Hercules!

My picky eater!

Hercules (my dog) had been sick. The vet wants to see him this Friday to ensure he is indeed getting better. But if his behavior says anything about how well he is . . . pretty sure he will pass with a clean bill of health.

So this has been a trial for me. I have a weak stomach for smells. Looking at blood, guts, poop, vomit isn't a big deal however if it smells forget it. So cleaning puppy poop has been a challenge. I try breathing through my mouth but then there is that instant that I forget and I have to walk away and come back for round 2,3,4. Yes I am cleaning the poop in stages. I am so my father's daughter, have to tell you about him changing my brother's diaper. haha.

Anyways sick puppy, the vet said feed him whatever to get him to eat. Vet said livers were good to get his platelet count back up, he likes livers but it doesn't come out so great in the end. After a few days of liver we decided to switch it up, tried canned chicken. Nope he wasn't a fan. Dad tried some left over Rotisseree Chicken, yup that's the stuff. Hamburger meat, pretty good too. It's been a week of us cutting these foods into small pieces and heating them up. In Petsmart yesterday I was just looking at some puppy foods that are actually meant for dogs and ended up talking to an associate there. I told her I was concerned he wouldn't want any of this stuff after getting the gooood stuff for so long. She made a suggestion and it sounded really great, salmon chicken and something along with like blueberries and pomegranate for antioxidants and some other fabulous sounding stuff. She said they guarantee it for picky eaters or you can bring back the can and they will refund it.

I brought it home poured half into his bowl at dinner time. Nope, not guaranteed on MY dog. He went back to playing and my Dad suggested that damn Rotissere Chicken again, we only had a little left but I cut it up, heat it up and put it by his bowl. Hercules immeadiately gobbled it up, no problem leaving the fabulous can of fancy in his bowl untouched. Next went a mixture of scrambled egg and some boiled chicken, not as good as Rotissere but he ate most of it. I am in big trouble people. Big big trouble. Spoiled little munchkin.

I'm a dog owner . . . how did this happen?

My love for animals has been mediocre, growing up we ALWAYS had animals (my mother was always the child bringing home the strays and it never ended) but they were just there, I never fell in love with them, helped take care of them and went about my business. Through my life we have owned dogs, iguanas, turtles, fish, an African Grey Parrot, (who could say "Maria, Maria shut up," I think he was getting me confused with my brother)and Cockatiels. Then they moved to a farm and acquired horses, a donkey, goats, sheep, and chickens I think that's it. So while I have been absolutely surrounded by animals they just really were never my thing.

Except for somewhere in my adolescence I fell in love with Labs. I had a friend whom I picked up for school and dropped off after school. She had a Lab named Bucky and he was so cool, he was older so he was more calm, but his demeanor was mellow and friendly all at the same time. Somewhere in there I decided I would have a dog like this someday.

My mom now breeds labs, a breed we wouldn't have owned if I hadn't told them for years that they were awesome dogs, I encountered more Labs after Bucky and it was confirmed they were still awesome! We got a Lab/Golden Retriever mix and he was amazing and we aquired a Chocolate Lab and then a female Lab and that's it done. We are currently on our 3rd litter of puppies, keeping one from the last litter. I should mention the reason we kept Luna (adequately named for 2 reasons, she is white like the color of the moon which is Luna in Spanish aaaaannnnd she is looney! Looney Luna) is because she had a little skin tag on her ear and it had been mentioned a few times by customers so feeling sorry that no one would want her for something so stupid we kept her. Her ear grew and the skin tag is gone by the way. We meant to keep one from that litter so it's not like we got suckered in. Now on this 3rd litter all dogs must go! Except for one problem, the runt got sick. After a couple of weeks of having less of an appetite than his piglet brothers and sisters and being lazier than the rest mom took him to the vet.

