Althouse: Goop and poop.

March 29, 2014

Goop and poop.

"He was telling me about his divorce, but he didn’t call it a divorce. He called it a conscious uncoupling. When I heard it I just gasped. I loved the term and it so named my own experience with how I uncoupled from my husband that I asked him if I could use it," said Katherine Woodward Thomas, creator of the conscious uncoupling workshop.

At least she loves something, even if it's only terminology and not that husband. What's so damned "conscious" about it? We're told it "involves breathing exercises and a lot of self-reflection to 'break up victimization... You want to clear the residue. (Clearing out the goop, perhaps.)" The website where Gwyneth Paltrow announced her "conscious uncoupling" is called Goop.

Oh, that reminds me, Meade has returned from his dog-poop-cleanup enterprise, and he reports that he collected 7 buckets of dog shit.

ME: "How big were the buckets?"

MEADE: "3 gallons."

ME: "So you picked up 21 gallons of shit?"

MEADE: "Something like that. It's amazing how much is out there."

ME: "How many other people were there?"

MEADE: "It's not over yet. I'll bet about 50 people end up coming out."

In an effort to complete this post, I plied Meade with questions about any spiritual, New Age, or uplifting experience he may have had. "Bear with me. I'm trying to connect it to this post. Can you think of anything that you might be able to call 'conscious'?"

He said: "No, but a few dogs came over to say hi."

ME: "Did they come for you, or did they come for your buckets of poop?"

MEADE: "They came for me."

62 comments:

chickelit said...: The question is, will Meade be composting all that poop in the backyard?; 3/29/14, 11:58 AM
chickelit said...: I'm digging about a year's worth of rabbit poop into the tomato basil garden today. It's an experiment. I have access to unlimited horse shit courtesy of a local stable supply, but I've heard that that stuff burns.; 3/29/14, 12:01 PM
chickelit said...: Rabbits are vegan: this makes a big difference I've heard in the recycling of solid feces.; 3/29/14, 12:02 PM
chickelit said...: Poop du jour!; 3/29/14, 12:03 PM
rhhardin said...: Three of every four dogs love rabbit poop.

They can track it down under several inches of matted grass.; 3/29/14, 12:11 PM
Kevin said...: The market for horse shit has crashed since around 2008. November I think.

The laws of supply and demand are immutable.; 3/29/14, 12:13 PM
rhhardin said...: Track down to Francis Ponge's _The Horse_ here

among the lines

The horse, terribly nervous, is aerophagous.
Hypersensitive, he clamps his jaws, holds his breath, then releases it, making the walls of his nasal cavities vibrate loudly.
That is why this noble beast, who feeds on air and grass alone, produces only straw turds and thunderous fragrant farts.; 3/29/14, 12:14 PM
chickelit said...: Cheech and Chong's Cheborneck seems à propoos.; 3/29/14, 12:15 PM
William said...: I'm pretty sure that all those exhaust fumes we release into the environment have some harmful effects, but, on the other hand, efforts to limit emissions can also cause damage. It's a quandary and I don't think I have the wisdom to think it through.......There can be no debate about dog poop. Cleaning up dog poop makes for a better environment......Dogs are great. They allow you the luxury of thinking you have the power to make life better for another living creature. Then the clean up allows you to think that you have the power to improve the environment without any unwanted side effects.; 3/29/14, 12:18 PM
rhhardin said...: Cleaning up dog poop started around the 70s.

Before that people didn't know it was supposed to bother them in public, except for the habitual dog in the habitual neighbor's yard, back when dogs were free to walk around and as a result well socialized.; 3/29/14, 12:24 PM
chickelit said...: The rabbit poop I'm using today is collected hutch droppings.

rhhardin said...
Three of every four dogs love rabbit poop.

Yes. Our rabbit hops around the fenced yard in the day time, nibbling grass and leaving droppings every ten minutes or so -- rabbits are constantly pooping. When we got our dog, we were alarmed that she would follow the bunny around and "clean-up." This, we learned, is normal and harmless.; 3/29/14, 12:24 PM
gadfly said...: The patrolling for dog poop exercise is reason number one for avoiding dogs as pets. Reason #2 is that you have to frequently wash these animals.

