Lazy Germophobe

I’m ridiculous when it comes to safe food handling. It’s one of my ISSUES. So I surprised myself one recent morning when I came down to the kitchen for coffee, discovered the carton of eggs purchased the previous evening sitting on the counter, thought “Oh well,” and put them in the fridge. I know not everybody refrigerates their eggs. NBD. It just shortens the shelf life, right? I feigned nonchalance until it was time to make my dear husband an egg sandwich for lunch. “You know what, let me just consult the interwebs to see if these eggs actually are OK to eat...” I was so glad I checked! Someone posed my exact scenario to the Egg Safety Council, and the surprise answer was that “after eggs are refrigerated, it is important they stay that way. Maintaining a consistent, cool temperature is critical to safety. A cold egg left out at room temperature can sweat, facilitating bacteria growth. Refrigerated eggs should not be left out more than two hours before re-refrig...

When people see our dog Opie (left), they notice his two different colored eyes first. Then they say, “What IS he?”—a mystery we have been trying to unravel since we “rescued” him from a kill shelter in South Carolina in January 2015. In the only photo we had seen, he appeared to be a German shepherd mix, which is exactly what we wanted. He looked young; the rescue organization thought three or four months old. Also exactly what we wanted! Perfect! We started the process to get him brought up to Vermont from South Carolina, which was surprisingly rigorous, with references and home visits. Finally a group of dogs was set to be transported up from SC. All of us adopters received a message telling us to show up at 4:30 the next afternoon at the Kmart that was about to go out of business. Standing around that empty parking lot waiting for a van to arrive from another state with our dogs felt super sketchy. We stood around making black market jokes.  I had been tasked with gett...

Mice are a scourge. They are awful. They carry diseases. They eat our stuff and then poop on our other stuff. Mice do not belong in my house, and as a matter of fact, there are too many of them outside, too. I’m no biologist, but common sense suggests we are overrun with mice because there aren’t enough natural predators. I live in an area with hawks, owls, snakes, and foxes, we STILL have too many mice. That’s why we need to suck it up, gird our loins, and just kill them. If I had my way, live traps for mice would not exist. The reason the mouse’s natural predators are in decline is our fault. If humans are going to displace the wild animals that keep our rodent populations in check, then it’s our duty to step in and do their job for them. We have to kill the mice. “Oh, but they’re so cuuuuute!” Stop it. Mice are germy and carry serious illnesses like hantavirus . (Yes, hantavirus is rare, but it can be deadly.) Mice will not hesitate to poop on your...