Welcome, Cooper!
On Friday afternoon, Eric and I welcomed a 10 month old, 55 pound furry bundle of joy into our lives. We named him Cooper. He is amazingly well-behaved, tolerant, and just generally wonderful.
I’m determined to do a good job, not just as a dog owner but also as a cat owner, meaning that introductions need to proceed slowly, and I need to keep my sentimental anthropomorphism out of the picture. We actually knew Thursday evening that we were going to bring Cooper home the next day, so Friday morning I put Oscar, our skittish cat, into the guest bedroom. She spends most of her day there anyway, snuggled on the bed, so I didn’t figure it would be too traumatic. This way we didn’t have to rush to find and hide the cat when we got home, and Oscar wouldn’t associate the arrival of the dog with being dragged out from under a bed and locked into a room. Maybe.
Friday evening was fairly uneventful, except that we discovered that Cooper is afraid of dog crates, and he peed on the wall. Great. In a move that was traumatic for everyone, we stuffed him into the upstairs bathroom. Eric slept in the guest room with Oscar while I slept in the master bedroom (I think we were just tired and confused at this point — the original plan had been for each of us to sleep with one of the animals, but that had to be scrapped when we realized that the crate wouldn’t work out that first night.) Cooper only whined for a few minutes before settling down.
On Saturday, the adventure began in earnest. Eric and I got up at 6am to walk the dog. I hadn’t slept much, anyway. The bathroom was immaculate (good Cooper! It now looks very much like that first night’s pee was more about him being disoriented than any behavior problem. Knock on wood.). We got home, but didn’t know if we could trust him alone, so we took turns watching him. This was not a restful way to spend Saturday morning. Amazingly, while Cooper was gnawing on a bone, he allowed me to give him a much-needed brushing. I used one of those Kong static cling style brushes, and he seemed to enjoy it or at least not mind. He looked much better after I removed a small dog’s worth of downy fur from his undercoat.
I kept Cooper busy all day Saturday. Apparently, I later read, you’re supposed to keep things low key the first few days. Well, that’s not how it worked out. First Cooper and I went to Four Paws, where we bought some decent dry food (ie, real food ingredients and meat as the first one). He got fitted for a bunch of different harnesses and the Gentle Leader, throughout all of which he stayed amazingly good-humored. He didn’t seem to mind at all. Maybe it was all the women fawning over him and giving him treat after yummy treat. Arms full of stuff, we headed to the local shelter to get his dog tags. Again, shockingly well behaved among all the animals, people, and distractions. After the shelter, we went to PetsMart for more stuff, and again he wowed everyone with his friendliness.
By Saturday afternoon, I think it was, Eric and I had agreed that we had to get a fence.
Saturday evening, I took Cooper to a neighbor/co-worker’s house to play in his fenced yard with his yellow lab. Cooper ran around a lot, although he never quite figured out the retrieving thing.
Sunday — hike day! Poor guy threw up when I drove him up the twisty-turny-steep Flagstaff Road. But he seemed to enjoy the hike, and again everyone who saw him loved him.
Pictures of Cooper on the hike
So far he’s been awesome, and I’m looking forward to lots of great times with him. Today was our first day of class - Beginner obedience training. Mostly the trainer interviewed us and gave us verbal advice. We are using a clicker for training, which is a little weird. Apparently it’s actually supposed to signal praise. So our homework is to do some drills to associate the clicker with good things (treats) and to get Cooper to look in our eyes when we want his attention. The trainer also gave us some ideas for getting Cooper used to the crate - namely, put his food in it. I never thought he’d eat with his dish in the crate, but it worked pretty much instantly. I guess that’s why she’s the trainer and I’m the student. I’m leaving his water bowl in the crate so that he has to visit it pretty regularly. So far it’s working like a charm.
I have high hopes for Cooper, and I think he can live up to them. I want him to be a model of good citizenship. I want to be able to hike with him off-leash and never worry that he’s going to chase wildlife, startle horses, or run after a jogger or cyclist. I want to be able to run him alongside a bike.
