On the Move

Anyone who has ever moved, and that is everyone, knows it *sucks*. Even for someone like me who is obsessive-compulsive about things being neat and clean as well as the anti-hoarder, meaning I am more likely to throw something out and regret it later than to hang on to anything. I hate clutter, excess and anything above and beyond complete simplicity. I am sure this does in fact, mitigate the moving nightmare but it does not eliminate it.

Why am I moving? I am selling my house finally and none to soon if you ask me. I am selling for a plethora of reasons which aren't worth going into as they are boring, mundane and not the least bit interesting. However, it has meant putting half of my house in storage (which I completed today) in order for it to be staged. It has also meant bartering, begging, cajoling and pleading with various contractors and workers in order to implement the few cosmetic changes we needed to get done in order for it to go on the market in a couple weeks.

Although moving is miserable, this has been about as painless as it could be and I am sold on moving "part time" instead of all at once. Now that half the house is residing in storage and just my skeleton necessities are here, it has been a breeze to sort through anything I might want to clear out. So we are on track and I am pleased with how it's all gone. I can't wait til this thing has a big fat sign in front of it and I will eventually be relieved of all debt except my car payment!

While I have only been minimally stressed, the Polar Bear is another thing entirely. With so many people coming and going, he has officially lost his mind. With the behaviorist's blessing, we increased his Prozac to 60 mg per day. He will not walk through my neighborhood at all anymore. He wears himself out barking for hours straight. He is a walking ball of stress. I have also added 9 mg of melatonin to his Prozac which does seem to take the edge off.

Forget it. I'm leaving you.

Courtesy Big Air Photography

The biggest upheaval for him has been my move to one of my upstairs bedrooms to sleep in the guest bed. My huge bed has been removed from my downstairs master along with everything else and he simply has not been able to adjust to that at all. He will not sleep in my room or in his bed, preferring instead to sleep in the living room on the sofa. I feel terrible for him but I refuse to sleep on the sofa with him although I have been tempted. It would only add to the upheaval, make it harder for me to sleep well and I finally decided what the heck, if he's happiest out there, there isn't any reason to force him to sleep in my room.

At the very least, I refuse to look at you.

Courtesy Big Air Photography

The downside is my door is open at night now and those horrible bumsters keep me up at ungodly hours kicking their toys around, jumping on the bed and generally causing complete mayhem. Perhaps I will move them into storage too! Ha! Just kidding.

I will love you again if you get rid of those two hairballs...

Courtesy Big Air Photography

Job changes are in their early stages of infancy but I am hopeful for the outcome. We'll see what happens but at least change is afoot.



Now for the other half of my sick leave life. I have immersed myself lately in books of the Middle East and Islam because of course, that was my degree and my interest in that arena does not wane.

The first book, Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an autobiography focusing primarily on her life growing up in East Africa and Saudi Arabia. She is most well known for her emigration to the Netherlands, her mastery of Dutch and her election to the Dutch Parliament. She left the country due to security concerns and settled in the US.



This book is worth reading for her story alone. It's also a book about the effects of Islam on women and she takes on a broader scope than just her own experience. She is more than strident in her condemnation of Islam and it's effects on women. She makes a compelling argument and certainly made me look at Islam in a way I had not imagined despite my fairly wide and varied reading on the subject.

She has a new book out which was recently reviewed in The Economist and I think the reviewer (whose name I forget) made a very salient point that while she may be justified in her views, you simply cannot expect, with a sweep of the arm, to eliminate a religion like Islam in a few productive years, which seems to be her ultimate goal. While I agree with her arguments and goals, she seems to have forgotten the very influences that made her so anti-Muslim - her mother and grandmother who were devout and devoted to many of its precepts for better or worse. To think you can erase centuries of not only a religion but an entrenched political system and way of life is naive and surprising considering her own experiences. She of all people should know what she is up against. So while the book was fascinating and made me think differently about the excuses the west tends to make on Islam's behalf (believe it or not), I think her philosophy needs far more work before it becomes viable.