Obviously, I prefer tossing out the disposable litter pan into the garbage container once or twice a week - no hunting expeditions required - and no pissed-off neighbors.

But I also understand about the hang-up some people have with independent (read non-obedient) cats.; 3/29/14, 12:33 PM
rhhardin said...: You don't have to wash Dobermans.

The fur is self-cleaning.; 3/29/14, 12:37 PM
David said...: ME: "How many other people were there?"

MEADE: "It's not over yet. I'll bet about 50 people end up coming out."

Always the optimist.

Next up: horses.; 3/29/14, 12:38 PM
David said...: gadfly said...
The patrolling for dog poop exercise is reason number one for avoiding dogs as pets. Reason #2 is that you have to frequently wash these animals

I'm supposed to wash my dog?

Oh dear.; 3/29/14, 12:40 PM
66 said...: So I began reading this post as I was eating my lunch. The title of the post should have clued me in to my error, but my synapses are firing slowly this morning after a fun Friday evening of indulgence. Anyway, the post is much too gross for lunch. I mean really, Gwyneth Paltrow's divorce? How could you? But the tales of dog defecation helped cleanse the palette. And the new photo of you is lovely.; 3/29/14, 12:44 PM
Wince said...: Okay, so now we have 'stupid juice', 'stupid goop' and 'stupid poop'.; 3/29/14, 12:54 PM
Anonymous said...: One difference between dogs and humans is that both male and female dogs poop, while human females do not.

Peter; 3/29/14, 12:56 PM
chickelit said...: Peter claims: "One difference between dogs and humans is that both male and female dogs poop, while human females do not."

Nor wonder how I lost my Wits;
Oh! Caelia, Caelia, Caelia shits!

~Jonathan Swift

If you've ever read Becker's "The Denial of Death" you will no doubt recall that verse.; 3/29/14, 1:03 PM
Heartless Aztec said...: Well this comment thread went to shit pretty quickly...; 3/29/14, 1:23 PM
Unknown said...: Hey Ann...I'm not all that into the mundane task of scooping doggie mess, as I've raised sporting dogs all my life and had my fill of that, but I do want to comment on the new "who is Althouse" photo. Like it a lot...deviously pensive.; 3/29/14, 1:29 PM
Saint Croix said...: he reports that he collected 7 buckets of dog shit.

That's a lot of scofflaw right there. I just want to announce that I have never been to Wisconsin. My dog is innocent!; 3/29/14, 1:31 PM
Johanna Lapp said...: Thanks to Meade for cleaning up 21 gallons of dog poop from my universe. In one morning of humility and unpleasant work, he's contributed more to me than 20 years of Gwyneth Paltrow's overrated movies, shallow blathering, self-righteous gooping and enlightened philandering.

There's more enlightenment in one hour at the end of a shovel than a lifetime in the Lotus position.; 3/29/14, 1:37 PM
Titus said...: i pick up dog shit every day. i am very particular about the bags i use too. there needs to be a special "pouch" on the end.

chick thinks about gay anal sex and Andrew Sullivan every three minutes.; 3/29/14, 2:06 PM
Titus said...: Happy Birthday Meade!

And Althouse take him out for a nice dinner.

Any fab restaurants in that 10th tier city?

And Go Badgers!!!!

I went on Madison.com and the entire newspaper was Badgers basketball-poor scony peeps, not much else in their world.; 3/29/14, 2:08 PM
Titus said...: My husband, who was born in India and raised and educated in the UK (Cambridge), just told me how much money he has. He is an Indian with a British accent-how fucking hot is that? You expect him to talk all slurpee 2.50 and punjabi dhaba may tumse piear cutta un tikke tikke, vindaloo, tika massala, but instead it is brill this and fish and chips that.

I have been trying to get this out of him the day I met him.

He is an only child, who cums from Indian fabulousness. He is a light skinned dothead, which in India, is very powerful. That doesn't stop me from calling him third world, brownie and curry breath-seriously I do that everyday and he becums so outraged and perplexed.

People mistake him for Italian.

