Book Review: Eating Animals

Awhile back, my friend Katie loaned me her copy of Eating Animals by Jonathan Safron Foer. I put off reading it because I was overwhelmed with having read The Omnivore's Dilemma & then watching Food Inc. But I finally read it & finished it a few weeks ago. It's taken me awhile to write this review because I can't wrap my mind around what I want to say.

Here's what the book is about. Foer is Jewish, sometimes Kosher, & sometimes a vegetarian. When he & his wife have a baby, he decides they either need to go full vegetarian, or not, but he needs to make a decision either way. This book is the result of how he reached his decision.

It's a short book & because it's a personal story, opposed to a 300 page journal article, I read it quickly, unlike The Omnivore's Dilemma, which felt like a homework assignment that I had to force myself to read.

What isn't easy to read, is the detailed accounts of animal abuse, which is a big focus of the book. I have a pretty high threshold for violence, but there were parts of this book that made me physically sick to read. It's rough & it's definitely not for the faint of heart. That being said, it really gets the point across.

So here's where I'm having trouble. This book was published in 2009, but in the book, Foer points out that it took him years (3-ish?) to compile all this research & that some things will have inevitably changed by the time it's published. For instance, there weren't Whole Foods stores when he was writing this, so the option of buying better meat wasn't really there yet, which, obviously, helps his pro-vegetarian platform.

Here's the deal, if you're a vegetarian, this book will validate your choice; if you're leaning towards becoming a vegetarian, this book will be the tipping point; if you read this book & still eat meat, you'll feel like an asshole.

I will say, reading this book is the first time I legitimately thought about becoming a vegetarian. As I was reading it, I thought, 'there's no way I can keep eating meat', which I've been struggling with for about a month or so now (& driving John batshit with in the process).

For now, I'm still eating meat, but I'm what Foer calls a "selective omnivore." I'm only eating meat that doesn't make me feel guilty. Tyson, Purdue, Smithfield: you will no longer be receiving any money from me. I've started buying our meat (& milk & eggs) from Whole Foods. Yes, it costs more, but whatever. If $20 of meat is only 1 or 2 dinners a week, then so be it. And I swear, the meat is better! Even John says so.

I feel like a lot of people focus on red meat when they think about going vegetarian, but beef is the least of my worries. I'm freaked out by chicken & pork, which I eat a whole hell of a lot more of than I realized. I have a particularly hard time with chicken, because, as I've quickly realized, everything I order at a restaurant involves chicken. Calypso Cafe: chicken nachos or chicken pita. Any Mexican restaurant: chicken soft tacos. Any fast food restaurant: grilled chicken sandwich. Baja Fresh or Blue Coast Burrito: chicken burrito. Indian: chicken tikka masala. Thai: chicken curry. It's making eating out a bitch.

Anyway, I could go on & on about all the issues this book raised for me, but I'll wrap this up. The fact is, this book made me think more than anything else has, so if you're looking for that, read this book. If you feel confident that you can live out the rest of your days not knowing what "thumping" is (hint: it involves piglets), then stay away.

Movie Review: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Last night I went to The Belcourt with my book swap ladies to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It was amazing! I was hesitant because I haven't read the book yet; it's in Swedish (with subtitles); & it's 152 minutes long, but I loved it. Here's the plot summary from Wikipedia:

Mikael Blomkvist, a middle-aged investigative journalist who writes for the magazine Millennium, loses a libel case against corrupt Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström and is sentenced to three months in jail.

Before beginning his sentence, Blomkvist is hired by Henrik Vanger, the aged former CEO of a group of companies owned by a wealthy dynasty. Vanger wants him to solve the disappearance, thirty-seven years ago, of Vanger's great-niece when she was sixteen. Vanger is convinced that the girl was killed by someone in his family. Blomkvist is ultimately helped in his quest by Lisbeth Salander, a young punk who has been victimized or misunderstood by those in authority throughout her whole life, but who is also a brilliant computer hacker. The unlikely couple become a classic detective pair.