So then I moved on to a book one of my squad mates loaned me out of pity for my boring existence. It was one of his text books from the UW by Bernard Lewis called From Babel to Dragomans.




Initially I was skeptical. My desire to relive the years when all I had to worry about was getting my reading done in time for the test was outweighed by a sudden feeling of "Oh my god, I have to read this text book or I will be a terrible student" even though it was entirely voluntary. I'm afraid I am a little too pragmatic for the ivory tower and I envisioned this book as being a tome with 18 million footnotes.

How wrong I was (and still am since I confess I haven't finished it). Lewis is one of the pre-eminent scholars of the Middle East alive today. Just his grasp of so many languages makes me feel like I am an uneducated neanderthal. More importantly, the book is comprised of various papers he has written during his long career and they are fascinating. They range from architecture in Ottoman Turkey to foods of the Middle East, to politics and beyond. The papers are short and despite Lewis' life immersed in higher education, his writing is remarkably accessible and readable by the average layperson. Great reading - thanks Dan!



Finally (for the blog, not for my reviews of which there are many more!), I was loaned a book called Acts of Faith, by Philip Caputo by a friend last week at one of our regular breakfast get togethers.



I loved this book. It's about the convergence of different faiths, different nationalities and different motives in the NGO/humanitarian aid culture of Sudan. Caputo is a Pulitzer Prize winning writer for the Chicago Tribune and several times, I had to check the back cover to remind myself this was a work of fiction. The book is almost 700 pages long and originally I thought I would try out the first few pages as a break from the Lewis book but after those first few pages, I was hooked. I read the entire thing in 3 days, fitting it in in every little nook and cranny of my day because it was so compelling.

Even though you get the sense throughout that this whole thing is going to end in a ball of fire, it's impossible to predict how and for whom. Aside from that element of suspense, this book really made me question the efforts the west makes in countries which barely qualify as such. Caputo's journalism experience gives him a unique insight into what is very much an insular and bizarre "aid" culture in many ways but more fascinating, into the motives of the people who work these humanitarian missions.

Personal disclosure: I will freely state I am whole heartedly against any kind of aid that is tied to religious belief and missions despite the fact that many of these agencies and missions undoubtedly do good. While I realize that if I were starving, dying of disease and suffering the horrors that the people of Sudan have suffered, I would not have the luxury of taking the high road and saying no to help from any organization because they are also trying to convert me. Yet it still galls me that these religious groups hand out food, water and oh, here's a Bible. While you're coming back from the brink of starvation, I'd like to remind you that that food came from god's children and jesus died for your sins. Horrifies me. This is certainly an element in the book and one which Caputo lets you decide about for yourself. In fact he withholds commentary through his characters on almost all the ethical quandries. And Caputo does not focus solely on religion - he does an admirable job of addressing every motive that surely is present in this culture.

Sometime ago I read a memoir of sorts called Dark Star Safari, written by Paul Theroux who decided, many years after having served in Africa in the Peace Corps, to retrace his steps from Cairo to Cape Town overland down central-east Africa. I found the book wholly depressing and no doubt accurate. Theroux reached the conclusion that Africa is in a far worse state now than back in his Peace Corps days. But more of note to me, were his observations of the work of the NGO's/humanitarian groups and the unintended consequences they bring to Africans. Theroux completely changed my consideration at that time, of switching careers into this field - something I had always assumed I would do at some point.

The binary effect of these two books has produced in me a complete paradigm shift in my outlook on humanitarian efforts. Does Africa still need them? Absolutely. But I think all too often, Caputo is right - the people delivering the goods are often there for their own hidden, sometimes dark motives and the end result is that which Theroux remarked upon. Africans still at the mercy of the west's ulterior motives.

Portraits of a Polar Bear

The following fabulous photos are courtesy of Big Air Photography. They speak for themselves so I won't caption them or sully them in any way. I'll add some each week. If you have a few dollars to spare and an animal you adore (not your spouse - she only does animals!), contact Big Air Photography and you too can have photos like these!