Anywho, his mom, who died hiking after a fall and not getting to the hospital in time, left him a ton of money. I seriously told him today I want 1/2 of it now or I am divorcing you. He said he would think about it and make a decision by Monday. I want that fucking money now!!!!

My life is good. I am still hot for being in my 40's. I have got an amazing husband, who is younger and way hotter than me, paying my way. Some 20 something Brazillian is constantly texting me begging for my hog. My family loves me and I am my moms absolute fave. And I have a great job that pays big money. And my loft's value is going up daily because of the shortage of inventory in my hood. Lastly, the rare clumber turned 13-yes 13 today, and he is in good health-slower, but still can eat and shit outside-praise the lord.

And Happy Birthday Meade!; 3/29/14, 2:23 PM
FleetUSA said...: Yes, sounds like a lot of good fertilizer. Such a nice present for an avid gardener.; 3/29/14, 2:29 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: My dad always trained the dogs to eliminate in one part of the yard. If you ran around in that part, you knew the risk.; 3/29/14, 2:30 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: When I was a child the greatest number of dogs we ever had at one time was four. Four! That's insane! That's a pack! I thought it was three until my mother found a picture with all four dogs in it.

A while back a friend was fighting cancer and went on a much needed family vacation. (She has since fully recovered. Hooray!) I watched their dogs as a favor. There were five as I recall. Five! It was spooky walking into that house at night to give them dinner and having five dogs come roaring out to greet me. "Hope you guys don't go feral and decide to eat me."; 3/29/14, 2:38 PM
rhhardin said...: Somebody said the other day that Gwyneth Paltrow was even more hated than Anne Hathaway.

I don't know either one, except Hathaway in Get Smart (2008), where she is superb as the competent competitive feminist against Carrel's rookie.

Who notices, with growing admiration, that the Carrel is completely at home with what she does only grimly.

A James Bond parody that makes Bond superfluous.

As Carrel's woman stays won, there's no possibility of a sequel, a problem the Bond series has that results only in a tale of deepening psychological damage.

So anyway Hathaway doesn't look bad to me. She's not sexy but interesting.; 3/29/14, 2:58 PM
rhhardin said...: Picking up dog poop isn't unpleasant. It's just picking up poop.

Yardwise, trowel it into a snow shovel. When full, take to back fence, marking your place in the lawn with the trowel.

Indoors, say you have a puppy, a fold over sandwich baggie is all that's necessary.

Also get something like Simple Solution for any remainder on the carpet. Spray and done.; 3/29/14, 3:01 PM
chickelit said...: chick thinks about gay anal sex and Andrew Sullivan every three minutes.

Why would I think about you at all, Titus? I think it's creepy the way you stalk me on the internet, though.; 3/29/14, 3:09 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I don't understand why anyone would hate Anne Hathaway. I've never heard of any obnoxious quotes from her, and she's been great in every movie I've seen her in.; 3/29/14, 3:10 PM
madAsHell said...: Conscious Uncoupling?....only when the piston loses steam.

Unconscious Coupling?
That's rape.; 3/29/14, 3:23 PM
rhhardin said...: Unconscious Coupling?
That's rape.

Kleist, The Marquise of O.; 3/29/14, 3:28 PM
paminwi said...: Not a single one of you asked what happens to the poop once it was collected! Do the 3 gallon buckets get dumped into a ? gallon bucket to be dumped into a bigger bucket?

What happens to all that poop?

An inquiring mind wants to know!; 3/29/14, 3:39 PM
Owen said...: My Dad used to chip our huskies' frozen turds out of the back yard with a nine iron. He was pretty good at it. You had to catch them clean or they broke up into a fecal spray like a chunked sand-shot.

Sorry.; 3/29/14, 4:12 PM
SGT Ted said...: I'm supposed to wash my dog?

Oh dear.

Yea, they stink when you don't wash them. If you think your dog doesn't stink( as well as your whole house) and you don't wash it, you are wrong.; 3/29/14, 4:20 PM
madAsHell said...: What happens to all that poop?

I'm sure they sell it.

My wife, and a friend have purchased 1,000 lbs of ZooDoo. The droppings from the animals at the Woodland Park Zoo. It's exotic shit. It was purchased during an auction. I haven't asked the price, but I'm sure she over-payed.

