Patience met Trust
At Rubio and H(e)art
On the corner
Of a shady cul-de-sac.
I can still feel them there
When I’m beginning to wear
And suspect that I am no match.
But as Time curves to tend
And past ignores End,
I strain to hear what they have to say.
Then a float vision blurs
And a thought reoccurs:
They never went that far away.
Dogs are humankind’s best friend, and the canine ability to understand human words has gone a long way to solidify that world-changing relationship. According to the American Psychological Association, the average dog can understand 165 words, and “super dogs” — those in the top 20% of canine intellect — can understand around 250 words. Dog intelligence can be divided into three main types: instinctive (what the dog is bred to do), adaptive (what a dog learns from its environment), and working/obedience (what a dog is trained to do). Research into the levels of working/obedience intelligence in various dog breeds shows that border collies displayed the highest levels, followed by poodles, German shepherds, and golden retrievers. With the ability to also understand simple math (1+1 = 2, for example), these “super dogs” have an estimated cognitive ability of 2- to 2.5-year-old humans.
Although 250 words is already impressive, it’s by no means the absolute limit. The Einstein of the dog world is a border collie named Chaser. According to the journal Behavioural Processes, Chaser had the ability to recall and correctly identify 1,022 words. This far exceeds the vocabulary of any known dog, and pushes Chaser into the cognitive ability range of a 3-year-old. Now, that’s an extremely good girl.
Confession: I hate food words. I hate them as adjectives. I hate them as nouns. I hate them as verbs. Always have.
Dunno why. Dad railed against adjectives, so I do in echo. He never, however, railed against verbs and nouns. But if I am reading a profile of someone and the story includes a description of the person “noshing on a tasty morsel” of anything, I first will throw up on my shoe, then jump to the sports section.
This goes back to high school. Buddies on my basketball team would literally get centimeters from my ear and whisper that the school lunch menu surely contained something “nutritiously delicious.” Their whereabouts remain unknown.
So yeah, I said it. I hate food words. But I love food that thinks it’s people:
Teddy would get into shit, but never a toaster.
Ever been taunted by a sandwich? It’s horrifying.
Sadly, Timmy learned to feed his porn addiction with luncheon meats.
Wow, Trump even yells at eggs.
Why so cerealous?
I gotta be me!
A muffin never forgets.
“It’ll need an exorcism, ma’am. Please hand over the brownies.”
If more vegetables could dab, I’d eat them.
E.T., phone Cinnabon.
Whooo’s a good beer foam? Yes you are! Yes you are!
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a tomato.
You know you suck at cooking when even your eggs disapprove.
He said he was boiling lasagna, but fucker clearly murdered Grover.
Ever seen food that knew it was food?
