Ten Lives? pet owners jump through hoops to keep their aging pets alive
This is a gal who has “already outlived three husbands,” confides Jere Berger, “but I don’t think she’ll be a widow the fourth time around.” The gossip concerns Jenny and her current mate, Percy, who is several years younger and utterly devoted. The couple lives in a two-story condo in Hinesburg, where her cradle-robbing exploits…
Getting the Message: A local pet psychic talks about her animal instincts
Julie Soquet talks to the animals. But unlike Dr. Dolittle, who chats out loud with his non-human pals, Soquet’s interspecies conversations are strictly a meeting of the minds. “I communicate telepathically with animals,” she says matter-of-factly. “Animals are much easier to work with than us humans. For the most part, they’re very direct; they’re completely…
Snooping Doggie Dogg: On the beat with a canine cop
Getting out of my car in the Burlington Police Department parking lot, I soon discover Stoney, the resident drug-detection dog. It’s July 3, the middle of a four-day heat wave. It’s only 8:10 a.m. but already hot and muggy enough to bring out the beast in anyone who lacks the savage-soothing comfort of air conditioning.…
Crash Course
Dinner with Friends is the story of four well-fed Connecticut yuppies with a picture-perfect home whose lives seem ideal — until, between the main course and dessert with her best friends Karen and Gabe, Beth spills the beans that her absent husband, Tom, has left her for a much younger woman. The news is devastating…
Queen of Slander
The current female darling of the right wing, Ann Coulter, unloaded on Vermont’s U.S. Senate delegation Monday during a brief interview on local talk radio. Coulter is the author of the current No. 1 best-seller, Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right. Proving no slouch at slander, Ms. Coulter called U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords “a…
Hackie
Just about every summer weekend brings some event or festival to town. From the Fishing Derby to the Latino Festival to the Chew-Chew, I love ’em all. People out and about in large numbers means taxi fares — it’s that simple. The Jazz Festival was great this year, as it seems to be every year.…
Back Talk
chicken big Forget about dogs and cats. For Vershire author Jay Rossier, Living with Chickens is where it’s at. His new book, subtitled Everything You Need to Know to Raise Your Own Backyard Flock, promotes the pleasures of small-scale poultry farming. Published by the Connecticut-based Lyons Press, it’s full of practical advice — “before you…
Flick Chick
High Times: The Doors of Perception, the title of a book Aldous Huxley wrote after taking mescaline in the 1950s, is a term that perfectly describes any exploration of human consciousness. Rocker Jim Morrison could dig it. So could Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary, Harvard University psychologists who began stepping through those doors with Huxley…
