Doggy style, in-box anxiety and rind etiquette

Dear Rachel,

My boyfriend drove his car to Denver this week for work. The only problem is that he took off with all the dogs’ leashes and harnesses. This leaves me with three wound up dogs and a can-do attitude. I fashioned harnesses out of cam straps and leashes from the rope in the shed. I feel proud. But the people I pass on the river trail are less than subtle about their disdain. Is this pure ingenuity they just can’t understand? Or am I committing unintentional animal abuse?

– Creativity Unleashed

Dear Unbridled Abandon,

Can’t it be both? You gotta admit tying your dogs up with tie-down straps is janky. But hey, if you’re not cutting off their circulation or endangering their airways, at least you’re getting them out for walks. The same can’t be said for some poor dogs in my neighborhood, who make me want to jerry-rig… jury rig… jeurry rig?... whatever. They make me want to creatively bust them out of their yards and create my own mutt-based version of 101 Dalmatians.

– Woof there it is, Rachel

Dear Rachel,

Ever since college I have used my email inbox as my reminders, my to-do list. The compulsion to get my unread emails down to 0 means I’m always motivated to accomplish something. Except my inbox started to creep into a second page. And a third. And now I’m nearing four digits of un-accomplished tasks big and small. Do I develop a system of prioritization? Or erase them all and start my life fresh?

– More Backlogged than the USPS

Dear Log Backed,

You know, if you’re going to delete all your emails (which I highly endorse), you might as well go whole hog. There’s another phrase that’ll make you wonder. Anyway. Burn it all down (figuratively) (or literally) (but not in a dangerous way). Abandon your life and move to, I don’t know, the Dominican Republic. Say, why isn’t there a Franciscan Republic? There really should be. I always imagined the Dominican and Franciscan monks like the Jets and Sharks, or maybe more like Pfizer vs. Moderna.

– Domine quo vadis, Rachel

Dear Rachel,

When you get a dessert that has citrus fruit sliced up on top, are you supposed to eat the rind, or not? On the one hand, I would never pluck the lime from my G&T and munch it down. On the other hand, the baked rind is softened enough to eat, and hey, you can eat zest in recipes so obviously the rind isn’t all bad. What’s your verdict?

– Thick Skinned

Dear Callused,

I remember the time I tried to use a composter in my little side yard. In a healthy fit I bought a bunch of grapefruit at the grocery store. Of course I never ate them, because who knows how to eat a grapefruit anyway. I put them all in the composter, and when I moved out a long time later, the grapefruit rinds were still freaking there. I would have been better off jury-building Little Mermaid bra cups out of them, because I could have reused them every Halloween.

– Your daily rind, Rachel