This movie is not for the faint of heart. There are some brutal rape scenes, lots of violence, sex, language, etc., but it's still so good. It's a pretty true to form murder mystery with lots of plot twists & surprises. I loved the two main characters, especially Lisbeth. I can't wait to find out more about her.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the first book in a series of three. I haven't read it yet, but I plan on it, especially after seeing the movie. One of my friends there last night said she's halfway through the second book & that's it's better than the first. Sign me up!

Weekend Wrap Up

Friday Night:
Met Jen for after-work drinks at Taco Mamacita. Jen & I have been online friends for a few years now & finally decided to make it happen. We had our first date. We drank margaritas & rapped song lyrics. It was awesome.

Saturday:
I was supposed to go to Smyrna to help my cousin get ready for her senior prom, but the weather kept me in Nashville. I really didn't do much because of the weather. Luckily, I got all of our grocery shopping done in the morning. John & I went to lunch & to Big Lots & that's about it. I laid on the couch & read all day while John was out in the garage working on his mastering console.

Saturday Night:
The weather was still really crappy, so we went next door to Korea House for dinner & then came back home & watched Star Trek on DVD.

Sunday:
I woke up early & made ricotta pancakes (so good!). John wouldn't wake up (shocker), so I decide to take advantage of the non-tornadic weather & drive over to Centennial Park for a 3 mile run. It was so nice out. I ran the whole 3 miles & have the sunburn to prove it.

I get back home to find John eating pancakes & gearing up to weedeat & cut the grass. I run down the street to Target & get back as John is limping into the house, growling & grunting that he's hurt himself. He doesn't seem to be in a tremendous amount of pain & he's not bleeding, so I'm skeptical.

Side Note: John hates yard work & has been lobbying to get a goat for years. Apparently, in John's mind, a goat means never having to cut the grass again. Thus, the aforementioned skepticism.

At this point, John is clearly in a lot of pain. We finally get his shoe off & his foot looks bad, like broken bone bad. So we go to the emergency room. Fast forward 2 hours, foot isn't broken. It's a deep tissue bruise or something. Anyway, he's fine. He had to stay off of it for the rest of the day, keep it elevated, keep ice on it, etc, which quickly turned into, 'Hey, now that I'm not supposed to do anything today, how about we spend all afternoon at Best Buy & Game Stop?'.

So here's what happened. Unbeknownst to me, John took the wire off our weedeater & replaced it with a metal chain. Because why wouldn't he? Then he got too close to the rock wall in our back yard & the weedeater grabbed a rock with it's metal teeth & shot it into John's foot.

John is a recording engineer & as such, he can pretty much take anything apart & turn it into whatever he wants it to be. For instance, turning our weedeater into something Mad Max would use as a weapon in the Thunderdome (thanks, Mike). I'm sure many of you, who cohabitate with engineers, can relate to this. I'm talking to you, Mike & Mary Katherine.

Lastly, I made Cooking Light's spicy shrimp & grits for the second time last night, but this time I made sure they were spicy. Success! They were so good! Much better than my first attempt. This might be my new favorite recipe.

Garden Drum

I've had my eye on one of these garden drums for awhile now. I keep seeing them on blogs & in catalogues. I recently saw one on Odi et Amo, where she said she found one for $20 at her local Big Lots. I practically live next door to a Big Lots, so I've been going in there lately, looking for this garden drum, to no avail. Until today.

John & I were eating lunch next door, so we went in to look around. John spotted this ridiculous aisle of lawn/garden art & wanted to take a closer look at some wrestling alligators. He made me come look at them & help him decide who to buy them for when I looked up & saw this lone, white garden drum.

Do you know how many times I've gone in there looking for this thing? Three. I looked in garden; I looked in home furnishings; I, however, never looked down the 'creepy bullshit people put in their yard' aisle. I should have known.

So I bought it. The last one. Right now, it's acting as a side table beside the orange chair in our living room. It may stay there, it may move upstairs at some point -who knows. Regardless, I love it!

