EDITION OF JUNE SWEATYFOURTH, ER, JUNE 24-25, 2024 [PetPowellPress] Morning forecasts suggest two constants for a Monday in a Texas summer — lots of traffic en route too and from Dallas and it’s too hot to plow. My office cat William Powell concurs with the next opening clause.
It might also be too hot to mow, but a Texas boy with a Texas Rangers baseball cap and quick access to an icebox and air-conditioning ought to be able to handle a small front yard.
I’m buying some goats to take care of the back yard. Relax, goatpeople, I’m kidding! Kidding — another goat word.
If cows are calving, are goats kidding? Yes, I was not raised on a farm. I was raised in a neighborhood where the gravel streets (when I was about 10) were suddenly covered with city asphalt. Whew! The auto-speller caught the typo I’d made in “asphalt.” See ITEM II next. Oh, and to my knowledge William has never seen a goat in person.
ITEM II
I like Roman neurals. Er, Roman numerals. I can’t remember where I was going with this paragraph. Let’s just move on to ITEM III.
ITEM III
HOW MY BRAIN IS CONDITIONED
I’m scrolling through a ton of e-mails Monday morning and I see a subject line that reads: “EXTENDED:L ONE MORE DAY TO SAVE BIG…” and I immediately think it’s a big dog in Dallas Animal Services. So I click on it and suddenly I realize it’s an advertisement for backyard furniture and anti-mosquito tenting. But, it sure sounded like a lot of desperate animal notes that cross the online threshold, doesn’t it!
I dramatically clicked my way to the Dallas Animal Services site HERE and found the ADOPT photos posted for Monday. And this is the photo collection that was on the site — a bunch of adorable adoptable canines and one cat with really fascinating eyes. That’s Frankie the Cat, a feline fellow sandwiched between adorable canine Bella and dignified Wolfie.
THESE ARE JUST TWELVE (click on the pictures to make 'em grow) OF THE HUNDREDS of animals waiting for either a home or the needle at Dallas Animal Services.
See ‘em in person at the Dallas Animal Shelter and Adoption Center on Westmoreland at I-30 about 10 minutes west of downtown Dallas. [LARRY ADVICE: Just park in the shelter lot, get out of the car, whistle and yell “Come here, baby” and you’ll be surrounded by dogs and cats who already love you… Perhaps I am enhancing that potential experience a little bit, but give it a chance. Oh, most of the critters already were running loose in Dallas -- that's how they wound up there in the first place -- running loose and being dumped. But, if you have a heart that can belong to an animakl, you do get to go inside the shelter— it’s a privilege — and ask about animals and the adoption fees. Might be a day or a dog or cat is available without a fee or at least at a bargain price!]
Go to this Dallas Animal Services website and navigate to all sorts of statistics, including one of the great drivers of concern for animals: the euthanasia stats at the big city shelter. [LARRY ASIDE:There are animals who aren’t even in the shelter yet who are going to wind up on death row because there are people who just don’t care and dump their dogs and cats or let ‘em “go stray” all over town. Makes me ashamed of the town I love.]
CONTEMPLATIONS
ASSORTED WANDERINGS…
Is Dallas’ freeway traffic worse than the legendary traffice in Houston? Haven’t been to Houston in a while, but every now and then I’m challenged by Dallas. If roundabouts are so darned good for moving traffic along, why aren’t there more of ‘em on freeways. Is the entirety of LBJ (I.e., 635) a federal interstate highway roundabout for the whole city of Dallas?…
Just a thought (we have low standards for ‘thought’ at readlarrypowell.com): Aren’t roundabouts just a little too “quaint” for an area where drivers-in-a-hurry recently prove that they are armed and dangerous?…
From a kid in small-town Texas about 60 years ago, “Get well soon, Princess Anne!” In case, Dear Readers, you missed the news stories, assorted outlets have been reporting that King Charles’ sister may have received a concussion over the weekend when’s she was kicked by a horse or when a horse flinched and bopped her noggin. The Princess Royal is a well-know fan of horses. Things happen. I remember as a commoner kid in Texarkana being cautioned by Scout leaders and relatives, “Don’t stand behind the horse.” Two good reasons and one of them is avoiding being kicked. The other one is, well, not a kick, but it’s still a darned good reason.
—- Offer horse advice or people cautions by clicking on ‘comment’ below or by emailing [email protected] and put “HOLD ONTO THE SADDLE HORN, SLIM” in the subject line. —