Congratulations Christine Wilford, who was crowned the 2026 Newtown Congregational Church Chili Cook-Off Champion last weekend. Christine’s chili received the highest number of votes among a field of 11 entries Sunday morning. The annual competition among members of the West Street church doubles as a post-worship service fundraiser. This year it raised money to put toward the building’s HVAC system. Christine was literally crowned with a lovely headpiece that is hers to keep, and she now has possession of The Golden Ladle for the next 12 months.

Banks Baggett wasn’t feeling particularly festive this week. The current one-dog canine security staff for Bee Publishing Company had surgery last week, similar to a human ACL replacement. As a result, she wasn’t carrying her usual sunshiny disposition at the start of this week. To make things more challenging for her, staff members received an e-mail blast first thing Monday morning warning them they were not to give her any treats during her recovery period.

If you were traveling east on Church Hill Road around 4:45 Monday afternoon and wondered what the group of people at the end of our driveway was doing, they were trying to catch sight of a beautiful rainbow before it disappeared. Fortunately, Scott Baggett was the first to spot the beautiful phenomenon and took a photo before he ran inside to alert everyone else to its presence. Our production director then decided to let others know about the fast-fading arc, which was when the group assembled in our parking lot. This photo is nice, but Scott says it still doesn't catch the full effect of what he initially saw.

More people would rather have their laugh sound like a goat than a car horn. That was the result of the first whiteboard challenge within the office this week, with eight people leaning toward bleating and just three wanting to sound like they were always in traffic.

The second question this week — “Would dinosaurs taste like chicken or steak?” — opened the discussion floodgates. We had some folks just adding a notch under the option of their choice, while others added comments. The first was the fun fact that George Washington did not know of the existence of dinosaurs. A comment added to the whiteboard noted the first president died in 1799, but dinosaurs weren’t discovered for another 25 years. Therefore, George Washington never knew dinosaurs existed!

Then the discussion veered back to the original question, with one person writing bigger dinos like the T-Rex probably tasted like steak while the smaller, bird-like ones were probably closer to chicken or duck. Another person said some “may be a bit fishy.” Those are the dinosaurs I’m interested in!

According to at least one calendar in the office, Saturday will be National Pickle Day, and Thanksgiving this year will coincide with National Cake Day, but you know what really made me happy this week (after Monday’s beautiful rainbow, of course)? I learned Connecticut is a cat state! A recent survey by KittySpout looked at data collected in September from Best Friends Animal Society’s national shelter dashboard. That source provided information from 2,640 adoption shelters across the country. The amount of detail shared varied, depending on the shelters, with Constitution State shelters represented. The Connecticut shelters alone saved 3,492 cats and 1,876 dogs between September 2025 and September 2026. That’s 186 cats for every 100 dogs, or a difference of 1,616 animals. Further, every New England state plus New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland are also cat-leaning locations. It isn’t until you travel as far west as Virginia, West Virginia, or Ohio that things shift into dog territory.

Numbers wise, Newtown Animal Control also mirrors the region we live within. A quick call to 21 Old Farm Road this week revealed that while both are offered, and breeds play a large role in how quickly a dog is adopted, the person I spoke to said “definitely” more cats are adopted there than dogs.

Nationally, the KittySpout survey found 24 cat states to 26 dog states, or 1.59 million cats saved to 1.64 million dogs. As the authors of the survey said, “You’d struggle to split fifty states much closer than that.” The national results mirror what we see within 5 Church Hill Road: a split. While for a few decades there has been a dog or two in the building when we’re open, this cat has been Chief Chair Warmer, Gossip Monger, and Spreader of Good News here since January 1977.

I promise to split my time between napping and finding the next collection of good news to share with you if you’ll promise to come back next week, when it will be time to … read me again.