He had Ehrlichia, contracted from a tick?! Either he got bitten or his mama got bitten, but he got started on antibiotics right away. He was so sad and it made me want to cry every time I saw how small he was in compared to his siblings. He somehow became my baby. I told my mom regardless if he made it or not, he was mine. I think somewhere in the back in my mind I must've thought he wasn't going to make it because surely I didn't voluntarily sign up for this! Oh but I did. I named him Hercules because he needed a strong name. And waited a few days to see if the medicine was working. He slept a lot, I carried him a lot, because he wasn't supposed to get tired or stressed and he slept in my parents' room. Well almost a week later he is all puppy, and a spoiled one at that. I am cleaning up messes, cutting up Rotissere Chicken, heating it up and putting it in his bowl. I am sitting in the floor with a stuffed toy dragon pretending I am attacking so he will "slay the dragon." Yes I signed up for this. He seriously wears you out. Hercules is mine, he will live with me while I live at home and then after I grow up he will leave with me. Justin is excited eventhough he wants to change his name. But he has been called everything in the world but his name the last few days . . . little bit, munchkin, dumpling, scuttle butt, and my baby so he can stay Hercules because I am sure when he isn't as freakin cute anymore his name will most definitely evolve.

I'm a dog owner and I couldn't be happier!

Refreshed!

Hello all, all two of you that actually read and comment that is.

Just fyi everyone should run away!!! When life get's mundane, boring and it feels that the light at the end of the tunnel has burned out . . . run AWAY! I know some psycho-something somewhere probably says running away doesn't solve anything, which is true, but it certainly puts things in perspective again. While you are at it, read a book about some person who was down on his/her luck and made it out better than they started. True stories are pretty damn inspirational.

I ran away to Seattle last week and it was the best thing I have done since I graduated college in December of 2008. It was only a 4 day trip and we didn't fit in all the sights we wanted to but it was sooooo awesome.

First off Seattle is a different place from Dallas all together. I've been advised, "M, no matter where you go it's going to seem new and exciting beause you have never been there before, you have the same things here you're just used to them." But it was different! The vibe the city gave off was calming and creative and it was right by the water. I have a thing about large bodies of water, there is no better place on earth where I can collect my thoughts and feel like I can breathe and that's all there is to it.

H and I visited our other bestie L. These girls have been with me through the better part of our college years and besides my degree and my amazing bf, those two are the best things that came out of that experience. I love them and the three of us let loose on another city could've been dangerous, but hey we've grown, we've matured . . .no need to alert the police to be on stand by. We visited Pike's Market and I smelled fresh bouquets of flowers mixed with salty seafood and coffee and baked goods . . . good God, heavenly. H and I sat in a coffee shot for an hour and sipped spicy Aztec coffee and watch a interesting musician outside playing guitar in the street along with his own personal dancer. I met H through L, so L and I have always been naturally closer, she was the link for us. But L left us for Seattle and so H and I, I feel have been building a stronger relationship. She and I shared some gluten free meals together because in Seattle there are gluten free menus everywhere which is perfect for H bc she has Celiac Disease and it's impossible to find any place that caters to her here in DFW.

I did a lot of reflection and a lot of pondering, realizing that I have amazing talents I am wasting feeling sorry for myself that life hasn't turned out exactly as planned. But it still turned out! I have best friends, amazing ones that regardless of where we live and how long we go without chatting we will still be BEST FRIENDS. I have acquired the love of my life and while he is a monumental pain in the a$$ some of the time, he is the most supportive and loving individual I have ever encountered. My family is odd and they can drive me insane, but push come to shove they are there for me, even the bro that doesn't like me too much . . . pretty sure he would donate a kidney if I needed it.

Look out people bc M has a lot in store coming up soon and it's gonna be fabulous!

My wandering thoughts... How to make Soy Milk?

Soy Milk

Don’t know if you’ve ever tried it, but it’s pretty tasty in my opinion. Now you can’t go into drinking it think it will taste like milk because it doesn’t. It has milk-like properties, it has a milk consistency and a milk color (unless it’s flavored soy milk), it tastes good over cereal or with some cookies and it provides you with some pretty awesome nutrients. It’s a perfect supplement to our vegans out there or those of the lactose intolerant kind. There are tons of products out there which claim fame to soy. So how does soy which is a bean turn into these products? Specifically milk?

I am relying on eHow.com and Wikipedia to break this down for me. eHow c claims you can do this at home just FYI.

