Orvis's Gargantuan Dog Bed

When you order stuff from the Internet, pay attention to the size.

I ordered this dog bed in Extra Large from Orvis, remembering that the largest size dog clothing rarely fits 57-pound Aimee. (Weight at her last weigh-in, not necessarily current.)

But I didn't process the 50" diameter specification. Think about 50 inches, take a tape measure to the floor area and see how it fits before you buy.

Aimee looks downright petite on her king-size bed. She reminds me of Lily Tomlin's Edith Ann in her oversize rocking chair.

Aimee sure is happy though. And that's the truth!

Let's Put a Few Horses Out of Work

How many marriage proposals do you suppose have been made while riding through Central Park in a horse-drawn carriage? Its so romantic and reminiscent of a bygone era.

But these carriages are dangerous and should be a bygone practice. New York City streets are not a safe place for the animals.

Last week, a carriage horse was tragically killed. A pedestrian beating a drum startled the horse. The horse ran up on the sidewalk and the carriage he was pulling got stuck between two poles. He died trying to pull the carriage through. A second horse ran into the street and landed on a car.

The graphic New York Times photo accompanying the story is wrenching.

Want a romantic ride in the open air? Give a pedicab some business.

And sign the petition to ban horse-drawn carriages in New York City.

Water for Elephants

Animal lovers, Water For Elephants will break your heart.

Set during the 1930s Depression, the novel takes you to the the gritty side of a struggling circus. The bosses are cruel, the performers are exploited and the workers are sad and broken. But belief in the circus illusion still survives and the characters have their decent sides too.

The circus animals show the complexities of their characters as well. They can be vicious, like the hungry big cats or like Queenie, the clown-dwarf's companion. They are capable of mischievousness, loyalty, sadness and love. Like humans, they are emotional beings.

But the most tender moments are Rosie's, the Polish elephant. The author gets me right here when she describes a big tear welling in Rosie's eye after the circus trainer throws a lit cigarette in her mouth.

Throws a lit cigarette in her mouth!

It makes me shudder. Poor Rosie suffers her share of beatings too. I almost had to stop reading.

But this is a story of hope and perseverance and readers who persevere to the end are rewarded as are Jacob and Marlena.

Jacob, the hero and circus veterinarian, falls in love with Marlena, a performer who unwisely married the circus trainer. They band together against her husband's cruelty. Besides sleeping together, they are guilty of some pretty awful dialog. The dialog is awkward throughout the book but that is my only real criticism.

New York Times Cross Words

The New York Times abandons their "Times Select" pay-for-content feature at midnight tonight. News junkies will rejoice. But where will the crossword puzzlers stand?

Perusing numerous articles about decision, I did not read one mention of crossword puzzle charges, staying or going. Serious puzzlers will pay the charges of $39.95 per year, a recent increase from $34.95.

I have paid for the privilege of the daily crossword struggle myself from the day the feature first became available online. Yet, I could never justify paying for the Times Select articles, despite pulling up the Times online several times a day.

Dogs: Obsessive, Compulsive and Proud

Dogs, by nature, are prone to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Who hasn't seen a dog circle a specific number of times before they sit? I don't know if vets diagnose OCD as a disease the way psychiatrists diagnose it in humans (or how people self-diagnose OCD and label their neighbors with OCD).

Dogs embrace their OCD. Their behaviors bother only their human caretakers, not them. I think dogs are comforted by their tics and quirks.

Meet Aimee. She is our five-year-old Yellow Lab and she is classic OCD. She paces in the elevator. She can only eat treats in her special spot. She licks obsessively. She licks her paw and then changes position slightly and licks some more.

The result: she she leaves a perfect ring of saliva on the rug. A crop circle so perfect, you and I couldn't have drawn it with a protractor. (Remember protractors, anyone?)

Maybe Aimee is just trying to tell us the UFOs have landed.

Theater 101: A Chorus Line

C., my colleague and source of theater info, said the current production of A Chorus Line is nearly identical to the original Broadway classic of the mid 1970s. C. viewed this as a minor negative; I didn't. Since I never saw the show before, my theater experience last night was a class in remedial theater.

My friend G. and I sat in the mezzanine, great seats for a full stage view. The set was simple, just a backdrop of floor-to-ceiling mirrors that pivoted around for a 360 view of the dance numbers. There was nothing else but a white line on the dance floor.

Three or four of the songs had permeated my brain sometime during the 80s and I got a little thrill when I recognized the first notes of a familiar tune. The show dragged for me only once when dancer Paul went on a bit too long with his childhood tale. Diana, my favorite cast member, was the smoothest dancer. She sang the vocal solo in What I did for Love.

Unfortunately, someone in my row kept coughing and worse, it was me. I tried hard to cough only during the applause, but I would feel the tickle in my throat rising every few minutes. I could stave off the cough for a bit with a sip of water, aware that I was capable of ruining the experience of the ardent woman next to me.

She softly tapped every beat on her thigh and mouthed every word of every song. She often led the applause and I wondered how many times she had seen the show.

Summer of Love at the Whitney

As the 40th anniversary of the 1967's Summer of Love comes to a close, so does the exhibit at the Whitney Museum, "Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era." Next weekend is the last chance to catch it; it folds up September 16.

