A couple of months ago, my friend, Debbie, discovered iHerb, a webshop in the States that has lots and lots of groceries of the kind I love but can’t buy here. Not only are their prices reasonable, but they ship packages under four pounds overseas for the unheard of price of six American dollars. Honestly, that’s practically free! I order from them at least once or twice every week, and I’ve yet to be disappointed.

Well, that’s not entirely true, but you’ll soon see that iHerb is in no way to blame.

This afternoon I got a shipment with a big bag of pecans and three boxes of my new favorite snack, Nut-Thins crackers. Brynja also has a special fondness for these crackers, so I’d stashed them out of her reach before I left the room for a while. When I came back, I found to my dismay that she’d employed a chair to put the crackers within her reach and that the now-empty cracker boxes were on the floor.

But she wasn’t eating the crackers … oh, no. She had taken the inner bags from the boxes and was merrily stomping the hell out of them. “Why?” I yelled as I hurried to rescue my bags of still-precious crumbs. “Why, why, why?!” but after nearly four years of living with Brynja, I knew there wasn’t a satisfactory answer. This is just the kind of thing she does, and as much as it drives me crazy, I confess that it’s also part of her charm. There’s just no telling what she’ll do.

*Oh, also, if you happen to order from iHerb, enter this code — TOJ481 — at checkout and you’ll get $5 off your first order (plus I’ll get a little bonus, too!).