Now, if only Big Lots got in some Moroccan leather poufs, preferably in a metallic......

Running for Pancakes

I'm in a book club with my friends Mary Katherine & Melissa & some other women that I've gotten to know over the past year. They're all runners, most are also cyclists, & some are triathletes. Ever since the great hip injury of '06, I stopped running. Over the past 6-ish months, I've ran a few 5Ks & realized that my body can tolerate running 3 miles, albeit very slowly. As word spread throughout book club that I was running 5Ks, the ladies started pushing me to run again. Ehhhh, I said. But then Carrie came along with the one thing I can't turn down: pancakes.

Carrie started an unofficial running group to meet in Hillsboro Village every Friday at 5:30am, run the 3 mile West End/Vandy loop, then eat breakfast at Pancake Pantry. Sold! I've done it twice now & I kind of love it. The only problem is my speed, or lack thereof. Carrie assured me that this run was more for fun than speed & that they wouldn't leave me behind (it's still dark at 5:30am).

Carrie, bless it, stayed back with me & helped me stay at a steady pace. She also talked to me the whole time, which helped take my mind off the running. There's no way I would have ran that whole 3 mile loop if she hadn't been with me. Last week, Carrie couldn't come, but another fellow slow-runner came along & stayed back with me. We ended walking a lot more than we ran, but it was still nice to have someone to talk to. Plus, pancakes.

I talked to my friend Jaime, who's trained beginning runners in the past, & she said 2 things: 1) don't be embarrassed about speed -start slow, then finish fast; & 2) start trying to get in at least 3 runs a week. Carrie had pretty much told me the same thing. She said to work on getting my heart & lungs up to speed, then my legs will follow. My legs are strong as shit. Have you seen these tree trunks? So I know Carrie's right, once my heart is ready, my legs will be there.

I've been running 2-3 times a week, depending on the week. The hard part has been finding places to run. I keep defaulting to the Belmont Blvd loop, but I'm getting bored with it. My neighborhood works in a pinch, but it's hilly as shit. I ran in Centennial Park once & I liked it, aside from all the people, dogs, etc. that I had to work around. I tried running on the treadmill this week & hated it. Apparently all this running outside has turned me off to my old friend, the treadmill. I so wish there was a West Nashville version of East Nasty. God, that would be awesome. Do no runners live on the West Side?

So yeah, I'm running again. So far, no hip pain. My knees bother me a little, but nothing substantial. Honestly, the hardest part for me is mental. The entire first 10-15 minutes of the run, my brain is screaming, "Walk! Walk! Walk! This sucks! Walk!", but once I get past that, it's smooth sailing. I've also found that if I walk first, for about 5 minutes, then go into a slow jog, I can actually run by the end & finish somewhat fast. It's a work in progress, but I'm getting there.

Lastly, weight. I quit weighing myself weeks ago because it was pissing me off, so I have no idea what I weigh right now or if all this running has caused me to lose any weight. I don't even care that much honestly. I will say this, my pants are all starting to get roomy in the thigh area. I've actually taken 2 pairs of work pants in for alterations. I can tell I'm stronger & I can tell my legs are tightening up, but other than that, who knows. We shall see......

Wasabi Panko Coated Halibut

I saw this on TasteSpotting & immediately put it in my 'to try' file. Since I skipped the Rural West TN Fish Fry after work today, I figured tonight was the night. Plus, I'm always looking for a chance to use my cast iron skillet.

Wasabi Panko Coated Halibut

Adapted from Barrister Bites

Ingredients:

2/3 cup panko

2 large eggs

4 pieces halibut

Vegetable oil

1/8 tsp salt

1 tsp ginger

1/3 cup chicken broth

1 tbsp dry sherry

2 tbsp soy sauce

2 tsp sugar

3 tbsp wasabi paste

1 bunch green onions, sliced into 1" sections

2 tbsp mustard powder

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 cup brown rice, cooked

Directions:

1. Place panko in a shallow dish. Place eggs in another dish. Dip halibut in egg; dredge in panko.

2. Whisk mustard powder with 5 tbsp water in a small bowl.

3. Heat vegetable oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat; add halibut. Cook for 4 minutes on each side or until done. Remove halibut from skillet; sprinkle with salt.