The Graduate

First, I graduated into the world of vegetarianism. I have been considering it for some time and finally decided that due to both ethical reasons in terms of animals being raised for food as well as the health benefits of not eating meat, I would make the leap. I will still eat seafood and eggs (which kind of puts a hole in the ethics part of this but it's better than nothing). Thus I had to haul out my Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook which has not seen the light of day in literally years, and thumb through it to find some tasty, healthy recipes. Alas, cooking now seems inevitable!

In bigger news, PB graduated from his obedience class today. I am so proud of him. The two most impressive results of the class were that 1) he actually was not the "worst" dog of the class in terms of shyness and making great strides. A lovely Aussie mix named Buddy was considered most improved by our instructor which is nothing short of miraculous for us. 2) After the first class, PB agreed to walk through the door into the auditorium all on his own, without my having to have someone walk behind him and "herd" him into the room. This tells me that he actually enjoyed what was going on inside and did not dread going back.

Also, I was finally able to get video of PB greeting my dad in the parking lot. My dad came to witness our graduation and PB was very happy to see him again. You can all spare me the comments on my high pitched crooning to the dog! In my defense, our instructor encourages "happy talk" with our dogs!








While PB has learned to cope with a few other men, he does not express happiness with any other man other than my father. It has taken intensive, consistent work mostly on the part of my dad rather than me, to get PB to a point where he trusts him enough to not be on guard at every moment, not to flinch or cower when my dad leans over him and to actually wag his tail and be excited about greeting him. Such small things but so momentous for us.

Who would have guessed...?

I was barely able to stand up after taking that photo - I am sure that wasn't doctor recommended and if it was, it shouldn't have been! Notice the distracted stare of my boy - which is why I promptly came right home and signed him up for the Reactive Rover class offered by our same instructor. Reactive Rover is, as the title suggests, for dogs that are reactive to other dogs. Since PB seems to have a bothersome habit of wanting to eat large dogs, we decided this class is our next logical step. That class will begin in August which is good because I think PB needs a little break and it gives me an opportunity to continue solidifying the skills we learned in this class.

I'm exhausted. Vacation please?

The above pose would be considered at the very least, indecent exposure at work, but PB seems to favor that pose above all others. Embarrassing. I swear I don't teach these animals these things. PB and I *will* be taking a vacation of sorts when I take him with me at the end of July on a road trip/camping trip to check out Wyoming, Colorado and northern Nevada to try to narrow down where we would eventually like to move. I am leaning towards Wyoming after having become mildly besotted with this blog. But we'll see how it goes.

In the meantime, PB uses the yard for relaxation. Evidently his earlier depressions that he had dug and were sadly filled in by the gardeners lacked ambition because he has taken to full on excavations this time around. Notice the *large* hole in the foreground which is way beyond mere depression.

And your point?

Not only are the holes getting deeper, but he has multiplied them so there are twice as many as before and due to the never ending monsoon we have been experiencing, otherwise known as "summer", they are more like a hippo wallowing hole of mud. Do not be fooled by the appearance of sun in that photo. It quickly disappeared into a thunderstorm.

The only creatures evidently happy with the weather are the these fluffy bundles of cuteness. In other words, goslings. I have been alternating days of hot yoga with days of long bike rides in order to build up my quads. Two days ago on one of my bike rides along the Sammamish River Trail, I saw a beautiful blue heron and brought my camera today hoping to see him again. Of course there was no sign of him but there were these:

What do you mean it rains too much?

That is one large brood my friends! Unfortunately I do not of course, have a telephoto lens on my little point and shoot camera and I didn't want to get too close and disturb the bundles of fuzz so they are kind of far away. Later, I came across two much younger ones (and a much more reasonable family size if you ask me!).

Yes, we know we're cute. Back off.

A post would not be complete without a requisite cat so here's Stabby on what was PB's car bed but which was replaced by his newest bed. Five beds is a little much I know, and I couldn't even find a place for this one at this point so I donated it to the cats who think it's the best thing ever.

What do you mean I have to share with the orange menace?

