and continued the conversation without blinking an eye.
That was not the reaction he expected from me. He looked a little piqued and asked: does that bother you?
Why should it? My car is not parked in front of the barracks.

He smiled and started to open up. I didn’t have to probe. He spilled all his beans spontaneously.
Jean-Baptiste and I became very good friends.

That’s the way I see it.
If the animal wants your company or attention, he will let you know.
If he is not so inclined, leave him alone.
I have the keys to the “garde-manger” and he usually knows it.

Stay tuned for the further adventures of Princess Kate.

Alain

Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Afghan Civil War, Somali Civil War, Islamist insurgency, Libyan conflict, War in Ukraine…
Reading the news is a rather depressing pursuit… That’s why these days I focus on lighter subjects.

I just read in the Los Angeles Times that the new trend among young women is to dye their armpits hair.
“They are dyeing their armpit hair blue, green, red and any other color that suits their fancy.“
By doing so, they are basically rebelling against the prevalent diktat that stipulates that a woman’s body should be totally hair-free.
They want to keep their armpits “au naturel” and I say more power to that!

Dying instead of shaving is a liberating step forward.
Women shave mainly to feel more attractive, but who said in the first place that a hair-free body is more appealing than an unshaved one?
Many people regard armpit and pubic hair to be highly erotic and wouldn’t dream of asking their women to defoliate.
Gustave Courbet was well aware of it when he painted “L’Origine du monde”.

Trends are usually started by a few rebellious individuals who don’t want to look and feel like anybody else. And fearing to be “uncool” (teenagers worse fear) fashion lemmings follows suit.
There was a time in America when every boy (and man) was sporting a crew cut. It was the manly way to express your masculinity.
Then the Beatles stormed our shores and almost overnight the boys started to grow long hair.
Monkey sees, monkey does!

Every part of the human body has a purpose and so do hair.

“Defuzzing” your armpits or your pubic area is a dopey idea in the first place and defeats the original seduction purpose.
Most sources agree that those areas have something to do with pheromones —“a chemical substance produced and released by the body that can be sexually stimulating to others.”

By shaving those areas, women (or men) eliminate that scent and ruin the original seduction purpose.
Duh!

“Pubic hair removal also irritates and inflames the hair follicles left behind, leaving microscopic open wounds.
When that irritation is combined with the warm moist environment of the genitals, it becomes a happy culture medium for some of the nastiest of bacterial pathogens.”

Philosophically I am against deforestation. It is bad for the environment and bad for humanity.

If you’ve got it, don’t shave it! Flaunt it!

Alain

Here we go again. It is Turkey Day!

On Thanksgiving Day, everybody in America, rich or poor, must chomp on roasted turkey.
It is served everywhere, in restaurants, in army barracks, in homeless shelters, in private homes.
It would be positively un-American not to eat turkey.

Thanksgiving is an American national holiday celebrated each year on the fourth Thursday of November.
It commemorates the harvest festival originally celebrated by the Pilgrims in 1621.
Even though it has its roots in religious traditions it is now mainly celebrated in a secular way.

It was Abraham Lincoln by the way who declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863.

To turkeys though, Thanksgiving is not a happy occasion.
It is known as Black Thursday! It is not a day of celebration but a day of mourning.
When talking about it, they like to paraphrase a fellow chicken that famously said:
“He may be Colonel Sanders to you, but he’s Adolph Eichmann to us!”

America being a nation of immigrants celebrates Thanksgiving in many different ways.
Due to different ethnicities, Americans spice up the traditional dinner with dishes that often originated in foreign countries.
I have no doubt that Mexican-American families incorporate native dishes into their menu. So do Scandinavians or Japanese.
Similarly Russian-Americans flavor the dinner with vodka, caviar and plenty of zakuski and pirozhki.

But no matter how you look at it, Thanksgiving is a day of excess. A belt-busting extravaganza where calories counting is piously ignored.
As the French would call it, it is a Grande Bouffe (a great stuffing day).
Many Americans (probably out of puritan guilt) renew their health club membership the next day.

Although an American holiday, Thanksgiving is now celebrated in many parts of the world.
In Canada, it is held on the second Monday in October.

In Germany they celebrate The Harvest Thanksgiving Festival, Erntedankfest, in early October.

In Japan, they observe Labor Thanksgiving Day (Kinrō Kansha no Hi). It is a national holiday Japan and it takes place annually on November 23.
This tradition was adopted during the American occupation after World War II but it also has roots in an ancient harvest ceremony (Niiname-sai ) celebrating hard work and production.

Little by little, Thanksgiving is also conquering Europe.

In Paris, in the Marais district, there is a grocery store called, what else, Thanksgiving, where homesick Americans can purchase all they need for their dining feast.

But turkey is not really my dish of choice.
If I had my way, I would put “pâté de campagne”, pheasant, truffles and Tarte Tatin on the menu.
The Pilgrims might have frowned on it, but the Indians (especially the Hurons, Delawares and Shawnees) would have understood.

Za vashe zdorovie, you all!

Alain