4. Combine mustard paste with 1/4 cup soy sauce in the same small bowl.

5. Reduce heat to medium. Add ginger to skillet; cook 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Combine broth & the next 4 ingredients (through wasabi) in a small bowl, stirring well with a whisk. Add broth mixture to skillet, scraping skillet to loosen browned bits. Stir in green onions.

6. Place halibut on top of cooked brown rice. Spoon ginger-onion sauce over halibut. Serve with mustard sauce on the side.

Kim's Notes: This was soooo good! We used the frozen pack of Halibut pieces from Trader Joe's. It was probably too much fish, but we're a fan of left-overs, so it worked out. It was also a little too much wasabi for my taste. I may cut it down to 1 or 1 1/2 tbsp of wasabi paste next time instead of 3 tbsp. Other than that, delish! Definitely recommend this one!

Weekend Wrap Up

Friday Night:
Now that I'm doing this 5:30 running for pancakes thing on Friday mornings, my Friday nights are even more lame than usual. I'm not much fun come 9:00pm when I've been up since 4:50am.... I had The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at home & around 5:00pm, I decided to start watching it. I took a dinner break to go eat with John, but I miraculously stayed awake & finished the movie.

Side Note: We had dinner at this new BBQ place in the Melrose Kroger shopping center called B & C Melrose BBQ (the B & C stands for bacon & caviar, haha). Our friends Mike & Amanda told us about it. Per Amanda's recommendation, I had the pulled pork over garlic grits plate. OMG, so good! This place is going into the rotation.

Saturday:
I packed a lot in on Saturday. I got up & went to Target, then met Carolyn at Whole Foods. Her Maw-Maw can't have anymore sodium, so Carolyn is trying to help her eat better. Then we did a little shopping in Green Hills Mall. I bought this $70 skirt at Ann Taylor Loft back in February. I've worn it twice & hated it both times, so I decided to return it & buy a dress for a wedding & my birthday, which are 2 days apart. It was a $100 dress, but with the credit from the skirt, I only had to pay the $30 difference. Score! This dress is amazing. I love it!

So Carolyn headed to M'boro & I grabbed some take-out @ Calypso Cafe, then went to Sylvan Park to meet my friend Jaime & walk the green way. I've been curious to try this green way since it's so close to my house. Observations: 1) it's shorter than I expected; 2) it's hilly as shit. I'd like to think I could run it, but I don't know. Totally good for walking though.

Saturday Night:
John wanted to grill steaks, so we ran to Publix, bought some steaks, came home & threw them on the grill. So good! Coincidentally, I had finished reading Eating Animals that day & felt like a huge asshole for eating steak. In my defense, I did buy the Publix Greenwise steak.....

Sunday:
I kind of did a lot yesterday too. I got up early & did the Holy Trinity of grocery stores: Whole Foods, Trader Joe's & Publix. More on this later, but I've decided if I'm going to eat meat, I'm going to buy it at Whole Foods. Yesterday I bought 2 chicken breasts & a pound of ground turkey for $14 (with tax). Not bad. Then I went home, woke up John & we went to lunch. After lunch John went to Lowe's to buy all the wood he needs to build his new mastering console.

I decided to drive over to Belmont & run 3 miles. I also decided to leave my keys in the car & to stick the keyless entry remote in my sports bra. Had a good run, actually ran the whole thing, stayed at a good pace, etc. So I get back to my car, fish the remote out of my bra & it doesn't work. Of course it doesn't. Having nothing else on me but an iPod, I walk to Bongo Java & call John, who doesn't answer because he doesn't recognize the number. Then I call my parents & have them call John & tell him to come get me. I beg Bongo Java for a glass of water & sit outside to wait on John.

