Sea Kittens

Christopher Moltisanti; “Louis Brazzi sleeps with the fishes.”

Pussy Bonpensiero: “Luca Brasi! Luca …”

Christopher: “Whatever.”

-The Sopranos

 I like animals as much as the next human, but PETA is swimming up the wrong creek with this one. They renamed fish. They want us to call the scaly things “sea kittens.”

            According to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, we humans don’t seem to like fish. They’re slimy, and they have eyes on the sides of their head. Fish needed an image makeover, so that was why PETA renamed the whole species “sea kittens.”

            If we call a fish a sea kitten, PETA hopes we will stop catching them with hooks and eating them.

            I refuse to stop eating fish. They are loaded with Omega- 3 fatty acids, which are good for my heart. If I want to barbeque a salmon fillet, I’m doing it. And I’m certainly not going to refer to it as grilled sea kitten.

            But apparently PETA believes it has thought through the whole “sea kitten” revolution. They have created a “Sea Kitten” website where you can get all kinds of facts.

            For example, did you know that when a sea kitten has a baby, it’s called a “baby sea kitty?”

            The website also contains flash games, virtual books, and a store to buy sea kitten merchandise.

             I asked Vito what he thought. That was probably a bad idea, because now he was upset that PETA chose to call fish  “sea kittens” and not “sea puppies.” To calm him, I suggested we go to the website to “Create Your Own Sea Kitten.”

            Naturally, Vito wanted his sea kitten to look like a puppy. There were lots of sea kittens to choose from: flounder, tuna, salmon, mahi mahi. He picked the anchovy, because they tasted good on pizza. Choosing the right headpiece frustrated him because the ears that looked the most like Vito’s were brown, and Vito’s ears were black, white and gray.

            When we tried to pick a collar, Vito got really ticked. The only choice was pink, and Vito’s collar was blue, which made PETA seem anti-male. A lot of the sea kitten stuff did appear very Miley Cyrus-like.

            When it came time to choose a name for his sea kitten, Vito had completely lost interest.

            He let himself out to chase a squirrel …… excuse me … a tree kitten. 

The Patriot

Vito is proud to be an American on Memorial Day, and every day. He stands ready to serve in any way he is needed.

Puppy Love

“Mikey, why don't you tell that nice girl you love her? I love you with all-a my heart, if I don't see-a you again soon, I'm-a gonna die.”
- Clemenza
The Godfather

When Donny Osmond sang about puppy love, he apparently had never seen it. It’s not particularly cute; in fact, it’s rather disturbing.
Vito has a new girlfriend named Mia, a fetching Golden Retriever with wavy auburn hair. He started his first day of puppy school at the Wolverine Dog Training Club in Farmington Hills, and there she was. It was love at first sight.
Vito immediately courted her. He flew through the air and grabbed Mia by the scruff of her neck. He wrapped his ridiculously oversized paws around her and threw her to the floor. You could almost see Mia’s heart thump out of her chest. She looked excited, and afraid. I know all about adolescent hormones, but Vito was literally salivating. Mia got all wet from the slop that poured out of Vito’s mouth. It went from sort of sweet to totally weird in a matter of seconds. I had seen enough.
“Vito, bad dog … gross puppy,” I jerked him off Mia.
As of yet, neither animal had been, how can I put this delicately … fixed. So our instructor put Mia on one side of the class, and Vito on the other. Mia seemed to settle down and looked ready to pay attention to the teacher. Not Vito. He had one thing on his mind, and that wasn’t sit and heel. It was Mia, looking all hot, on the other side of the room.
He jumped and tried to twist out of his collar. He howled like he had swallowed a police siren. The teacher had to squirt him with a water bottle to shut him up.
When you view the following video of Vito’s and Mia’s second rendezvous, you may be able to see why I am not looking forward to parent-teacher conferences.

Leader Dogs Steven, Andy, Rocky (plus Charlie)

 (From left, Charlie, Lauren, Steven, April, Andy, Vito, AM, Laurie, Rocky, and Ross.)

             Lauren and her teenage son Zander rolled up in their car beside Vito and I. Lauren lowered her window. Zander was on the phone to get directions to his soccer game. It appeared they ran late.

             “Is that Vito?” asked Lauren. “Finally, we get to meet.”

            I glanced at Zander. He politely smiled, but I detected a hint of strain because he knew his mother became pure mush at the sight of a puppy.

             “Peek in the back,” she said. Zander’s head fell to the headrest.

            Snug between the front and back seats stood a baby yellow Labrador retriever. He looked up. His warm eyes said,  “Let’s be friends.”

            “He’s another Leader Dog,” said Lauren, beaming at the puppy behind her. “We just picked him up.”

