Archive for December, 2012
A Funny Holiday Story: Chalk or Peppermint Stick?
Right before Christmas, one of our super staff, Cherie, brought us in a gift bag. Inside the bag was a giant mug filled with goodies. The mug contained homemade muffins, cocoa mix, tea bags, pretzels dipped in chocolate, and a long skinny, white stick that looked a bit like a piece of chalk.
We did not take the mug and the goodies out of the gift bag, but only peered into the depths at the delectable snacks awaiting us.
Later, after carefully perusing the gift bag contents (still firmly located in the bottom of the mug in the gift bag), Joe pulled me from my office and asked me to look at the white stick.
“What do you think it is?” he asked.
“It looks like chalk,” I answered.
“I thought maybe it was a peppermint or a cinnamon stick,” he told me. “To dip in your hot chocolate or tea. But it didn’t taste like that.”
“You tasted it?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“What did it taste like?”
“Chalk,” Joe said, sheepishly. “But why would there be chalk in a mug of treats? Here, you taste it and see what you think.”
“I’m not tasting it,” I said.
So what exactly was the white stick and why was it in the mug filled with yummy goodies?
Later, when we actually took the mug out of the gift bag, the identity of the white stick was obvious.
On the mug was a chalkboard that wrapped around the sides so that people could scribble messages or doodles. On the mug’s chalkboard, Cherie had written, “Merry Christmas.”
The white stick was chalk–and Joe actually tasted it!
Moral of the story: Do more investigative work before you try to eat anything.
Happy Holidays. And remember: if it looks like chalk and tastes like chalk, it probably is CHALK!
Have a Wonderful Holiday!
We want to send holiday blessings to all of our customers, staff, colleagues, family, and friends. Thank you so much for your support during 2012. We promise to do our best for you in 2013!
Plain City Druggist will be closing early at 1 pm on Monday, Christmas Eve. We will be closed on Christmas Day, but will re-open for regular hours at 9 am on Wednesday, December 26. If you have an emergency over the holiday, please call Joe on the after hours number: 614-240-8421.
May this Christmas season create many lovely memories that you will look back on fondly in coming years.
Thank you to Kristin Ramsdell for this photo of her former Black and Orange Cat Foundation foster, Milo, hiding in the Christmas tree.
New Children’s Book, Tender Mercies, By Local Author, Vicki Watson, Teaches Compassion for Animals.
I am thrilled to announce that our web guru, feline friend, and local author, Vicki Watson, has just released the fourth book, Tender Mercies, in her Sonrise Stable series. I had the privilege of reading the book before it was published to give Vicki my thoughts on the story line, which features Black and Orange Cat Foundation board member and friend, Dr. Kim West, and a kitty she rescued, Sparrow, who had been shot with an arrow.
You can read Sparrow’s full story and see photos HERE.
Vicki was so horrified after she heard about Sparrow that she wanted to tell others about the extreme cruelty that brought the cat to the Humane Society of Delaware County and Dr. West, as well as the extreme compassion that saved her life. Sparrow has, by the way, gone on to a wonderful home with a friend of Dr. West’s in Chicago. So despite everything, this kitty got a happy ending.
Sparrow’s tale is a side story in Tender Mercies, which focuses on the fate of foals born to “nurse mares.” In case you don’t know about nurse mares, here’s the sad information. When an expensive thoroughbred horse gives birth, the owners will sometimes take the much wanted thoroughbred baby away from it’s very valuable mother and have a nurse mare raise the thoroughbred foal. Because the nurse mare must have milk, she will have just given birth herself. Her true baby is of no value and is often killed.
Luckily, there are rescues that take these unwanted “products” of the thoroughbred industry and find the babies homes. One of those rescues is Last Chance Corral in Athens, Ohio. Vicki visited Victoria Goss, who saves these horses, to get information for Tender Mercies. Both Victoria and the rescue are featured in the book and provide a very real and poignant portrait of the fate of these babies. Thankfully, there are places like Last Chance Corral for these foals that did not ask to be born and certainly don’t want to die.
Vicki wanted Tender Mercies to touch on the many cruel things humans do to animals to teach the next generation to be compassionate and more humane. The theme of Tender Mercies focuses on treating animals with kindness, based on Proverbs 12:10: “A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.”
If you are looking for a great gift for kids this holiday season that not only promotes reading, but also teaches compassion for animals, Tender Mercies fits the bill. To read more about Tender Mercies and to order the book, go HERE.
The other three books in the Sonrise Stable series, Rosie and Scamper, Carrie and Bandit, and Clothed With Thunder, are also available by going to the web site HERE and clicking on the link at the top for BOOKS.
Vicki lives locally in Marysville and her web site business, VWeb Web Design, takes care of Black and Orange Cat Foundation, this blog, and Midwestern Compounding. Vicki graduated from Jonathan Alder High School. Her good friend, Becky Raber, did all of the illustrations for the book and she lives here in Plain City. Visit Becky’s web site HERE.
I am so happy to support local artists who promote kindness and compassion to all animals and value the importance of rescue in the lives of unwanted animals. Thank you Vicki and Becky!
You can read another blog posting about Vicki HERE.