Heifervoyeur: Pardon Me Sir, But A Cat Pooped In Your Coffee

The most expensive coffee in the world is made of cat poop. Well, to be more precise, it's made from the dung of an Asian Palm Civet, a cousin to the mongoose that is native to Southeast Asia and Indonesia. Civets like to eat berries, and (being evolutionarily elegant) they choose the fat, juicy ones. Apparently, we humans have a more difficult time distinguishing the fat, juicy, ripe berries from dried up, rotting ones, and we must rely on civets to do this for us.

After the civets have defecated, Indonesian farmers sort through their poop, wash it off, roast it, brew it, call it "Kopi Luwak," and sell it to to captains of industry for upwards of $600/lb. Well, they probably sell it to a coffee company for a lot less than it's worth, but who's counting?

A captain of industry friend who has sampled Kopi Luwak tells me that it's mild and aromatic at the same time; well worth the $30/cup price tag. He assures me that the washing process is thorough and that it hardly looks like cat poop at all.

Further shoddy online research suggests that the aroma may be derived from the anal glands of the civet, which excrete a musky pheromone meant to attract civets of the opposite sex. It is not yet possible to buy coffee made from the feces of gay civets. I checked.

While Kopi Luwak has been popular with yuppies since the early 1990s, it reached national attention through a scene in the 2007 masterpiece The Bucket List. And now, through a feature article, the New York Times is calling attention to the economic and environmental impact of farming palm civets for their poop. If this concerns you, you may consider joining the boycott.

If it doesn't, before you go rushing off to demand that your local Starbucks stock Kopi Luwak, be warned that there are a number of copycat varietals out there. People will stoop to anything to make their coffee taste like cat poop, including but not limited to gluing poop to the beans themselves. One woman in Pittsburgh trained her cat to defecate directly into her coffee pot. The cat felt used.

Heifertorial: The Rich Could Take Over The World!

A recent article in the Bible - I mean The New York Times - revealed the shocking fact that many recent immigrants to the United States are educated and wealthy. Now, I don't know a lot about "educated wealthy" people, but I'm inclined to be suspicious of this group. On many occasions, I have personally observed them shopping, traveling, using pronouns correctly, buying netbooks, and various other sordid activities. Furthermore, they pay far too much for recycled stationery, which, any fool knows, is just old stationery and cuts down on our national use of vellum. Add to these, the fact that educated wealthy people are good at stuff, and you see how much of a drain they are on our economy.

Some might argue that educated wealthy people are an asset to our country because they bring perspective, insight, culture, skill, money, and taste, but I submit that our country has gotten along well enough for hundreds of years without any of the above. Furthermore, they they could pose a threat to our treasured customary laziness. If we let them in, we could easily find ourselves in a situation where not only do 5% of the population have 90% of the wealth, but the 5% with the money will spend it on things like smartcars and universities instead of on satellite dishes and unnecessary plastic objects. Even worse, we could soon discover that educated, wealthy people will snap up all of the power. They'll give jobs only to other educated wealthy people, and they'll use their money and learning to make more money and learning. We would wind up like Switzerland! We must sit up and take note! We must defend our reality-show legacy from the threat of educated wealthy people! Aux armes!

The Big Sleep: Abridged

Every woman that Bogie encounters throws herself at him, from sexy bookstore clerks to sexy cabbies. There must be something to that whole chain-smoking-talking-out-of-the-side-of-your-mouth-thing.

Heifering About: An Aspiring Vagrant

If frolicking in mud puddles and heckling passers-by while drinking margaritas is wrong, then I don't want to be right. Must tweak lifestyle strategic plan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/us/31keywest.html

Heiferlifestyle: The Occasional Vegetarian

I have a friend who is a vegetarian. It's insufferable. We'll be at a dinner party, having a perfectly good time, and then she'll conspicuously ask the waiter if gumbo can be made as a vegetarian dish, which immediately focuses the conversation on the intricacies of her gastronomy and the men at the table spend the rest of the evening trying to convince her to reconsider steak, and this invariably culminates in at least two invitations to Zagat rated restaurants where they will cure her. They see her as a challenge; kind of how they see lesbians.

After months of reasoning with her and calling her a communist in public, I decided that I had no option but to try it. It kind of made sense. As a vegetarian, I would be healthier. My teeth would be whiter. My skin would be more luminous. Yuppies would respect me without my having to read Ayn Rand. So I tried it, and I've learned a lot along the way.

First, you must be prepared. People will demand an explanation, and when they do, you have 4 options:

1. It's for your health. This makes you sound like a sorority girl or will lead to a discussion of your medical history, neither of which is desirable.

2. You like animals. This leaves you vulnerable to the "humans are animals and animals eat each other" argument, to which the only real rebuttal is, "then cannibalism is OK?" which makes you seem... well... creepy.

3. You are Hindu. Unless you look Indian, most people will not believe you.

4. You care about the environment. If you're willing to do a little homework, you'll be able to tailor this conversation to fit your audience. You can describe the sordid underbelly of chicken-raising, or you can brainstorm alternative ways to use the land required for cattle-ranching like a wind farm or a really big slip-n-slide.

Finally, you don't have to be a vegetarian to reap most of its benefits; you just have to act like one.

Heifervoyeur: Collyer Brother Makeover

Why is it that, in order for one to qualify for a house makeover show, one has to dress like a yeti or dumpster dive or live like a Collyer brother?*(see note) When will someone start a we-think-you're-fabulous-but-aren't-quite-reaching-your-potential-beacuse-you-chose-a-career-that's-noble-and-fulfilling-but-doesn't-allow-you-to-wear-chanel-so-we're-going-to-buy-you-presents show?


* The Collyer brothers were New York society recluses who lived in a Harlem brownstone, hoarding trash, newspapers, etc., which eventually piled so high that it fell on and killed Homer. They couldn't find Langley in all of the trash for almost a month. Eventually, his body was found 10 feet from his brother's. Just goes to show, bad things happen when people have too much money and their parents are cousins.

Heifervoyeur: On the Street

Overheard in Union Square Park: An Exchange Between Two Gentlemen

1: I am not homeless.
2: Oh yes you are.
1: I am not.
2: You don't got no home. You're homeless.
1: Nah, I got a place now.
2: You got a place? Where?
1: I got one.
2: Right.
1: **** you, man.