I needed somewhere to post pictures of my animals (I put too many on Facebook). My dog and one of my rats.

Neighbors

Does everyone have weird neighbors, or is it just me? Or is it just that when you live close to someone for years, you see things about them that you weren’t supposed to. We have certainly had our fair collection of strange characters living in close proximity to us. There is Bruce that constantly invites our family over his house to look at his solar panels, and his wife who refuses to leave their dog unattended out of fear of petnappers. There was the Hollos who enjoy picking through everyones garbage, only to put it into junk piles in their overgrown yard. But the weird neighbors that have had the most influence on my life are the Colberts.

    A seemingly sweet and normal family, the Colberts inhabited the humble home directly to our left when facing the road. There was the dad (who later disappeared after a divorce), the mom, the grandma, and three children. One boy was the same age as me, one was 2 years younger, and there was a girl that was 5 years younger. What bothered me the most about these three kids was the body fluids. I do not handle the sight or smell of them at all. The Colbert kids always smelled vaguely of stagnant urine... correction; they smelled profusely like urine. They also always wore white undershirts that allowed their pot bellies to peek out of the bottom, and it also allowed everyone to see everything that they had eaten that day, because a good portion of it was smeared across their white t-shirts. If you stretched their shirts over a canvas over any given day, you could sell it as an abstract painting.

    Another irritating aspect of the Colberts was that they were an island of drooly, antisocial, lumps, in a sea of extraordinary close neighbors. Directly to their right was the Boises, and behind them was the Brills. The Boises, the Brills, and the Roesers were all best friends.We did everything together; barbecues, s'mores, picnics. We tried to include the Colberts when we could, we invited them to almost everything, but they seldom attended. The worst part about them alienating themselves was that it meant their glorious, huge trampoline was off limits. The Brills had the flat driveway where every neighborhood kid learned to ride a bike, the Boises had a swing set and an outdoor fireplace, and we had a flat yard great for games, and a rope swing. All neighbors shared their precious commodities with one another, except for the Colberts. We often snuck onto their trampoline when we assumed that they weren't home, and we didn't think they noticed. About a year after the trampoline’s arrival, we, the Boises, and the Brills all received a call from the mother, Jung, stating "Your children are no longer permitted on our trampoline, we bought this for our children. If your kids would like to jump, you can call me to schedule a time when you will supervise them." So the Colberts didn't like us either.

    Okay, so the Colberts were grody and antisocial, but is that an okay reason not to like someone? Well if you ask me, I say body fluids are enough to make me want to keep my distance, but surely not to hate them. The first incident where I truly hated them, started on a fine summer day. The sun was shining upon our beautiful green grass. As a very devoted little pet owner I thought that every animal, big or small, deserved to see the world on days like this. So I put my beloved hamster into her clear hamster ball, and I brought her outside to roll around warm yard. I watched for a few minutes, then I returned to the house. About fifteen minutes later, my brothers friend glanced out the window and asked, "Who are those kids playing soccer in your lawn?" I looked out of the window, "Oh, those are just the neighbors." Until I realized what their soccer ball was, and horror overcame me. Everything was in slow motion as the 8 year old Winston, who was the same age as me, swung his meaty leg heavily. His sneaker panged against the plastic hamster ball, sending it flying through the air, before skipping over the grass, and coming to a halt. I could see the dark shape of Hammie's body swirling and churning in the flying ball as she clinged on for her life. Perhaps the most disturbing part was that their grandmother was standing over them, with a innocent smile on her face, as if she was watching them skipping around picking flowers. I sprinted out of the house, and with the most assertive voice I could muster as an 8 year old, I screamed, "Get away from the hamster, get the hell off of our lawn!" They ran their chubby bodies down their hill back onto their lawn, with smiles on their faces. The grandmother, looking ashamed obliged as well. I scooped up Hammie and stormed back inside. Don't worry, Hammie was fine, (until her next adventure when she escaped and got trapped in our air ducts).