He's Not Fat, He's Just Big Boned

PB and I went to the vet on Saturday because he was due for some vaccinations. While there, our vet pointed out that he is getting a bit tubby and needs to lose about 7 pounds or so. While I have been viscerally aware that he is getting a little porky I have also been totally in denial. My version of "will power" consists of: If you look at me with those adorable brown eyes PB, and perk your ears forward while tilting your head to the side, I *will* give you a bully stick, a frozen turkey neck, a beef marrow bone etc. etc. Knowing myself as I do, I did not reorder my bulk order of 75 bully sticks which I keep in the house at all times because I simply cannot resist giving them to him. So we cut all that stuff out and along with my recent discovery that he loves bananas and blueberries, we have switched to a more healthy, trim diet for PB. Even though it is killing his mama....

The Polar Bear treadmill.

So we have been walking a lot and eating less. You will notice that there are shadows in this photo. That my friends, is because it was actually sunny today. I guess Tuesdays are the official days of sun. One out of seven isn't bad. So PB and I hit the Sammamish River Slough trail which he loves. It borders 40 Acres Farm in Woodinville, a place I covet and drool over every time we walk by. It is a fully organic farm in a beautiful setting with chickens and a rooster next to the public trail that doesn't seem to realize he can stop crowing after the sun is up. We walked the trail a few days ago in the pouring rain and we noticed their flower garden is in full bloom so I brought my camera this time.

PB was agog at all the bees flying around. It was quite a feat to hold on to him and try to take a photo that was semi in focus.

I don't know what they are but they are quite beautiful.

My mom, who has become a fantastic, self-taught gardener, will have to come with me to help me identify these. All I can come up with is purple. On a side note, my mom has turned what was 2 acres of basic grass and bark at their house into the most incredible, brilliant garden. I am trying to get her to start a blog, if only for the photos of the incredible peonies, roses and myriad other plants and flowers she has acquired and nurtured. She is also a great photographer so she would produce a fabulous garden blog if I can harass her enough to get it up and running. (Hi mom!)

Back to my farm - 40mg is indeed the magic number for PB and his Prozac. A couple days ago, I noticed a distinct change in him as though his blood levels had finally reached the 40 and stabilized. The difference is so subtle but so distinct and both he and I breathed a huge sigh of relief as he relaxed and coped almost effortlessly with everything we have encountered since then.

Last Thursday, my dad came with me to his obedience class. I suspected that he would bond with my dad even more if he was present in a situation that is still stressful and somewhat foreign to PB. When PB saw my dad in the parking lot, he ran over to him, his tail wagging, his entire butt swaying, ears rounded in happiness and head down with happy recognition. I have never seen him react so joyously to anyone except me.

My instructor happened to be out in the parking lot at that same time and said we were giving her a heart attack! She asked if PB knew "that man" and I told her that he did indeed although it has taken a year and a half to get to this point. She said she never imagined she would see him react to *anyone* but me like that. I wish I had video taped it because it had to be seen to be believed. My dad handled him for part of the time in class and he did great. (PB, not my dad. Although my dad was fairly obedient too). I will work on getting some better videos of PB and how far he has come. My dad helpfully pointed out that my video of PB dreaming was possibly the most boring, anti-climactic video he had ever seen! I suppose editing and changing the width would have helped so one could see the tail wagging but I am still a novice with that thing.

Bad news from my doctor who said X rays showed my knee is not healing as well as I thought has resulted in my being confined to unemployment for awhile longer. So in addition to reading voraciously, working on the Polar Bear weight watcher's club and trying to find a house to rent, I have taken up trying to figure out what species of birds are driving the bumsters crazy at the bird feeders. I know - I sound like I am well on the way to retirement already :)

Cheap cat food.

The bumsters have also been labeled tubby so they have been on a diet too. I have a much easier time starving them than I do PB. Although they yell at me all day as though they are on their last dying breath, their screaming drowns out the screeching neighbor child from hell so I am ok with it.

Dexter knows he is not allowed on my kitchen table but as usual, he tries to push the limits. And now that I am feeding him less, he watches me eat like an emaciated concentration camp victim. He sits across from me like a human while I eat and stares malevolently at me and the idea that I can feed myself whenever I want.

How can you live with yourself mom?