Then... this hipster barista comes outside holding a cordless phone & yelling, "Kim!". So embarrassed. I sheepishly raise my hand & she brings me the phone. It's John. Assuredly, my dad mispronounced "Bongo Java" & John wanted to make sure he knew where I was. Okay. Back to my water drinking & people watching until..... She comes out again, holding the phone yelling, "Kim!" again. I don't know why she didn't just walk over to me, clearly she knew who I was at this point. Anyway, it was John again saying he had just spent an hour loading all of this wood, etc. onto his cart & should he finish shopping & then come get me, or abandon his cart & come get me now. So I ended up sitting outside for about 45 minutes, but it was fine. It wasn't too hot, they gave me water & I eavesdropped on some ridiculous conversations. Ahhh, college life.....

Sunday Night:
John spent the rest of day/night building his console. I ran to Target & bought some new work-out clothes & then came home & made chocolate chip cookies to send to Hilty & staff for treating Linda. We made chicken enchiladas for dinner & I watched The Front on Lifetime. I know, I know. But it was by Patricia Cornwell, who I love. It started out okay, but it was pretty lame by the end. Imagine if Danielle Steel wrote an episode of Law & Order SVU. It was just like that.

Chicken Enchiladas

I'm sure most of you have a recipe for enchiladas. Here's mine. It's an adaptation from an old recipe Lauren gave me years ago, presumably from Southern Living.

Chicken Enchiladas

Ingredients:

2 large chicken breasts

8 large flour tortillas

2 tbsp butter

1 large white onion (diced)

1 jalapeno (seeded & diced)

1 can Rotel

4 oz can green chilies

8 oz pkg cream cheese

2 cups shredded monterey jack cheese

1 1/2 cups whipping cream

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Bring water & chicken to a boil, reduce to medium-high & keep cooking for 10-15 minutes (or until no longer pink inside).

With 2 forks, shred the chicken breasts in a bowl & set aside.

Cook butter, green chilies, onion, Rotel, & jalapeno for a few minutes. Add in cream cheese until softened.

Add shredded chicken to cream cheese mixture & blend well.

Lightly grease 9x13 baking dish.

Take tortillas & roll 1/2 cup cream cheese/chicken mixture in each tortilla & lay side-by-side in baking dish.

Sprinkle with monterey jack cheese.

Top with whipping cream (pour it evenly over entire dish).

Cook uncovered for 30 minutes.

Serve with sour cream, Tabasco & refried beans.

Movie Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Last night I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I've been hesitant to watch it because it's so long & I didn't remember anyone saying anything good about it. When it came out on DVD, I put it in my Netflix queue & forgot about it, until it came in the mail. The Netflix envelope said it's 2 hours & 45 minutes long, so I started watching it last night, not expecting to finish it, but I did. And, it's only 2 & 1/2 hours long, the last 15 minutes are credits.

I'm still a little bit in shock over how much I enjoyed this movie. I was expecting it to be weird & long & I probably wouldn't even finish it, etc. Totally untrue. I loved it! Why did I think a movie starring Brad Pitt & Cate Blanchett would be bad? What was I thinking?

I feel confident that you all know the basic storyline: Brad Pitt (Benjamin) is born old & gets younger as he ages. I thought this would be weird & hard to follow, but it wasn't. It was somehow fairly believable & not as distracting as you think it's going to be. And then there's Cate Blanchett. Who doesn't love Cate Blanchett? She's so good in this movie. I spent the better part of the movie wondering what I'd look like with red hair.

If you have 2 & 1/2 hours to spare, I highly recommend this movie. I loved it.

Thursday Night Grill Night

Tonight we made grilled garlic lemon chicken, panko roasted asparagus & whole grain brown, wild rice. It was sooooo good!

Recipe for grilled garlic lemon chicken breasts here.

Recipe for panko roasted asparagus here.

Hooray for TasteSpotting & hooray for Libby for turning me on to this awesome website!

Pad See Ew

I this on TasteSpotting recently & decided to try it.