Actually, I have no doubt that Cooper can be a wonderful dog. He can do all of these things, no problem. The question is whether I can be, will be, a good enough owner. Will I have the right blend of affection and discipline? Will I give him enough exercise and mental stimulation? Will I keep spending tons of time with him after the novelty wears off? And can I provide a good quality of life for my cat, Oscar, as well? I’m asking a lot of myself and of Eric. But then again, plenty of people have dogs, and most dogs I know seem pretty happy. And I really do believe that Oscar can get along with a dog, especially if we set up the right conditions by introducing them slowly and not letting the dog chase the cat.
Cooper is a wonderful dog. I’m going to do everything I can to deserve to be his owner.
Oh, one more thing. Cooper and Oscar have twitter accounts, just for fun:
Expensive Chocolate
So, while I was in the Orlando airport awaiting our flight a few weeks ago, I found a shop that sells a bunch of not-standard-airport-fare snacks. I, having no self control whatsoever, bought a small bar of Toblerone, a container of dried banana slices, and … oh my. What are these? Chocolate with such intriguing flavors. Chocolate that says “gluten free” right on the box. Chocolate with relatively few ingredients. Chocolate that’s … $7.50 for a 3 oz bar. Oh, my.
But the boxes looked so pretty, the flavors so unusual, and hey, they would make a good gluten free product review, right? So I really, I’d be doing the GF community a service. I decided on two flavors: “Barcelona Bar” (hickory smoked almonds, sea salt, deep milk chocolate) and “Macha Bar” (Japanese macha green tea, deep milk chocolate). Suspecting that these would be a true taste treat, I saved them till I could savor them.
The first one I tried was the Barcelona Bar. Oh wow. This bar was so good. I savored it across several days of tasting. I didn’t want the flavor to end. The salt was so intense that it was almost, but not quite, too much. It tingled on my tongue. I hate to compare this bar to a chocolate covered pretzel, but it might be sort of like the five star response to a chocolate covered pretzel. Salty. Sweet. Just a hint of crunch. I couldn’t help but close my eyes when I took a bite, walling myself off from external sensory input so that I could be surrounded by that delicious flavor.
Um.
So I guess what I’m saying is, I liked the Barcelona Bar a lot.
So today, I finally tried the Macha Bar. It’s good chocolate. I like the hint of green tea. It’s good. But it didn’t bowl me over. It’s no Barcelona Bar.
On their website, I see that they also have a bacon flavored chocolate. In lesser hands, I would never even contemplate such an unholy union, but having tasted the Barcelona Bar … well. Maybe they know something I don’t.
And there are a whole bunch of flavors that look absolutely delicious. It’s probably a good thing (for my wallet) that I didn’t find them for sale locally.
I guess what I’m saying is, if you get a chance, you should definitely try some Vosges chocolate.
What’s wrong with this picture?
I probably shouldn’t post this. It’s probably going to get back to the person I’m writing about and they’re very likely going to take offense at what I’m posting. So let me say this: if you are the person who wrote the email I describe below, and if you think that I am way out of line, please do contact me so that we can discuss it. Maybe I can learn something. Maybe I’m missing some important piece of information that will completely change my outlook.
But in the meantime, this is my blog and I’ll rant if I want to.
I got an email from a woman recently. The subject line read “Who Says Women Who Play Sports Can’t be Beautiful?!” The contents? Well, an ad, of course, for makeup. Lip gloss, to be precise.
Are you familiar with the term “blind rage”? That’s when an opaque wall of red fills your vision and all you see is the color of angry.
Just off the top of my head:
- Does anyone actually think something as completely stupid as “women who play sports can’t be beautiful”?
- Even if they did believe it, would anyone actually be so moronic as to say something as completely stupid as “women who play sports can’t be beautiful”?
