Thursday, September 11, 2008

early evening

SuperZoo ‘08 - And the food, treat, toy, accessory, and company reviews begin…

We “shopped” until we dropped, literally.  Well, almost.  Lots of terrific companies and people donated to our li’l Wee Paws Animal Sanctuary, and this is where we begin to thank them.  Each year we get enough food donated to help feed the kids for weeks, sometimes months, depending on which dogs get the food.  Dante & Eli can wipe out a whole bag of raw nuggets in a day, and they’d last Phoenix & Cricket a week.  It makes it much easier to feed the little dogs incredibly fabulous foods; and on the other hand, it’s difficult to feed the 100 pounders as well.  The best part about the food we get from companies at SuperZoo is that they’re all high quality products - no one from Brand X company is there promoting their floor scrapings of undetermined body parts (“Chicken by-products include head, feet, entrails, lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, liver, stomach, bones, blood, intestines, and any other part of the carcass not fit for human consumption,” writes Henry Pasternak in Healing Animals with Nature’s Cures.  Meat meal can contain the boiled down flesh of animals we would find unacceptable for consumption. This can include zoo animals, road kill, and 4-D (dead, diseased, disabled, dying) livestock. Most shockingly, this also can include dogs and cats. That’s right, your pets could be cannibals. Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser writes, “Although leading American manufacturers promise never to put rendered pets into their pet food, it is still legal to do so. A Canadian company, Sanimal Inc., was putting 40,000 pounds of dead dogs and dead cats into its dog and cat food every week, until discontinuing the practice in June 2001. “This food is healthy and good,” said the company’s vice president of procurement, responding to critics, ‘’but some people don’t like to see meat meal that contains any pets.”) that you wouldn’t want your pet to look at, much less eat.  I can’t believe that anyone ever thought it was okay to feed dogs & cats to other dogs & cats.  Gross!

The first snack sample we tried was simple, but delicious according to both the dogs and the cats.  Since it’s September 11th, I’ll be all USA USA USA - so the first snack I open was Ameri-Treats, which is 100% human grade dehydrated chicken slices.  As soon as I can find the website for them (not on the business card, nor on the package - we always think domain name first, but maybe it’s just because we enjoy the process of coming up with the names), I’ll link ya up.  The cats were trampling each other to get little pieces from me.  The dogs, fortunately, were a lot calmer, but I suppose that’s because they didn’t have a bunch of other animals around trying to get to the treats first.  Also, from my perspective, the “pet owner”, the chicken smells really good!

Stay tuned for reviews of the bones that look like treats, but are a fully balanced meal, the doggie potato chips, the multitude of raw frozen food that we picked up from several different companies (we even have a large chest freezer that’s totally packed to the top with raw chicken, lamb, beef, rabbit, duck, and buffalo - both the dogs & cats are thrilled), the zillions of new treats, some old favorites, and some cool gadgets.  And a bunch of really really nice people.

Friday, September 05, 2008

mid-morning

Sara Benincasa is awesome - set aside 30 minutes and I promise pure political entertainment

This is entry #1, the beginning of my favorite series of YouTube videos ever.  Below, you’ll find the links to the rest of the vlogs.

Governor Sarah Palin Vlog #2

Governor Sarah Palin Vlog #3: CATS!

Governor Sarah Palin Vlog #4: PURSE!

Gov. Palin Vlog #5: Sarah at the RNC!

Sarah Palin Vlog #6: BEFORE THE BIG SPEECH!

I can’t wait for more!  I want #7!  I want #7!  I want #7!  I want #7!  I want #7!  I want #7!

Thursday, August 28, 2008

evening

Mom & Dad to the rescue…again

Yay, the a/c guys are on their way out with a new a/c unit to install.  We won’t die of heatstroke after all.  I will never take cold air on a hot, hot, hot day for granted again.  24 hours of this has royally sucked.  We’re stressed, the pets are stressed and confused, we’re worried about the pets.  We have fans set up all over the house to attempt to keep it from getting past, oh, 90+ degrees inside, but half the cats are afraid of the fans.  Carlo has decided that he’s never leaving the master bedroom again - there are some scary whirring monsters outside of the bedroom door and he wants no part of them, thank you very much.  We slept for a few hours with the bedroom door mostly shut to try to keep as much cool air in as possible, but to allow small visitors to come & go as well.  Let’s just say that many of them came in and stayed, and were extra well-behaved.  Perhaps they were worried we’d toss them in the tv room, where it was about 95 degrees even with the windows open.  I’m so happy that we bought the portable a/c unit last year.  Without it, we would’ve probably had to take some of the pets to the vet’s office for boarding because they weren’t handling the heat very well.  We have some elderly cats & dogs, not to mention two people who don’t handle heat well anymore thanks to the Fibro.  We could’ve all slept in a big kennel.

Thursday, August 07, 2008

terribly early in the morning

It’s My Birthday - So, Back to Bed for a Nap

I apologize for my long absence, and I’ll explain it all once it’s no longer my birthday, because birthday blog entries shouldn’t be about bad bad bad and more bad things.  So, we’re off to take a little nap, feed the pets, then take showers and go out to get me my birthday presents - an ink cartridge from Office Depot, so I can print out my free ice-cream offer from Cold Stone Creamery, a free burger from Red Robin, and then a marathon of recorded “So You Think You Can Dance” episodes, while eating said free ice-cream.  Oh yeah, and if Leigh-Ann can find a little cash amongst her belongings, she’s gonna buy me a blaster box from Wal-Mart or Target.  A blaster box is a box of sports cards from a retail store, not the fancy expensive boxes of cards from the hobby stores that are priced from $100+.  I can get a blaster box for ten bucks.

Today, we’re not going to read the mail on my birthday, because last year’s mail on this date contained a foreclosure notice on the house.  And we read that right as we were going out to dinner to celebrate my birthday.  To add insult to injury, while we were eating, Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron’s home run record, so it replayed five gazillion times while we were eating.  Ugh, Barry Bonds was almost worst than the foreclosure notice.  Oh, and we’re still in the house for now, so that’s good.  Anyway, I’m off for a couple hour nap, but before that, I’m going to eat my favorite new cereal (dry, it’s better that way), FiberOne w/ Honey Clusters (good for me and tasty) while reading the Ty Cobb book by Al Stump.  I recommend it highly.  You’ll even find yourself feeling sorry for the poor guy lots of times and see that a lot of his behavior was brought about by the tragic death of his beloved father, and then the way he was treated right afterwards as he first made it to the big leagues with the Detroit Tigers.  He was treated so poorly that a less determined person would’ve quit and gone home.

Also, a happy birthday to childhood school friends who shared our birthday, Shaun Robertson & LeeAnne Hayashida.  I have no idea where they are now, but I hope they’re doing well.  I do know that LeeAnne’s brother is the coach of our high school football team though, so I should probably see if I can track her down.  Also, a very special birthday wish to one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, and not only does she share the same birthday, but she shares the same name.  Happy birthday, Nancy - you’re the best!

Friday, June 06, 2008

terribly early in the morning

How about something more pleasant?

Here’s my brother, my niece, and my grand/great (dictionaries can’t seem to decide) niece on the tv news.  Isn’t Jordyn one of the cutest babies ever?