Pad See Ew

Adapted from Food Addicts

Ingredients:

2 lbs rice noodles (at room temperature)

3 garlic cloves, minced

3 carrots, cut into long strips

2 cups broccoli

2 eggs

1/2 cup & 2 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce

2 tbsp brown sugar

Chili garlic sauce, to taste

For Marinade:

1- 1 1/2 lb skirt steak

2 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp plum sauce (or plum sake)

4 garlic cloves, minced

Directions:

Marinate steak overnight.

Pull noodles apart until separated & set aside (okay, this part kind of sucked).

Heat oil in wok, then add broccoli, carrots, & garlic & cook until soft, about 5-7 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook marinated steak in separate skillet until cooked through, then add to wok.

Create a well in the middle & scramble eggs.

Add rice noodles & toss carefully.

Mix soy sauce & brown sugar & pour over rice noodle mixture. Season to desired taste with chili garlic sauce.

Notes: This smelled & tasted really good &, aside from the horrible pulling apart of the noodles, it was fairly easy. Ours was a little salty, but I think it's because I used less meat than the recipe called for & didn't reduce the marinade ingredients. I think it needed less soy sauce & a little less (gasp!) garlic. Other than that, delish!

Nashville Examiner

While I'm giving shout outs, I'd also like to make sure you all know about a fairly new local website called Nashville Examiner. Mary Katherine is covering the Green Hills beat. Read her first article here.

Go, Mary Katherine!

P.S. They're still recruiting local writers. Complete list of available topics here.

Carolyn on Rearranged Design!

Since so many of you have told me how much you love Carolyn & David's house & their sense of style, I'd thought I'd share this recent blog post courtesy of Rearranged Design:

http://www.rearrangeddesign.com/2010/04/house-tour_12.html

Want more Carolyn? Here you go:

Blog

Flickr

Etsy

Weekend Wrap Up

John had a session Fri-Sun, so I was flying solo all weekend.

Friday:
Nada. Had been up since 4:50am. Got my hair did at Trim, then went home. Pretty sure I fell asleep on the couch somewhere around 8:30pm. Sorry, hair....

Saturday:
Lounged around all day, then met Ali for late afternoon shopping & dinner. We hit all the West N'ville stores, then went to Cinco where we proceeded to drink a pitcher of top shelf margaritas. Amusingly, the waiter tried to get us to order a second pitcher, but we declined. In hindsight, mucho creepy on his part.

Sunday:
Got up early-ish & drank about a gallon of water, trying to flush the tequila out of my system before my run in Centennial Park with Claudia. I think it worked. We didn't run the whole thing, but we definitely got a work-out (and a minor sunburn). Post run, I headed East to Delaney's to help with decorations for her fast approaching big day. All the decorations are so cool. I can't wait to see the final result!

Last night I finally watched Up. I typically stay away from Disney Pixar movies because I'm just not an animation person, but I've heard so many people talk about this movie, I put it in my Netflix queue. Ehhhh.... I guess I liked it. The whole talking dog thing was pretty hilarious.

To Breakfast, Or Not To Breakfast

Let's talk breakfast. I've always been a breakfast eater. Always. It's probably because I'm a morning person & I like to get up, eat, watch TV, check my email, etc. I have lots of friends who forego breakfast for coffee & a cigarette, or coffee & an apple, slice of toast, etc. Coincidentally, these friends are also typically much thinner than I am.

John got me a coffee machine for Christmas this year, so I thought, let's try this. I'll drink coffee instead of eating breakfast. I also rejoined Weight Watchers & started tracking my calories. I immediately lost 10 lbs. Voila! Mystery solved. The secret to weight loss is coffee & not eating breakfast. Or so I thought.....

Fast forward 3 months. Have lost no additional weight in weeks/months. Also, started eating breakfast again, briefly. Gained a few pounds. Cut breakfast back out. Yeah, I know.

I came across this article today & feel like I need to go back to eating breakfast. I can definitely tell a difference between days I eat breakfast & days I don't. On the days I don't, I'm starving by lunch, snack on crap in the afternoon & way overeat at dinner. On the days I do, I snack less & eat less overall. But I also tend to gain a few pounds. See my frustration?

