Ang's Journal

The last few days have been a bizarre mixture of good & bad.

Good:

• A surprise visit from M*! They had a stressful week at work & decided to come decompress in the mountains for a couple of days. They arrived late Friday night & left Monday morning. We did a little bit of hiking & took the dogs down to the San Miguel River for some splash time.
  
• We also made an awesome peach cobbler on Saturday night, using Palisade peaches Annie bought at the Ridgway farmer's market.
  
• After church on Sunday, we went to an art festival in town, which was surprisingly large, varied, & GOOD! I bought a sweater made from alpaca wool that I suspect will be my new favorite thing this winter & we both bought some spice mixes.
  
• Sunday night, we sat out on the deck with Alan & Annie to watch the Perseid meteor shower. There were a couple of show-stoppers - extra-bright shooting stars with long tails. We also saw Starlink, which actually freaked M* out a little bit.

Bad:

• Poor Shadeaux had truly hellish diarrhea starting Thursday afternoon & continuing through Monday morning. She was doing very poorly on Saturday until she finally ate some chicken, rice, & psyllium husk mixed with diluted bone broth. This morning, she ate a bowl of regular dog chow with some rice & chicken & she seems to be feeling nearly normal. I'm giving her a probiotic & keeping my fingers crossed.
  
• On Monday morning, the basement toilet backed up (unrelated). I am sure I don't need to belabor the details on why that sucked.
  
• Also on Monday morning, Alan & I learned that two of our good friends in town (C* & J*) are getting divorced. They are the couple that owns the Beaumont Hotel (where we held our wedding reception). They just sold the hotel, & I guess they're calling it quits on everything. It's really sad - we love hanging out with them & we had no idea things were going badly between them. They're both planning to move out of state.

I've been reading & listening to a lot of audiobooks lately (thank you, Libby). My recommendations:

• The Divine Cities Trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett. A post-apocalyptic world with a murder-mystery feel. What happens when your society has direct connection to the power of the gods - & then those gods are murdered?
  
• Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. Kingsolver takes the story of David Copperfield & sets it in Appalachia at the outbreak of the OxyContin crisis. Reading this novel while my mom (who lives on the edge of Appalachia) is dealing with pain management issues following her latest back surgery was chilling, to say the least.
  
• Project Hail Mary written by Andy Weir & narrated by Ray Porter. This audiobook won the 2022 Audie Award for the Audiobook of the Year. Reminiscent of The Martian, it's another great hard-science action adventure with the survival of humanity being only part of the stakes! Ray Porter brings the nerdy main character to life & the choice to incorporate minimal sound effects was a good one.

In other news, after many years of dilettante gardening, I have made a startling discovery: using fertilizer increases plant health & produce yields!!! Wait until I tell the farmers.

Sleep: So last night, I did the SAME THING as the night before – hot shower right before bed. Fell asleep around 10:30 PM, but woke up at 4:15 AM & stayed awake. I finally gave up & got up around 6:15 AM. 5¾ hours of sleep ain’t gonna cut it. I feel out of it.

Program: Went to the 7 AM meeting this morning & was thoroughly annoyed by the experience. Came home & prayed on my knees after eating some breakfast.

Work: I didn’t go to work today – not enough sleep. Mental health day.

Food: I had early coffee w/cream, then ate keto casserole & drank a big mug of bone broth around 9 AM. Then around 2 PM I went to Park Tavern & had a burger, a devil on horseback, sweet potato fries, & a Coke. At book club this evening, I had hot chocolate & a cookie. Keto fail. Alas.

Exercise: I was discombobulated when I finally got up, & couldn’t remember what my workout plan was for today. I decided to walk to & from York Street. 6,440 steps / 62 minutes active. No formal workout, but I did see Dr. Spallone. He did some massive adjustments to my left elbow, left shoulder, both scapulae, upper back, & neck. It sounded like a string of firecrackers. Then I did some nerve rebuilding (the electrified gloves). My neck & back feel much, much better, but I have a headache.

Mood: Very low mood today. I burned all my energy making it to the meeting, making it through the meeting, & making it home. I feel better after the adjustment, just very tired.

Grats: 1. Neck & back feel much, much better after adjustment. 2. Book club was lovely, as always. 3. I have my doggos back for a week!

music link

Sleep: According to Samsung Health, I slept from 11:30 PM to 7:20 AM. I don’t think those are quite the right times (I would’ve estimated more like 10:30-10:45 PM to 7:00 AM), but pretty close in duration. Bad quality sleep though: lots of dog movement & I was too hot.