            “Did you already give up Steven?” I asked. Steven was a black lab, and the Leader Dog they had been raising. I knew it was getting time for him to go back to Rochester, the headquarters for Leader Dogs for the Blind.

            “We have Steven for another week,” she said.

            “Do you still have Charlie too?” Charlie, a whippet, was their family dog and getting on in years.

            “Yes, right now we have three dogs.”

             “Ay-yi-yi!” I said like Ricky Ricardo.

            By now, poor Zander looked out his window as he tried to find his inner Zen in the midst of these two dog-crazy moms.

            I motioned to Lauren that she better get moving, As she took off, I yelled, “What’s this dog’s name?”

            “Andy,” she hollered out the window.

            Lauren works full time, has a husband, three children, and three dogs, named Steven, Charlie and Andy.

            Ay-yi-yi!

            A few days later, Vito and I spotted commotion in front of Laurie’s house. Laurie (who is a different person than Lauren) also raises a Leader Dog named Rocky, which is a black lab like Steven. Laurie’s teenage son Ross and Lauren’s son Zander are buddies.

            In the front yard with Laurie, Ross and Rocky was Lauren, Zander, and friend April, along with dogs Steven, Charlie and Andy.

            They asked Vito and I to join the party. Vito and puppy Andy were the same size, and they bonded immediately. They tugged at each other’s ears and pinned one another to the ground like kids on the same junior varsity wrestling team.

            Black labs Steven and Rocky were the varsity boys. The black Labs rolled on the grass like a giant bowling ball, and we all jumped out of their way like the bowling pins.

             Charlie, the old dog in the crowd, was smart enough not to throw himself in with the young bucks. He watched from safely across the street.

            Between the rambunctious dogs and kids, and the laughing mothers, it was  quite a sight. Neighbors honked, smiled, and gave us the thumbs up as they drove past. I thought we might have to pull the nice police officer from down the street away from his dinner table to direct traffic flow.

            The gathering turned into a bon voyage for Steven. He was to leave Lauren’s family the next day and head back to Rochester to begin formal training as a Leader Dog for the Blind.

            A Leader Dog family is special. These folks raise the pup in their homes, teach them house manners and basic obedience, and socialize the dog by taking him into the community on a regular basis. They play and love them unconditionally, and then when the dog reaches around a year of age, they turn him over to the professionals. Most will never again lay eyes on their beloved charge.

            Lauren was worried that Zander, in particular, would miss Steven. Laurie began to tear up just thinking of what it would be like to turn over Rocky in a few short months.

            It takes a lot of guts for a family to give its heart to a dog and then give the animal back. Leader Dog families sacrifice themselves for a higher cause.

            That’s what makes them heroes.

Vito and the MCAT

          

Junior: “Why didn’t you offer Tony an egg?”


Nurse: “I am a registered nurse, not your housekeeper.”

Junior: “Well...did you offer him an aspirin then?”

- The Sopranos

            Before Beth got into medical school, she had to take a standardized admissions exam called the Medical College Admissions Test, MCAT for short. We were surprised when Vito showed interest.

            To encourage him to pursue his dreams, Beth pulled up sample MCAT questions on her computer so Vito could see what it would be like to take the test. She told him that his doctor, a veterinarian, had perhaps taken the same examination.

            At first, he was completely focused on the MCAT. Soon, he began to growl at the computer screen. Beth could see he was upset. She thought the organic chemistry questions distressed him. Maybe the questions that appeared on the MCAT were too hard for his developing brain; after all, the material was very challenging.

            As she dug for an answer, she finally got to the bottom of his anger. It wasn’t what was on the test that frustrated him. It’s what he didn’t see on the test that caused him the aggravation.

            It appears Vito thought the MCAT entailed a bunch of dogs eating cats. Mmmmm … CAT.

Table Scraps

Capt. McCluskey: “How’s the Italian food in this restaurant?”

Sollozzo: “Good. Try the veal, it’s the best in the city.”

Capt. McCluskey: “I’ll have it.”

 - The Godfather

         The parents of Christina’s lacrosse team take turns cooking a pasta dinner before every home game. We do this to boost the kids’ energy.             Apparently, come game day, without Pasta with Bolognese sauce, macaroni and cheese, restaurant bread sticks, two different kinds of green salad with cheese, ice cream sundaes, cookies, candy, and gallons of Arnold Palmer Iced Tea, these young women wouldn’t have the get-up-and-go to even walk to the field, let alone score a goal.

            Christina asked if we could have the Farmington High School Girl’s Varsity Lacrosse Team dinner at our house so her teammates could meet Vito. MacKenzie’s mom Pat and Annie’s mom Colleen would co-host.