Easily Dexie, easily. He's also taken to sitting around sucking on his tongue which is a little creepy and which he didn't learn from me.

Yum. Tasty.

Weirdo. Meanwhile, the lovefest between Stabby and Dexter continues. I'm not sure if they've been going through therapy in my absence or what but their sibling rivalry has yielded to almost obscene orgies of grooming and throwing themselves at one another. Yuck.

I love you Stabby.

No, I love you *more*.

PB was so disgusted he went out to hunt the Sopranos and take it out on them.

We have rated this climb a 5.9.

Sopranos safely dispersed, PB retreated to the lawn and in a feat I only wish I could master, has managed to tune out the screaming kid and nap.

Whew. This exercise thing is exhausting!

When you look at a photo like this, it makes him look slim doesn't it. Doesn't it? Hey, PB wanna bully stick?

Raining, Cats and Dogs

Yesterday we went up to Ladner in BC for the photo shoot I wrote about a couple posts ago. In addition to having great photography skills, Sheena also apparently has great weather skills because in the midst of approx. 180 days of non-stop torrential rainfall, she made it sunny for our photos!

We had a great time walking around a huge, beautiful abandoned property that is popular with dog owners. Which made it not so popular with the Polar Bear. He was fine with the first dog we met and he went successively downhill after that, culminating with him trying to disembowel a couple of harmless, well behaved Bernese Mountain dogs while I was thrown around at the end of his leash like a whirling dervish since I had not yet managed to get his Gentle Leader on. Hopefully we have no photos commemorating that little episode! As soon as I get the photos, I will begin to post them. In the meantime, you can view some on Sheena's blog. We are very flattered at being featured on her blog - at least I am.

The Polar Bear is still chasing the two Bernese. I know, I know, to the rest of the world this is the most boring video in the world but it makes me laugh to watch PB dream. Notice the wagging tail as he takes dreams about eating the Bernese!






After our photo taking session, we met up with our old crew i.e. dogs the Polar Bear is content to play with rather than consume and we went for a lovely 2 hour walk *on leash* so my arm could recover and the Polar Bear could be suitably beaten. Haha just kidding. He did need to take some time to relax though. A wonderful day all in all and the sunshine, which I can hardly even spell these days, was the icing on the cake. To wit: here is the weather today:

Apparently the umbrella is for rain, not sun.

Even the Polar Bear, Mr. I'd Live Outside All the Time if Only You Would Let Me, is disgusted.

This bites. Let me back inside. Now.

You have a doggie door, PB. Use it. The weather is so depressing that even my irrepressible orange menace needs some Prozac.

Wake me when it's over.

You might be sleeping til next year, Dexter. I tried to point out this woodpecker, which would normally be enough for him to fall off the windowsill in a spasm of kitty meltdown:

Dexter says, "Your photos suck. I can't hardly even see that. I am going back to bed."

So I tried to get Stabitha interested and all I got was the hairy eyeball.

Does it look like I care?

After mercilessly waking the bumsters and toying with them for my own amusement, Stabitha decided the orange menace was so depressed, he needed to be coddled a little. This is an unusual sight, helpfully captured on film, since Stabitha is usually screaming bloody murder at Dexter who regularly attempts to decapitate her.

I love you Dexie. But only on rainy days.

This was a little too much for me. The weather has put me in a grouchy mood so I attempted to sow discord amongst the animals with a fake food chain. I put the orange menace's favorite mouse in front of the Polar Bear's nose and they all sat around staring at each other wondering who was going to make the first move. Dexter wanted his mouse so badly his little head started quivering but he knows better than to launch himself at PB's nose.

I double dog dare you....hahahahahaha!

This was how it ended: PB not amused in the least and the bumsters sitting in the background with glowing eyes.

It's only positive reinforcement if I get to eat a cat.

Alas, if only I had the weather making ability Sheena has. And the photography ability - I have no photos from yesterday because although I brought my camera, it seemed a little like my attempts to cook at my mom's house - while she is making a gourmet meal, I am attempting to pre-heat the microwave. So standby for *great* photos coming soon.