(“There’s a Butterball Hotline?”)

I learned two things today. One of them should not have been a surprise, and yet it was! Ricky, the old collie, barks like crazy when someone comes up the driveway. That’s a good quality, but after a point, oh, please!

When I yell at him, he just barks more. So frustrating. I discovered that instead of yelling at him, I praised him, he stopped, barking, having completed his duty.

Duh! That’s so obvious, but in a way counterintuitive when he’s being a nuisance.

The other is related to what I thought was a great idea of mine. First, I have to remind you of an episode of the West Wing from many years ago where the President is complaining to Toby that there’s a lot of confusion about how to cook a turkey at Thanksgiving and what temperature the stuffing should be so that your guests won’t get sick. The President goes to declare we need to create a 1-800 hotline where people could call in and find answers to their Thanksgiving turkey questions. Charlie walks in at that point, and says to the President, “There is. It’s the butterball hotline.” The president responds, “there’s a butterball hotline?” And it goes on from there.

The same thing just happened to me. As I was salting some meat on my dinner plate, I said out loud to Elizabeth, “We could make a lot of money by breeding animals where their meat was genetically pre-seasoned with salt and pepper.

Elizabeth looked at me and said, “Too late! Haven’t you heard of Agneau de pré-salé?” and told me about the lambs grown on the salt marsh near Mont Saint-Michel which are slaughtered pre-salted. I was as astounded as Jeb Bartlett was. Have you heard of that? Maybe it’s only me…