    The hamster was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to their frightening antics. Each time the children picked up a branch, my parents would grab my arm and pull me a safe distance away. One day (somehow) they got their sausage fingers on a pair of large tree clippers. One thing lead to another, and in the end little Aaron Brill was being carried back to his house by his brother, after being struck in the head by the blunt end of it. Another day, I looked out our window to see the Colberts kids dragging my 4 month old puppy around by vines that they had tied around his waist. My mom got a glimpse of this as well, and needless to say, they never returned near my dog.

    Does everybody have those weird neighbors? Are weird neighbors a necessary component to 

everybody's life? Probably not. But the Colberts taught me a few things. I now have keen self 

preservation instincts, and an instinctual response to move out of the way whenever people are 

flailing sticks.

Animal Ironies

For the past four summers I have worked as a camp counselor at a small farm camp. My day consisted 15 percent of running squirmy kids to the bathroom, 10 percent pulling kids out from behind kicking ponies, 6 percent screaming “hold onto the reins!”, 5 percent telling campers that the rabbits were just playing leapfrog, 30 percent landscaping in 100 degree weather, and 44 percent cleaning up animal shit, and I love the job nonetheless. However, there was obviously little time for me to spend bonding with the animals, and as a result, there were only a few that I knew very well.

One morning I arrived to find a particularly old and frail goat, Jeff,  laying with her legs tucked under her (a very normal position for goats to be in), but something didn’t seem right. I never spent any time with this goat, but I hopped over the fence, into the modest goat pen. I nudged the goat with the toe of my boot in the back of her thigh. She looked at me pitifully. I clapped my hands harshly in her ear, and she squirmed her legs a little bit under her, but she did not get up. I straddled the old goat and grabbed her under her armpits, hoisted her to her feet. She balanced for a second on her own, her legs splayed out like a newborn horse. She let out a mournful wail that sounded more toddler than goat, before she fell heavily onto her knees. I knew that she would not make it through the day. I pulled back her lip, an action that would make the average goat recoil, but she only blinked. Her gums were white, so I knew that she was laden with parasites; her immune system was extremely weak. I brought her a bowl of cool water, and I picked a pile of fresh grass for her, while trying to assure campers that she was perfectly okay at the same time. I sat the two bowls before her and she sniffed them timidly. Goats are not the type of animals that normally take the time to sniff their food before devouring it.  I took a single blade of grass and poked it between her lips. She nibbled at it and it disappeared like a dollar in a vending machine . I fed her grass blade by blade for nearly an hour. I didn’t want Jeff to be hungry when she died. Eventually she touched her lips to the water and sucked up a few gulps of it. I’ve always liked how goats drink water by sucking it up, as opposed to using their tongues like dogs or cats.  After she drank water on her own, something inside me churned with hope that maybe she would make it through the day. However, the heat was beating down, and she once again began to wail like a toddler before their bedtime.

She was in no significant pain, I had poked and prodded her entire body to ensure that. But she was terrified, she knew that she was going to die. With each pitiful wail she released, she seemed to have more troubled holding her head up. Her eyes flashed white with panic as her skull bobbled side to side like a baby trying to keep it’s heavy head vertical. Finally the goat’s thin frame slumped over, so that she was sprawled on her side. I had been sitting calmly with this goat all day, ready for her to die. I didn’t expect her death to affect me, but when she finally gave up, I couldn’t keep the tears from welling up in my eyes. I sat next to her for ten or so minutes more, I couldn’t leave her pen, I couldn’t let my campers see me cry. I laid a hand on her side feeling the last shaky breaths leak out of her. At this point life or death was indistinguishable, but if she still had life in her body, it was incredibly faint. I left her in her pen, incase her heart still had a few struggled beats left in in it.