Also, I feel it's important to point out that when I do eat breakfast, I'm eating 1 of 3 things: 1) oatmeal with a little butter & walnuts, sliced almonds, or berries; 2) organic frosted mini wheats with organic lowfat milk; 3) slice of toast with peanut butter. So it's not like I'm eating the freaking sunrise sampler or anything.

Do any of you struggle with this? Any good breakfast ideas? General thoughts/suggestions?

Shades of Purple

Full photostream here.

Weekend Wrap Up: 3 Day Edition

Friday:

Tried to run the 3 mile Belmont Blvd loop, but the pollen dragged me down. Ended up walking the majority of it. Plus side? Saw Libby & her two cute dogs!

Went to Green Hills & cashed in my free denim card at GAP & bought a much needed new brassiere at Macy's. I hate buying both jeans & bras, but it needed to be done. Plus, the jeans were free. I bought a pair of jeans from GAP back when they first launched their big denim campaign & the buttons on my $70 jeans kept falling off. I eventually lost them all & had to quit wearing the jeans, so I wrote GAP & voila: free denim card. Thanks, GAP!

Friday Night:

How I Became the Bomb at Exit/In. Met Ali & Sarah beforehand at La Paz, then walked next door for the AWESOME show.

Saturday:

I can't remember what I did on Saturday, which means I probably sat outside on the deck all day reading Eating Animals & missing my dog.

Saturday Night:

Walked next door to Korea House with our West Side companions, Mike & Amanda. God, I love Korea House!

Sunday:

I woke up early, made a banana cake & ran 3 miles. Then John made the 5 hour trek to Georgia to pick up Linda & I went to Smyrna for Easter. While I was waiting on John & Linda to get home, I watched Public Enemies on DVD. Very good, by the way. They got home around 1 am. John woke me up, I petted Linda & went right back to sleep. I barely even remember it. But alas, Linda is back home. Hooray!

Update on Linda McCartney

We dropped Linda off at the animal hospital yesterday. We drove 5 hours to Hiawassee, GA because our dear friend's (Jon) dad is the vet there & we trust him to take care of her. If all goes well, we'll drive back on Sunday to pick her up.

In going through all of the paperwork from where we adopted Linda last March, I realized I have no proof that she tested heartworm negative last year. We adopted her through a rescue group, but we got her at animal control. I assumed the vet who spayed her & gave her her shots, also tested her for heartworms, but no such luck. The vet did not test her. Apparently animal control tested her, but forgot to fax her test results to the vet. So alas, no one can prove that a) she was ever tested; b) what the results from that test may have been.

Obviously, she's being treated regardless, but knowing the results from last year's heartworm test are important. First of all, it would be helpful to know how long she's had heartworms. Secondly, we've had her on Heartgard for the entire year we've had her, so if she tested negative last year, has been on Heartgard all year, & tested positive this year, Heartgard will reimburse Hilty for part of the cost of her treatment.

I've been working with the rescue group all week & they're trying to get me her treatment sheet from last year. They confirmed that animal control did have her tested (not the vet) & that they were supposed to fax her results to the vet, but for whatever reason, they didn't. Stupid animal control. They've asked animal control to go back through last year's files to find her test results, but who knows. I have very little faith in animal control at this point.

Today, Hilty will examine Linda, do some bloodwork, etc. to make sure she can withstand the treatment. If she can, she'll receive her first arsenic injection today, her second tomorrow & then we'll take her home on Sunday. Once we get her home, we have to really watch her for the first 30 days. Apparently, as the arsenic does it's job & the heartworms slow down & die, they can cause blockages in her heart & lungs if she gets excited or overexerted. So we're going to have to figure out a way to keep her from going up & down the stairs & we can only let her go outside on a leash, which she's going to hate. I'm honestly more worried about the next 30 days than I am about this weekend.

Thanks to everyone who's asked about her, emailed/texted, left Facebook comments, etc. It means a lot. This goes without saying, but she's a lot more than a dog to us.