You can't make this stuff up.; 3/29/14, 4:23 PM
SGT Ted said...: Unconscious Coupling?
That's rape.

No, that's "drunken sex".; 3/29/14, 4:25 PM
Owen said...: "My wife, and a friend have purchased 1,000 lbs of ZooDoo. The droppings from the animals at the Woodland Park Zoo. It's exotic shit. It was purchased during an auction. I haven't asked the price, but I'm sure she over-payed."

What will they do
What will they do
With those kilos
Of pure zoo poo?; 3/29/14, 4:35 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Dog poop and cat poop are not used for fertilizer or for composting. They contain too much protein and other "ingredients" that will harm the plants.

When you compost you must use vegetable matter mostly and avoid fatty, meaty types of material otherwise you get a stinky mess that smells like the inside of a septic tank instead of nicely decayed compost that smells like a freshly rained upon forest floor. Trust me.

They likely send the buckets of dog poo to a landfill or incinerator.; 3/29/14, 5:10 PM
Roughcoat said...: "Hope you guys don't go feral and decide to eat me."

Won't happen. You're the alpha. Dogs respect hierarchy. They bond with members of their pack. They are devoted and loyal to each other but especially to the alpha.

If five cats came at you, and each cat weighed a couple hundred pounds, they'd rip you to shreds. There's the difference. You get a 500-pound cat, it will eat you. You get a 500-pound dog, it will sit on your lap and lick your face.

Dogs, good. Cats, evil: servants of Satan.; 3/29/14, 5:11 PM
Roughcoat said...: If Richard Parker had been a dog, there would have been no story.; 3/29/14, 5:16 PM
caplight45 said...: We lived for ten years in a house that was in its day out in the "sticks" but the 'burbs had grown close to it. I was into vegetable gardening especially of the raised bed square foot variety and was always trying to enrich our soil. One day an old person who had grown up in the neighborhood told me that there had been an outhouse behind the shed in the back yard. Sure enough, I dug down three feet and only found beautiful rich "soil" except for the surprising number of oyster shells down around the three foot depth. That's where I planted my tomatoes.; 3/29/14, 5:37 PM
caplight45 said...: Roughcoat said...(in response to Freemnan...
"Hope you guys don't go feral and decide to eat me."
Won't happen. You're the alpha. Dogs respect hierarchy."

I heard someone interview Ira Glass (This American Life) the other night, asking about his pit bull, Piney. Apparently the dog is well known to the TAL family. He said that the dog has bitten at least five people, which includes two children, his partner and himself (by bitten he admitted he meant the dog drew blood). The dog regularly challenges him for supremacy and he has to divert his attention with a tug rope or toy to get in the apartment sometimes. The dog has to be muzzled if he takes him out. He has tried trainers to work with the dog to no avail.

So Freeman, I'd still be just a little bit cautious about dog sitting a pack, depending on what kind of dogs they are.; 3/29/14, 5:45 PM
Bob Boyd said...: I wonder how many dogs had to consciously uncouple with their once loved dog chow to produce 21 gallons of poop goop.; 3/29/14, 5:48 PM
ron winkleheimer said...: "When we got our dog, we were alarmed that she would follow the bunny around and "clean-up." This, we learned, is normal and harmless."

There is no shortage of wild rabbits in the neighborhood my wife and I live in. As a result, when we walk our dogs they often find rabbit poo, which they then proceed to try to eat. This freaks my wife out. I have tried to tell her that it is "normal and harmless" but she is not buying it.; 3/29/14, 5:49 PM
ron winkleheimer said...: In fact, one time she called me out to the back yard and pointed at "my dog." Who is a half jack russell, half fence-jumper. The dog had apparently caught a rabbit in the back yard and had eaten all of it except for the rabbit's head and some unidentified internal organ.

My wife wanted me to take the remains of the rabbit away from the dog. "But honey," I exclaimed. "She saved the head for last because it's the best part."

The wife was not impressed.

A few minutes later the dog came into the house and vomited the intestines of the rabbit onto the living room rug.

