My name is Charcoal and I am a 3 year old female 13 pound cross between a poodle and a Schnauzer aka Schnoodle. One of my many assets is that I'm hyperallegenic and that's why I landed with Joanne and Fred Klein. We coexist and get along well and that's why I agreed to submit to the following interview with Fred.   Q. What is your favorite activity? A. Eating, especially sharing an early morning banana with you.   Q. What is your greatest dislike?

Do you take a camera on vacation? We are packing for a trip to Hawaii. Beautiful scenery.

A national survey by the Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation finds 6 in 10 women and one-third of men call themselves a feminist or strong feminist, with roughly 7 in 10 of each saying the movement is empowering. Yet over 4 in 10 Americans see the movement as angry, and a similar portion say it unfairly blames men for women's challenges.

  I heard the following story.

  I thought the following would be a good follow-up to Cayce’s blog from last week.    

We had a formal affair last night, the 100th anniversary of our synogogue. I had my tuxedo dry cleaned, shoes polished, and bow tie pressed.   I like tying my own bow tie. It is more authentic than buying one of the already tied ties -- more Bond-ish, though I have no idea if James Bond tied his own ties or not. Anyway, I have been tying my own bow ties for years. It usually takes a few tries to get it right.  

From the "I can't believe there's a class in that" is the following true story as reported by Munchies.   The University of Kentucky is offering an undergraduate class called "Taco Literacy: Public Advocacy and Mexican Food in the US South," and the professor behind it wants to use tacos as an avenue for students to learn more about how people can forge social connections through food.  

My father taught that "There's nothing new under the sun"and Dylan recently said that after listening to folk songs repeatedly as a young man that "They gave me the code for everything that's fair game and that everything belongs to everyone". So, based upon the above oracles I conclude that creativity is inspired by what we experience, take in, digest and swirl around in our conscious and unconscious minds and rearrange in our own "original" special confection. Inspiration often comes to us in a flash, or does it?  So it goes...