Program: Kneeling prayer this morning.

Tasks: Today was Help B* Move In, Day 1. It went all right. I ended up leaving him mid-afternoon because M-M needed to talk.

Food: Breakfast (coffee w/cream, chili, spinach, two fried eggs, cheesy biscuit), late lunch with M-M (spaghetti sauce, Beyond Meat sausage, zoodles, & Parmesan cheese). Snacked on two cheesy biscuits later in the day.

Exercise: Samsung Health I was active for 76 minutes (walked to dogs, moving Bruce’s stuff) & walked 7,142 steps. I feel like I was active for way more than 76 minutes today...

Mood: A little frazzled. Both B* & M-M were stressed & I picked up on it from both of them. But this evening, I’m relaxing with the dogs on the sofa with a cup of herbal tea & everything seems great.

Grats: 1. We made a good start at getting B* moved in. I hope he likes his new place. 2. My doggos were angels today (except when Hobbes jumped on B* this morning & tweaked his knee).

Program: I prayed this morning. I went to the Attitude Adjustment meeting this morning. I also talked to D* after the meeting – I think I’m going to back up in my step work & stop trying to force my amends. We’re going to meet after Thanksgiving. I set an alarm to meditate this afternoon, but I was chatting with A* when it went off & ignored it. I renewed my habit of calling D* in the evening - & got her voice mail, which is the irritant that made me stop doing it.

Mood: My mood has been all right today. I’m relieved that the dogs are with Shay & Laurel for a few days. I’m pleased that I cleaned my apartment & got a ton of laundry done.

Exercise: I didn’t exercise today.

Sleep: Last night’s sleep was poor. I ate a lot of processed carbs yesterday & paid for it with searing indigestion.

Food: Mixed. I ate my standard breakfast (coffee w/cream, Southern keto casserole, cheesy biscuit), plus a Siggi’s cherry yogurt. Then I ate leftover pizza for lunch & skipped dinner. I’m making Texas red chili in the InstaPot right now, to enter in the office chili cook-off tomorrow.

Grats: 1. I finally migrated my journal from LiveJournal to Dreamwidth. I’ve wanted to do that for years. I have a lot of work ahead of me, deleting all the LJ entries & re-coding all the imported entries with tags. But I will feel better not having my data sitting on SixApart’s servers. 2. My chili came out very well. If people like Texas red as a style, I could win tomorrow.

I donated platelets at Bonfils Blood Center again today, with no side effects or dizziness. So the trouble I had last time was hopefully a one-off. My BP was higher this time when I arrived, so that might have been the issue.

When I got home, I took Shadeaux for a walk & she pulled her 21st disc golf frisbee out of Lakewood Gulch Creek. Between donating blood & rescuing another disc, my karma account is looking good today.

I did an apheresis donation today. For the first time EVER (& I've been a blood donor for decades), I felt shaky & sick afterwards. I laid down with my feet elevated for about ten minutes & then went on my merry way. My blood pressure was a little low when I went in (112/62) but that's within my normal range. So I'm not sure what was different.

Friday I finished up my first field work trip of 2015 - two weeks on Arapahoe. It went fine - even less eventful than usual. We didn't even see any rattlesnakes. Shadeaux came with me again, since hotpantsgalore is still in New Orleans on a month-long work contract at Touro Hospital. I like having the little furball with me in Sterling - she's happy going to doggy day care all day, & she makes the hotel feel more homey in the evenings.

I was very happy to be back in Denver over the weekend. On Friday night, I met up with Bobo Bro & checked out his new condo. Saturday morning, I went to swim practice & then went out to brunch with the swim team. Saturday evening, reunited with Bobo Bro & went to the Rockies-Giants game at Coors Field. Sunday was a cold, rainy mess, so I stayed in all day & did food prep. I made fish tacos with an avocado/lime sauce that were delicious, & I refined a Whole30 version of the Kashi Mayan Harvest bake frozen dinner (removed grain, added shredded chicken). Of course, after a full day in the kitchen, my dishwasher stopped working. Still working on getting the landlord to fix that.

