The Monthly Roundup

This whole inconvenient employment thing is seriously curtailing my blog writing time! So I am reduced to a monthly summary right now.

First off, the Polar Bear has one more Reactive Rover class to go before graduation which is next Wednesday. I am so very proud of him. He has done remarkably well in class, is always the demo dog and seems to have come to really look forward to his time there. (This *may* be related to the hot dogs, cheese, liverwurst and other tasty delicacies...) His reaction to the other dogs has been pretty muted and we have had no Tasmanian episodes. In fact, he has been so well behaved that I constantly fight the urge to tell everyone, "He is reactive! I swear it....Just not here for some reason!" Actually, I suspect it's due to the three men in class. His fear of them trumps his reaction to the other dogs but regardless, it's been very useful for us in terms of desensitizing him to the dogs AND the men.

The name search continues - I was toying with Drift for awhile but PB's foster mom pointed out that it has negative connotations and she's right. I was thinking of it in terms of him always looking like a misplaced snow drift in my back yard but I don't want him to come across as aimless and some kind of "Beat Poet" dog! I have also been toying with Quasar and Quest but they haven't really taken my fancy.

A week ago I had PB out at my local Starbucks while someone looked at my house. We sat out on the patio and I clicked and treated for all the people who walked up to the door. He was of course, immensely popular and I spent the whole time telling people, kids and people with other dogs that he is in training and to please keep their distance or allow us to move away. Well over 80% of those people told me he looked exactly like a Polar Bear...if only I could find a name that reflects that. Polar Bear does not roll off the tongue for obedience purposes and I have looked up Polar Bear in a million different languages and none are very elegant for calling a dog. So the search continues...and suggestions are always taken!

On a different front, I have been absorbed with reading and studying up on good eating habits. In an attempt to eat a much broader spectrum of fruits and veggies, including those that I find repulsive (celery), I read two books recommended by my hiking friend Kristin. They are:




This has made me a devotee of juicing which I faithfully do every morning. I have added fruits and veggies to my diet that I can hardly even pronounce let alone recognize in the grocery store. In one fell swoop, my intake of fruits and veggies (always organic if you do this) skyrocketed across the board. In combination with the green smoothies recommended in this book:






I have felt immeasurably better. It took about 6 weeks for me to notice a really obvious difference in my health. I have no trouble waking up for work now as I once did and require only 6 or 7 hours of sleep to feel fully rested. I have a lot more energy and most of all I actually crave more of this stuff. One of the inevitable downsides to my job is the well known fact that at 2 in the morning on our schedule when you never know what's going to happen and sitting down for a meal is not always possible, you eat a lot of junk food. I have never been a big junk food eater but I have definitely been worse as my tenure at work has gotten longer. Now, I have no desire for carbs, never eat cereal and even sugar turns me off. For me that is the ultimate proof that I am not suffering from the placebo syndrome! If my sweet tooth is so ineffectual that I can turn down the chocolate, there is something to this fruits and veggies thing.

I would highly recommend reading these two books. You don't have to be crazed and obsessive about it - in fact chances are you won't follow through if you are obsessive. I've missed a couple days because call outs at work have intruded and there simply wasn't time to make anything but it takes only a few minutes a day, a little planning ahead for all the fruits and veggies but the pleasure you'll get from seeing how many of those good foods you go through in a day will alone, make you feel healthier. Finally, I also read the following book which was recommended by Shreve Stockton on her blog, thedailycoyote:



This isn't a book dedicated to a certain facet of eating like the preceding two books which come with recipes and lots of info' on nutrition content etc. This is a fascinating book, written by a journalist who did some excellent research and came up with an incredibly common sense approach to all the scientific words and phrases thrown around in the press regarding what to eat. In his words: "Eat Food; Not too much; mostly plants". The rest of the book explains what that means exactly but it's simple, easy to follow and, like the other two books, contains no weird fads or suggestions - it's pretty easy folks: eat fruits and veggies, real food made from scratch that avoids chemicals and preservatives and figure out different ways to make those same basic foods that people have been eating for thousands of years palatable. The first two books are great for taking the foods recommended in In Defense of Food and giving you tasty options for consuming things you might have a hard time getting into your diet. Just try it - the difference will be remarkable.

Now, a little humor to counteract my food soapbox. This has been a *terrible* year for spiders around here. I can handle snakes, rats, other bugs etc. Anything but those creepy 8 legged monsters. I have so many residing in my basement right now, you would think that I have a certified breeding program. Despite setting off foggers, sleeping with a can of Raid and keeping the basement spotless so I can see the buggers coming, they have invaded in waves this year. This reminded me of a humorous little clip we at work, who are easily amused, find immensely entertaining. I'd like to point out to my Canadian friends reading this, that it was our friends to the north who came up with this one!