I don't suppose I have to tell you who had to clean that up.; 3/29/14, 5:53 PM
ron winkleheimer said...: I think she was trying to give them to me as a present. She's nice that way.; 3/29/14, 5:58 PM
Henry said...: I read this post aloud to my wife and by the time I finished she was hopelessly confused: "Gwyneth Paltrow's husband collects dog shit in buckets? No wonder they're getting divorced."; 3/29/14, 6:25 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @Titus,

He said he would think about it and make a decision by Monday. I want that fucking money now!!!!

Titus, are you & your husband married, as in signed the marriage license down at the courthouse married in the state of MA? Or, do you call him "husband" as some sort of commitment name, but aren't really legally married?

If you guys signed the paper kind of married, what the hell did your husband think was going to happen with his property?

I'm sorry, Titus, but it really, really, really pisses me off to hear, after gays raising such a stink & calling opponents of SSM "bigots" to hear that there are gays in marriage who are this incredibly fucking stupid as to what the legal state of marriage entails.

Your husband will "think about" the status of his property? Titus, you can pull the stupidest straight boy out of the company mail room and ask him what happens to his stuff when he marries & he'll say "Uhhh, wifey gets it....".; 3/29/14, 6:50 PM
dreams said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/29/14, 7:04 PM
DKWalser said...: "...I have access to unlimited horse shit courtesy of a local stable supply, but I've heard that that stuff burns."

"Rabbits are vegan: this makes a big difference I've heard in the recycling of solid feces."

And horses aren't vegan? I think another explanation for why horse manure burns and rabbit pellets don't.

IIRC from growing up on a farm, horse manure is good for fertilizer as long as it has been composted. Otherwise, it's too rich. Chicken droppings are worse in this regard. Horse manure was fine in small doses or if it had a chance to season for a few weeks after being tilled into the soil.

Not so with chicken manure. A little was always too much. The cleanings from the chicken coop always went into the compost pile. In the fall, the stable clean out were spread over the garden to be tilled into the soil in Spring. Otherwise, they too went into the compost pile.; 3/29/14, 7:07 PM
Saint Croix said...: Dogs, good. Cats, evil: servants of Satan.

That's how we know Son of Sam was crazy. Because a talking dog is all, "Throw the ball!"; 3/29/14, 10:22 PM
Saint Croix said...: Here is Spike Lee's movie on the subject.

Look how happy that dog is!; 3/29/14, 10:24 PM
Jazzizhep said...: I have seen a few comments addressing unconscious coupling. The greatest of all unconscious coupling and then unconscious uncoupling is Beatrix Kiddo and Buck the redneck.; 3/29/14, 10:45 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: From the article:

"Ms. Paltrow also supplied the foreword to Dr. Sadeghi’s latest book, “Within: A Spiritual Awakening to Love & Weight Loss”"

Ha!; 3/29/14, 10:53 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Also, I thought I was kidding earlier when I wrote that conscious uncoupling was having a guru preside over your divorce while you do yoga.; 3/29/14, 10:57 PM
Rusty said...: Titus, and I mean this in the greatest spirit of friendship, you're a twit.

Meade, dude. Our doggie parks have poop barrels with convenient little baggie dispensers-we bring our own anyway. it's unusual to find dog poop lying about.; 3/30/14, 10:43 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Meade, dude. Our doggie parks have poop barrels with convenient little baggie dispensers-we bring our own anyway. it's unusual to find dog poop lying about."

That is also true of the dog park in question. People are very good about it there. And yet, at the end of the winter, there's a lot that people have missed, either accidentally or on purpose. That's what the cleanup is about.

Either the people in your parks are handling the work of picking up after their own dogs better than these Madison dog owners (who seem pretty responsible), or your town is doing backup cleaning work too, or you've actually got something of a mess out there and you just don't know it.; 3/30/14, 10:53 AM
Ann Althouse said...: You say "it's unusual to find dog poop lying about" but you're not out there searching for it, the way a cleanup crew would.

I've been to that dog park and not seen anything, but Meade, working with maybe 50 other people, personally picked up 21 gallons of the stuff.

It's all about whether you're looking, looking in the places where the dogs run off to, perhaps, as opposed to the paths the people stick to, maybe because they don't want to find things.; 3/30/14, 10:56 AM