- If someone did say something that stupid, they would by definition not be a person about whom I would give two shits, so their opinion would certainly not influence me toward buying any “beauty product” they might be peddling.
- There seems to be some implication that you have to slather crap on your face to be beautiful. F that.
- Something about society presenting narrow definitions of beauty; do I really need to articulate this part?
- Just how failtastic is our culture that not only do we get this kind of messaging all the time from all sorts of corporate directions, but that an individual female would be so blind to the message she’s sending that she doesn’t see what’s wrong with the question? (I’m going on the assumption that the email was well-meant rather than a callous attempt by an individual to prey on women’s insecurities and the beauty myth for immediate financial gain.)
In the meantime, watch this. It’s a Puma ad, and of course they have their own agenda, but if I’m going to crave something unrealistic and unachievable, I’d rather it be skills and athletic bodies of the women of the Women’s Professional Soccer league.
And yes, that does bring up a good point, and at some point I really hope I’ll find the time to type about what’s so frustrating about the clothing and the models at the Title 9 store.
Experience - Starbucks GF Valencia Orange Cake
So, a few days ago, I saw this blog post at A Gluten Free Guide. I’m behind on my blog reading, so yes, it’s a month-old post. But happily, that worked in my favor — by the time I read the post, Starbucks had these in stock!
Now, my favorite local coffee shop is Vic’s, which has awesome coffee and also lets me feel smugly superior for being part of the “in” crowd. (Yeah, right. Not for one moment of my life have I been “in”, “hip”, or “cool”.) Unfortunately, while Vic’s does carry gluten free baked goods, they don’t seem to be real clear on how important it is to keep everything separated and clearly labeled. Often the gluten free fare is in the same basket with the regular stuff. On various trips I’ve been told that a particular item was gluten free, but late told it wasn’t. The individual pieces, while separately wrapped, are not labeled. And as I understand it, they’re cutting the pieces themselves in the back room; given all of the above, I just don’t trust them to be cutting on a gluten-crumb-free surface or with an uncontaminated knife.
So sadly, I don’t buy any GF yummies from Vic’s anymore.
Anyway. The point being — I had a Starbucks gift card, and I like to show my support for businesses that “get it”, and so I bought the cake and a coffee. The lady behind the counter was very excited; I was the first person to buy one. That kind of worries me; it doesn’t bode well for the product. Then again, I only found out about it because I read gluten free blogs all the time. I didn’t see a sign or anything. Most GF customers probably don’t even look for snacks at Starbucks anymore. I hope they do something more to market this, or it will die an untimely death.
Anyway.
The cake was pretty decent. The coffee was meh.
I took a picture of the cake with the lid of my travel mug for size comparison.
One nice surprise (although I forgot to snap a pic) is that it only has seven (as I recall) ingredients, all of which are human-readable, actual food ingredients. No ditetrasodibenzowhateverthecrapitis here. I like that; aside from the apparent gluten thing, my belly much prefers it when I avoid chemicals in my food. Go figure.
I paid $1.95 for the cake, pre-tax. The price seems reasonably in line with other Starbucks treats; in fact, I thought it was surprisingly reasonable.
I brought the cake to work with me and shared it with friend Deb of Deb’s Gluten-free. It wasn’t bad. The orange flavor definitely came through. I think I would have liked a bolder flavor or more icing or something; it was a little too delicate for my taste. But I’m happy that there’s a snack thing I might be able to eat at the Downieville Starbucks on the way home from skiing, assuming the product does well enough to still be there this winter.
This week’s menu plan
Okay, trying this again. This week’s plan is vague, but I think it’ll work. I am really enjoying the produce deliveries from Door To Door Organics — kind of like meter for a poem, they give me some structure that actually makes it easier to envision our meals.
Today for lunch: Thai leftovers and a salad (made entirely with delivered veggies).