How Soy Milk is Made . . . Basically
Soy milk is made from soybeans. Approximately one pound of soy beans will make one gallon of soy milk. The beans are placed in a container with enough water to submerge them. They are to be soaked for at least three hours depending on the temperature, the colder the water the longer the soaking. The soaked soy beans are then sent through the grinder, an electric blender should do. The resulting mush is then boiled. It is boiled for a few reasons; heat destroys protease inhibitors which are naturally present in soybeans. Our pancreas naturally secretes proteases to digest a protein meal, eating raw soybeans on a regular basis causes the pancreas to hyper secrete, leading to benign tumors of the pancreas. Heating also improves flavor and sterilizes the product. When they say it improves the flavor, it’s like most things, we Westerners don’t like the original harsh or different flavors so we lighten or sweeten it up. Boil for 15-20 minutes and then strain out the pulp. Boiling the pulp after filtration is the Chinese method, as opposed to the Japanese method which boils first and then it’s filtered. Boiling first avoids the problem of foaming. Soy milk is then poured through a press fitted with a filter to press the milk from the soy bean pulp. And there you have it soy milk. Obviously packaging is a whole other

Nutrition
Soy milk has nearly the same amount of protein as cow’s milk. Natural soy milk contains little digestible calcium as it is bound to the bean’s pulp, which is insoluble to humans. Many manufacturers will enrich their products with calcium carbonate. Unlike cow’s milk it has little saturated fat and NO CHOLESTEROL!!!!

The above are the results of a random thought I had while driving.

Introducing Maybe I should know this . . . but I don’t or Things in my wondering mind.

I haven’t decided which one I will call it but I go through my days and these random things that I don’t know anything about will seep into my mind. I was told by a wonderful journalist to jot those wonderings down and do my own research and write about it. So hence the following on the differences between milk. I know random but hey I wondered.

There used to be a battle that occurred weekly upon my mother’s arrival home from the grocery store. “Why did you buy skim milk, it tastes like water,” my dad would gripe. We had been a 2% family my entire life, it’s what the pediatrician told my mother during my childhood that we should drink 2%. Many years later my mom would try to change it up, us trying to be health conscientious and watch calorie intake skim became the desired calcium beverage of choice. My mom finally waved the white flag and buys a half gallon of skim and a half gallon of 2%. So it got me to thinking where does this percent stuff come from. And the answer is . . . percentages refer to the amount of fat left in the milk. Ta dah! That’s it nothing fancy nothing complicated.

Whole milk is about 3 ½ percent fat.

Skim, Fat-Free, or Nonfat Milk by U.S. Law must contain less than ½ percent fat.

Low-Fat Milk- two types; 2 percent and 1 percent milk which once again only refers to the percentages of fat left in the milk.

Which all brings me to Soy Milk. What the heck is it exactly? How is made? Is it good for you? Next time.

Attitude Goes a long way

This has been the most trying 3 weeks ever!

In my adventures as a trainer at my job I have encountered a different personality than I have ever encountered. Now mind you I have trained a few different types of people, one who has pretty much become my best friend and whom I believe I was related to in a past life. One who was deemed over confident right off the bat, but really was just that quick. Another was quiet and very estudious, another whom had never done this before but managed to learn this job anyways, another was just pure angel and I loved her. But now I have been thrown one I can't quite make out. Initially it started . . . I knew she was not cut for this job and I should've gone with that gut instinct first. But she was doing the job well, getting the applications, answering all my quiz questions correctly, and generally understanding the job. However apparently how our policies, procedures, and how we handle certain things is just "bananas" (her words not mine). Ok I don't make the rules I just ENFORCE them!!!! What am I supposed to say, "Yea I know it doesn't make sense, yea I know it's inconsistent, just do it!" Well that's what I want to say and in a round about way I do. Her attitude amazes me. When you are in training, in my opinion you don't piss off your trainer anymore than you would your boss. You're in the first days at a new job aren't you supposed to still be in the "impressing us" stage? I have trained people who weren't perfect in the applications, they didn't get the answers right all the time but they had a good attitude and they eventually got. Perhaps they weren't stellar but they got it and their positive attitude carried them to fly on their own. It just goes to show that regardless of how good you are your job, regardless of how perfect your perform, if you don't have a good attitude and you don't appreciate your job and those around you . . . you won't make it in this job or in this life. And remember one bad apple ruins the whole bunch.

I have loved this forever

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.


translated by W.S. Merwin