WHOLE30-FIED MAYAN BAKE HARVEST

Ingredients:

• 1 very ripe plantain (yellow and covered with black spots), peeled and cut into 2” pieces
• 1 chicken breast, washed and patted dry
• 1 cup bone broth or water
• 2 sweet potatoes, washed and diced into ½” cubes – enough to make about one layer on a 9"x 13" pan
• 1 bunch of kale, washed, de-stemmed, and chopped (frozen spinach works too)
• ¼ cup pumpkin seeds
• 3 Tbsp. coconut oil (split)
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3-4 cloves garlic
• 1 x 15 oz. can tomato puree (1 ⅞ cups)
• 1 Tbsp. ancho chili powder
• 1 Tbsp. paprika
• 1 tsp. Aleppo pepper
• ½ tsp. sea salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Toss sweet potato cubes in 1 Tbsp. of coconut oil and roast for 15 minutes on a baking tray.
3. Stir the potatoes and add the plantains, then roast for another 15 minutes.
4. Heat 1 Tbsp. of coconut oil in a lidded skillet to medium. Add the chicken breast and cook for about five minutes, until it is golden brown on one side. Add 1 cup of bone broth or water and flip the chicken over. Cover skillet with the lid and let the chicken simmer for 7-10 minutes, checking to make sure it is cooked all the way through. Save the broth or water.
5. Shred the chicken with forks.
6. Add another 1 Tbsp. of coconut oil to the skillet and sauté the onions and garlic until soft and fragrant. Add the kale or spinach and continue sautéing until the greens are wilted.
7. Add the tomato puree, shredded chicken, ancho chili powder, paprika, and salt, and simmer for 10 minutes. Thin sauce with most or all of the saved bone broth or water.
8. When the sweet potatoes and plaintains are roasted and soft, remove them from the oven. Place the potatoes and plaintains in a 9x9” glass dish. Top the potatoes with the sauted onions/greens. Pour the shredded chicken and tomato sauce over everything and top with pumpkin seeds.
9. Return dish to oven and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Serves 4.

My neighbor S* - my closest friend here in Denver - just took over care for a second dog. This dog, Sophie, is nine years old & has been poorly cared for by S's younger sister. Since S* & I often have our dogs our in the shared yard playing together, or walk our dogs together, I've been spending a lot of time with Sophie. She's a puggle, maybe ten pounds, with lots of health issues stemming from neglect.

And I don't like her.

I have NEVER liked little dogs. I didn't like Sliver, my mom's cherished Yorkie mix rescue. He was squirmy, prone to biting, & too big for his teensy britches. Stacy also had a small dog, a miniature Pinscher. I despised that dog too (to the point of wanting to kick it on a daily basis). I have a couple of friends who adore their weiner dogs, but all I see when I look at them are mockeries of what a dog should be.

They ALWAYS look pitiful, or guilty, or deceitful. They skulk. A little dog always seems to be furtively mincing around, looking for food, or trying to find a cozy corner of the house in which to take a tiny crap. When they're sitting in your lap, they don't ever seem to relax, like a cat does. It's like holding a stress bomb up close to your body.

They seem to suffer disproportionately from the gross facial deformities that make me hate dog breeders - ridiculous underbites, protruding eyes, oversized skulls. The healthier breeds - terriers & daschunds, for instance - at least seem functional, but they tend to be hyper & yappy. The "toy" breeds - bred just to be small & cute - may not be as hyper, but they're rarely well-behaved. I think people find it hard to discipline such a small dog - you can't smack them without real risk of damage, you sometimes can't grab & shake them because they move so fast, & I think they get a "pass" on bad behavior because they're tiny. Ask most animal professionals (vets, groomers, dog walkers, etc.) & they will tell you - little dogs will bite you first.

And finally, they don't fulfill my dog expectations - at all. I expect a dog to be willing to wrestle with me. I want my dog to bark & growl at strangers - with the possibility that such behavior would actually intimidate & deter a potential intruder/assailant. I want my dog to be willing & eager to swim & walk & hike with me - for long distances, sometimes. And when I hug my dog, I want to be able to really give a hug - not cup a little critter in my hands & hope I don't accidentally throttle it.

Wow, weirdest dog walk ever.

I just took Shadeaux out for her final trip outside tonight. She was wearing her harness & a leash, but I took her off-leash near the end of the trip so we could do some quick obedience work on sit-down-stay-come. She was in a down-stay, when suddenly she bolted past me.

She had spotted one of the Indian residents in our community, one of the guys who are just terrified of dogs. So I lunged at Shadeaux as she was accelerating past me, & I just managed to grab the strap of her harness that runs over her back. But she had so much momentum that she pulled me off my feet. When I felt myself falling, I leapt toward her, gaining enough energy that I rocketed over her. Maintaining my grip on her harness, I went into a near-perfect aikido roll. I rolled down my right arm, over my right shoulder, my back, my left shoulder, & slapped the lawn with my left arm. Unfortunately, this meant my right arm (still hanging onto Shadeaux's harness) had a ton of speed. Shadeaux whipped over me & flew right out of her harness. She flew a good ten feet & bounced another six before coming to a halt, looking astonished.