On Saturday, a long line of people waited to buy tickets. (Buy 'em online, folks.) The crowd looked a little different than a typical New York museum crowd. The people younger than 30 wore funkier clothes, perhaps aspiring to the hippie spirit. Among the not-to-be-trusted crowd (over 30), I overheard parents telling their kids "this was my era". Real message: see, I once was cool.

H. and I had the advantage of our personal tour guide. G. knows everything about the era, about the history behind the underground publications, the story behind the album covers and the names of the bit players in the Warhol scene. G. pointed out the influential magazines Oz, IT and the East Village Other.

A wall of poster art for upcoming concerts mainly in San Francisco, London and New York featured the trendy but hard-to-read popular font and a slew of 60s bands. In the exhibit's corners there were light shows in darkened rooms that required a different state of mind to enjoy as they were meant to be enjoyed.

The New Mr. Popcorn

Why are butter popcorn products still on the market?

In 2001, Bronchilolitis Obliterans, a "rare and life threatening form of fixed obstructive lung disease" (Washington Post), was linked to popcorn factories and dubbed "Popcorn Lung". Hundreds of popcorn factory workers were sick from breathing in the chemical diacetyl, an ingredient in artificial butter.

I've eaten the stuff: the "butter" in buttered popcorn tastes more like axle grease than butter. My gut told me this stuff is bad for you, and not just from a nutritional standpoint.

The New York Times says:

Exposure to synthetic butter in food production and flavoring plants has been linked to hundreds of cases of workers whose lungs have been damaged or destroyed. Diacetyl is found naturally in milk, cheese, butter and other products.

Heated diacetyl becomes a vapor and, when inhaled over a long period of time, seems to lead the small airways in the lungs to become swollen and scarred. Sufferers can breathe in deeply, but they have difficulty exhaling. The severe form of the disease is called bronchiolitis obliterans or “popcorn workers’ lung,” which can be fatal.

Now a popcorn eater has the lung disease.

Wayne Watson is not just any consumer, he ate two bags a day for ten years. He admits he loved breathing in the burst of steam from a just-opened bag.

The media is treating the story like a human interest story. If only the public would get outraged, the media would elevate the story. But how can we be outraged when we are focused on the lead paint toys from China? So the flavor factories in California are racing the regulators. They are ventilating the factories and instituting employee health screenings.

But let's help them out; let's stop eating the stuff.

Rocking the Runway at Fashion Rocks

Fashion does indeed rock. From the sixth row of Radio City Music Hall last night, we enjoyed an evening of Old Rock meets New.

To kick off, Aerosmith burst out with "Walk This Way." Fergie joined Steven Tyler midsong, the first of four old dudes paired up with young stars.

Proving he is still a renegade, Tyler mixed and matched animal prints. Aerosmith followed up with "Dude Looks Like a Lady". How is it that their comeback hit is twenty years old, Gene leaned over and asked.

The show featured a lot of duets, but none surpassed the chemistry of Usher and Mary J. Blige. They stole the show with a James Brown/Aretha Franklin/Stevie Wonder medley, "It's a Man's World", "Respect" and "Do I Do". Mary J. Blige sure took care of MJB.

Jennifer Lopez made the most dramatic entrance and exit, descending from a silver capsule, singing her way down a red carpeted staircase, her back-up dancers dressed like paparazzi. But the performance was more flash than anything else.

Maroon 5 did a great rendition of "Be My Baby," hitting notes that Ronnie Spector can no longer hit.

Next up in the Old Dude/Young Chick category: Carrie Underwood and Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac. Not sure many in the audience recognized this particular old dude. Lindsey and Stevie--I mean Carrie--sang "Go Your Own Way," not typically the mantra of a fashion crowd.

Jennifer Hudson and Aerosmith's Joe Perry performed "Come Together". Hudson was a bit disappointing because the song didn't seem like her type of song (or her type of dress, for that matter!)

The final Old/Young pairing: Carlos Santana and Alicia Keyes, performing the second Fleetwood Mac song of the night, "Black Magic Woman." Who knew that famous shoe designer also played guitar?

The Getty Museum

Conde Nast Traveler recently named twelve iconic architects and their most iconic buildings. Of the list of twelve buildings, I have seen three.

I visited one of the three, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, in December, 2001. (Click on the photo for a larger image.) Not a single photo could capture the essence of the place. But this photo is my favorite, though it only shows a slice of the building.

The museum is high in the hills and you take a train from the parking lot to get to the museum and gardens. The Getty is almost more about the gardens than it is about the art. In fact, I didn't look at one piece of art inside. We just enjoyed the beautiful outdoor surroundings on a warm, late December day.

Architect Richard Meier also designed Avery Fisher Hall and the Museum of Television and Radio, both in New York.

Gimme a Clean Break

My friend West Nelson sent me a link to this Discover Magazine article containing twenty fun historical facts about cleanliness or rather, lack of cleanliness. The most surprising tidbit: toothbrushing wasn't commonplace until World War II.

Once the western world discovers that "cleanliness means health", we of course, take it too far. Read about the guy who died from excessive cleanliness. But even ordinary folk (non-OCD sufferers) take it too far. Experts are attributing increases in childhood asthma and eczema to lack of exposure to germs and bacteria.

Bottom line: wash your hands with normal soap and water, don't touch your face and don't be a freak.