            The girls were great with Vito. Camera phones clicked photos like we were in the middle of a red-carpet event.

            While the teenagers ate, I lost track of Vito. I got nervous that he snuck out when he girls entered the house. I called for him, and MacKenzie said he was right there at her feet, trolling for dropped food.

            I called for him to get out from under the table, but it was too late.

            For a flash, I saw the end of a breadstick in his mouth. By the time I blinked, it was down his throat.

            I tried to flush him out from the table, but he hid among the assorted legs, lying in wait for the next fallen morsel of food.

            A corner of crouton sailed down, and he snatched it in mid-fall.

            He unveiled a new, unappealing trick as he stood on his hind legs and sniffed around the girls’ plates. Now he was being a pest, so I grabbed him by the collar. He strained to lick the floor as I shoved him in his crate.

             I looked back at him, and I will never forget the look in his eyes -- betrayal, hurt, and anger. I had served him puppy chow like it was something special. He ate it happily because he never knew there was anything else. Now, however, the gig was up. Never again would he wag his tail as I scooped pellets of cereal into his bowl.

            The lacrosse team had shown him the joy of “pasta dinner” food, and the scraps and crumbs that descended from it. There was a whole world of yummy stuff out there, beyond that bag of cardboard I brought home from the pet store, just waiting for him to snatch, lick, and chomp.

            Vito had tasted people food, and I fear nothing will ever again be the same between us.

Coach Babcock

“Tony never had the makings of a varsity athlete.”

- Junior Soprano

The Sopranos

            Between Vito and the blog, I don’t get out much. So I felt particularly lucky to spot Red Wings Head Coach Mike Babcock at Christina’s lacrosse game. No, Coach Babcock wasn’t making the transition from professional hockey to women’s high school lacrosse; like me, he was in Farmington Hills to watch his daughter play. Fortuitously, I had my new video camera.

            Bloggers sneak photos of celebs all the time. The hope is that the celeb will misbehave. If I was lucky, I could record Coach Babcock do something awful, like throw his Starbucks at the 80-year-old-lacrosse referee.

             That’s how millionaire celebrity blogger Perez Hilton – who I used to think was Paris Hilton trying to spell her name like a rapper – got his start.

            Nonchalantly, I extended the camera outward so it looked like I recorded Christina as she cut around the lacrosse field. But in fact, I angled the camera toward Coach Babcock, who talked, “Yada, yada, Lidstrom …” on his phone.

            It was very bright outside, and as I tried to find him in the lens, the crowd erupted. Christina scored. But I missed the whole thing because my camera was aimed at Coach Babcock, who I have not yet photographed because I can’t see him in the lens.

            My friend Pat walked up with a quizzical look. No wonder. Unconsciously, I had turned away from the lacrosse field with the camera thrust outward in front of me almost in the face of Coach Babcock.

            I whispered to Pat that Coach Babcock was behind her. By now he was really revved, talking a mile a minute, so much so that Pat couldn’t hear what I whispered. So I said it louder -- at the exact moment Coach Babcock stopped talking. He looked me dead in the eye.

            My daughter Beth appeared. She had witnessed the whole incident.

            “Way to be discreet, mom,” she whispered in my ear.

            Now, though I practically faced him, I had to pretend that I was interested in something else on the horizon. At the perfect moment an amazingly beautiful Golden Retriever, the Farrah Fawcett of dogs, appeared. I would aim my camera at this dog, as if all along that was what I was really interested in photographing.

            The lady with the gorgeous Golden set up her chair right next to Coach Babcock. He and the lady smiled at each other. She didn’t appear to care who he was, so I guessed the lady was his wife.

            The Golden performed like Lassie. It rolled in the grass, gave the lady kisses, and shook its feathered blonde fur in slow motion. This Golden was pure Hollywood, the stuff of a video blogger’s dreams. Only now I didn’t have the nerve to take a video of the dog because it might be Coach Babcock’s. Already he was suspicious of me, and I wasn’t going to press my luck with an Olympic-gold hockey coach.

            The lacrosse game wasn’t quite over when Coach Babcock left, without saying goodbye to the woman with the dog. By now I was pretty sure Coach Babcock and this lady weren’t married. So, not only did I not get a video of Coach Babcock, I didn’t get one of the blond, bombshell of a dog. Also, I missed Christina’s goal.

            On the way to the car, I verbally flogged myself in front of Christina and Beth. What the heck kind of blogger was I? I would never be Perez Hilton. Heck, I would never even be Paris Hilton.

            “Mom …” Beth caught my hand just before I threw my new camera into the pussy willows … “I’ve got a picture of you and Mike Babcock.”

            There we were caught on Beth’s I-Phone.

             Apparently the Perez-Hilton-gene skips a generation.