I clambered to my knees & said, "Shadeaux, COME." She tottered to her feet & came right to me. I put her harness back on her with shaking hands. I remembered the cause of the whole fracas & turned back around. No sign of Indian Neighbor Guy. Reviewing the whole situation from his point of view, it must have looked like I threw my dog at him. No wonder he ran....

I haven't been on an aikido mat since 1998, when I broke up with Daaaaave. I am frankly amazed that I remember how to do a forward roll. It was pure muscle memory.

Edit:: Here's a YouTube video showing a forward roll. Just put a dog in the sensei's right hand & you'll have a good idea of what happened on last night's walk.

Today I am in San Antonio, collecting some confirmation samples around permeable reactive barrier treating contaminated groundwater associated with Kelly Air Force Base. I was working as a one-person crew, so I had complete control over the music selection.

It may surprise some (a lot) of my friends that I chose to listen to Christian music. K-Love 91.3, to be exact. I've come to really enjoy the message, & to tolerate the light-pop music. But what does continue to annoy me are the super, over-the-top, saccharinely friendly DJs. They are so upbeat & wholesome, all the time. Just like all real Christians (TM) are! Sometimes I wish they'd admit to being grumpy, or tired, or of having a doubt about the Resurrection. Show a human side.

Instead today two of them showed one of the most ANNOYING sides of Christianity. They were discussing a recent paper, published by the Centre for Animal Ethics at Oxford, which argues that much of the terminology we use in reference to animals is outdated. The paper argues against a wide range of terms, including "pets" (animal companions), "owners" (human caregivers), "wild" animals (free-living animals), etc. The authors state that using words that reflect old understandings of our relationship to animals, or phrases that are laden with bias ("drunk as a skunk", "brutes", "vermin") impairs clear thinking about our relationships with animals & therefore these words or phrases should be avoided.

Personally, I think this is an obvious statement. If I think of myself as Shadeaux's owner, then it is clear that I can sell her, give her away, treat her as wonderfully or as poorly as I want to, perhaps even kill her. After all, I own her. But, if instead I think of myself as her caregiver, I am envisioning a much more tender - & responsibility-laden - relationship. Words, in fact, do matter. I'm not sure this was worth an academic publication in a peer-reviewed journal, but that's just me.

I would have thought that a Christian radio station - if they were going to discuss this obscure academic piece - would've perhaps taken an angle on how it might be better if humanity stopped thinking of ourselves as the "owners" of God's good Creation, & started acting more like its "human caretakers". They could have possibly talked about how some words do matter - they matter so much that once upon a time, the Word became flesh & changed absolutely everything.

But instead Scott & Kelli sniggered their way through a completely inaccurate summary of the paper, saying that these crazy out-of-touch Oxford dons insisted that using the wrong terms "would hurt your pet's feelings". They posted a poll on their Facebook page asking, "Does it insult your dog or cat to call him 'pet?'" It was obvious to me (even before I got to the hotel & checked online) that they hadn't read the Oxford paper, nor had they really even read the AP article about the paper that probably caught their attention in the first place.

Overall, they fulfilled the stereotype that Christians are anti-intellectual. They were full of politely-veiled derision for smart-yet-stupid Ivory Towerians who think that Fido & Patches actually understand the words we use for them. I was clenching my teeth throughout that entire segment of their show, reflecting on how difficult it can sometimes be to be both a scientist & a Christian, especially when so many scientists treat Christianity as a form of brain damage. One of the HARDEST parts about trying to reach out to other scientists with the message of the Gospel is their sense that Christianity rejects science. Conversations like the one I heard today on Scott & Kelli's program totally reinforce that image.

Is the Centre for Animal Ethics paper the best piece of research ever? No. It's probably not even research-based. But is it an important topic? I think so. The words we use do have some power to shape relationships - if they didn't, people wouldn't get so upset when they are called a "bitch" or a "queer". Treating animals well is an important ethical topic, one with practical implications; for instance, how much should the City of Austin allocate for paying for guaranteed no-kill shelters?

So, I wish that Scott & Kelli had presented this paper with a little bit more honesty & accuracy. And if an honest & accurate presentation of the paper would have been too boring for afternoon radio chit-chat, then just play another song. I like Casting Crowns.