    I tried to push her death out of my mind, but while reading about the suffering animals in slaughterhouses in Eating Animals, her panicked cries seemed to ring in my ears. If the death of an old goat, who lived twelve comfortable years could make me cry for an hour, then why when I eat an animal that has been mistreated for months and dies a horrible death, all I can think is,  “Hmm, so tasty,”? There is something incredibly wrong about this. If I cannot bear to watch an animal die, then I have no right to eat one that is dead. If I couldn't bring myself to even slaughter my own food, then how could I pay for meat slaughtered by a stranger. Humans are meant to consumer meat; we always have been.  However, we have an allusion that the neatly packed pieces of flesh in a grocery store were never living animals; they were never born and never killed. The distant that is placed between us, and the animal that our meat originated from has numbed us to the reality.  The hypocrisy of my eating style is slowly seeping in, it is not okay for me to cry for one animal, but pay for the torture of another; to sleep in the same bed as one, but tear another apart with a knife and fork with no second thoughts. Whether a person chooses to consume meat or not, the most crucial thing is that they need to think about what exactly it is that they are eating. How did their dinner die, and more importantly, how did it live? We should not let ourselves be blind to the origins of our food, regardless if the origins are good or poor, and regardless of our opinions on the fair treatment of animals.

Abby Roeser

Non-Fiction Writing- Sara Primo

April 10th, 2013

Eating Steak

I beg myself not to want it. I force myself to think Remember, Abby, it’s a cow, and you don’t eat cow. You don’t don’t eat it anymore, over and over. However, my empty stomach has other plans, it yearns for the piece of juicy grilled steak. My mouth waters at the slightest sight of the words “Filet Mignon” on the menu. You don’t want it Abby, It’s COW!” So, It’s decided, I’ll just get pasta with vegetables, instead. Pasta can make a perfectly adequate, and even quite enjoyable meal. The waitress comes around, and stares at me. Her pen is poised over her pad. “...and for you?,” she asks with an artificial smile and a fake melody of  friendliness in her voice. I prepare myself to ask for pasta, but instead I pause for a few seconds; the waitress's smile quickly falls away with impatience. Instinctively, I say, “Filet mignon, please, medium-rare.” The tiniest pang of regret surges through me before images of savory juicy meat pull my mind back to the meal ahead.

As I wait for my food my thoughts wander, and the tiny voice in my head once again begins to gain momentum. You're going to eat a dead cow? an innocent cow? how could you? I try to picture the cow when it was living; I can’t help but picture a muddy pen, stuffed tightly with stressed and restless cattle. I wonder if I were to be face to face with the cow before he was killed, what I could say to him, though of course he wouldn’t understand. I guess I could say thank you, or say that I was sorry. But above all, I would have to make sure that he knew that it was not his fault that he was SO delicious, and I would beg him to please forgive me.

The sight of waiters whizzing by my table, burdened with steaming platters snaps my mind back to the noisy atmosphere of the restaurant.  I wonder now, with all these images in my head of suffering livestock, how I could ever eat my steak, or even eat steak ever again.  I’m beginning to think that I should have ordered  pasta, when my waitress sets down a heavy white plate in front of me. The plate is framed with cloud-like mash potatoes, and bright, plump asparagus. However, in the center, there is the subject of the masterpiece. The thick, yet small cut of meat is a deep glistening caramel color. I am relieved to see that it is minimally seasoned, just sprinkled with a bit of salt. Only a mediocre steak needs clumsy layers of spices, or a thick coating of sauce to hide its not-so-impressive taste. It’s been awhile since I’ve started a steak in the eyes. I clench a fork in one hand and a knife in the other, but I hesitate. Where should I disrupt the perfectly seared surface? I go for the corner, sawing off a tiny chunk of meat. I begin to bring it to my mouth as the voice in my head begins to frantically shout, Don’t do it, don’t eat it, you are a MURDERER. As the steak touches my tongue the voice sputters and dies. How could I ever have guilt for enjoying something this delicious? The steak is tender, but not soft. The surface has a subtle salty crisp, as if to protect the treasure just below it’s surface.  The inside is a fresh pink color, gleaming with savory juice. It's pure healthy muscle, no fat or sinew. I eat each modest bite leisurely, letting the juices ooze from it in my mouth. . The unbelievable richness and heaviness of even the smallest bite, can satisfy my palate. I eat the entire cut of meat, left over steak is not one of those foods that is better the second time around. Looking at my clean plate, I have no regrets. My carnivore side has been satisfied once again, by the most delicious of foods.