Itchy Paws

Do you think dogs can get poisin ivy? I know they can pass it on to humans, but do they show any effects from the dhastardly vine? Let us hope not, as we were in poisin ivy heaven this weekend at Point Lookout State Park. Camping with a wonderful group of close friends, we had an excellent time enjoying each other's company, and pretty much doing nothing this Memorial Day. The extensive trail system that lasted all of one hour was quite relaxing in the early evening as the humidity had decreased by then. The mosquitos never slept though, now did the ticks. Rumors abounded of a tick in a bum as well...but I won't describe further. Point Lookout has one of the most haunted lighthouses in the US but the ghost stories didn't seem to keep us awake at night. Several people enjoyed kayaking around the creek and river inlets, and D & I and friends enjoyed taking Laika into the Bay for swimming, despite the warnings of a flesh-eating bacteria just in time for the holiday weekend. Laika had a defining moment, when she finally agreed to pick the frisbee up out of the water. She usually just swims to the spot it is and then refuses to put her face in the water (and swallow a lot of water in the process) to pick it up. I think she was jealous of Chase's fetch skills and wanted to show us she was just as good. She did! I did some bird-watching in the morning and saw an osprey eat a fish, a green heron, and several great-crested flycatchers (so beautiful!), to name a few. I also saw French people, not typically found in St. Mary's Cty.

Chai and take credit for this!

Oh man--on a crazy ice cream binge D and I lurked in the freezer section. We contemplated the billions of options for much longer than acceptable by most standards. As usual in a grocery store, I became distracted by some new products and D impatiently tapped his foot, hands on hips. (Not exactly, but I'm painting a picture here.)

I saw a line of gelato--straight from Italy they said. I wondered if this was really true, and contemplated buying it and eating the entire thing in order to verify, and then saw Stoneyfield Farms' frozen yogurt in the upper corner of the freezer cabinet. Boy did that Vanilla Chai look yummy. And expensive at nearly $2 more than any other container in the section. I thought, "If I were rich, I would buy this yogurt because they're good people and make good for you food". Then I saw a tiny little symbol that I new all too well. My God--they're marketing my product! Again, not exactly. I did sweat an awful lot on this project though in my short career at HTea. For several weeks straight I toiled in our product development office (the kitchen) concentrating our chai tea and then adding various sweeteners and forcing it through a small gold press. My fingers were blistered from the force of pressing this stuff. I was so dedicated to establishing my own line of yogurt products. I guess they moved on without me fairly easily.