Columnists

For the past several months, our 9-year-old female

A potential

You and your pets share infections. You’ve heard this before, but now there’s new evidence that makes it even more significant. For example, humans aren’t the only ones who will be infected by the flu virus this coming season. Studies have shown that cats and dogs often carry flu viruses. We’ve known for some time that kitty-cats could be carriers. But research in 2000 implicated dogs as well. And the numbers of infected pets is really surprising. A recent Ohio study of feline blood samples found that almost a third of cats had been infected with seasonal flu, and one in five had been infected with the H1N1 flu strain that caused so much concern in 2009.

Now that Junior is a teenager I have discovered that teen boys

“Spamalot” is taken from the successful movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” and the Broadway hit of 2005, for which Eric Idle wrote the book, music and lyrics with John Du Prez. The show garnered 14 Tony nominations and won three, one for best musical. Python groupies and non-obsessed Python theater goers will be gleefully satisfied with all the absurdity and insanity.

August is supposed to be a dead month for politics, a time to

The shockingly un-American and depressingly shortsighted

It must be a sign that I’m becoming a Cranky Old Person (COP) when some of the music I’m hearing these days leaves me shaking my head and muttering unintelligible things to myself.

Another dog has claimed me as her human. It took three months after the death of my beloved Pumpkin for that inner voice to tell me, “I think you’re ready.” It’s sooner than I anticipated, but there was a void left behind - an emptiness that I knew could be filled by saving the life of another dog. I simply had to wait for my grief to ease and my heart to open enough to welcome a new companion home.