Tonight for dinner: grilled pork chops, sweet potatoes, home-made guac and chips. (Guac uses the delivered avocados and tomatoes, plus store-purchased red onion, cilantro, and lime, and leftover jalepeno from who knows what.) Speaking of cilantro, the ladies at Show Me The Curry have a video on how to make cilantro last longer so it doesn’t go bad so quickly. I bought extra pork chops for Tuesday’s lunch.
Tomorrow for dinner: crockpot maple ham! This should provide lots of leftovers. Probably more sweet potatoes with this, and a salad.
Later this week, probably Thursday, a sausage, kale, and tomato soup from my Cooking Light “Soup” cookbook. We’ll have kale in our delivery, and this soup is both super-easy and amazingly yummy.
What he said
Yes, I believe prostitution should be legal. Figleaf does a great job of explaining one reason why it’s so bad to have it be illegal. You can read it here.
And if you read back through his archives, you’ll find other great reasons that prostitution should be legalized. It’s not just that the illegality of prostitution makes prostitutes an easy mark for murder. He’s also posted about how it makes it harder for an adult prostitute to report cases of underage or forced sex work. And how the illegality of prostitution can lead to a lot of sexual abuse and rape by unethical police officers (”You give me a freebie and I won’t bring you in … this week.”).
These are all good reasons, although to me they seem to miss the point. Prostitution should be legal because its illegality restricts personal freedom without gaining us anything in return. Remember “My body, my choice”? That applies to what goes into one’s body, not just what comes out of it. If a woman can legally be paid to carry a child to term, why can’t she legally be paid for sex?
Prostitution: yet another victimless crime. Or, it would be, if it were legal.
Today’s delicious beef stew
A few days ago, I pulled a package of stewing beef out of the freezer to thaw. I didn’t have a specific plan for it; I just figured that I’d find some way to incorporate it into a meal with some of the veggies we’re now getting from Door to Door Organics.
(Hoo boy do we have a lot of veggies. We get the small box of fruits and veggies. We easily polish off the fruit in a week; veggies are a challenge, but we’re just about keeping up.)
I also had some wilting celery, some fresh carrots, and some fresh leek. That’s sort of the mirepoix combo, right?
So here’s sort of how it went. While watching a NatGeo Taboo show on sexual identity (specifically, transsexuals), I heated some safflower oil and browned the fully thawed beef chunks in it along with liberal sprinklings of onion and garlic powder, Celtic sea salt, and pepper. While the beef was browning, I chopped up the veggies. For the leeks, I used a prepping technique I recently saw Rachel Ray suggest on her show — namely, since there’s dirt all through their layers, you chop up the leeks, then dump them into a big bowl of cold water. Swish them around a bit, and the sediment naturally sinks to the bottom. Easy! For the celery, for the first time in my life, I used the leaves as well as the stalks (seem to recall someone, maybe on a TV show, mentioning that they really like to use celery leaves). The carrots, well, nothing special there. I just chopped them up.
So anyway, once the beef was browned, I dumped it, along with the juices, into a bowl and set it aside. I then heated up some more safflower oil and added the leeks, and I think some more salt. Once the leeks started to soften, I added the celery and carrot and let that all cook till it seemed good. Maybe some more salt, onion, and garlic powder. I then added the beef back in, juices included, plus a can of Muir Glen fire roasted diced tomatoes (yum!), plus a little bit of chicken broth. Oh, and some frozen mixed bell peppers (red, orange, and yellow), since I had them on hand. Let that all simmer together for a bit. When it seemed nicely blended, I added a little more chicken broth, and a little more, till I’d finished the carton. (The carton was already open — I probably used 2.5 or 3 cups.) And more salt, onion, and garlic powder.
This was the richest soup I can remember making. The texture of the liquid was just right, if you know what I mean. I probably should have let the celery saute a little longer, but I didn’t, so it has a tiny bit of crunch left. But I dunno, I kinda like it. The beef still has plenty of body, but it’s not tough.
I had Eric taste a small spoon of the soup before he left for hockey. His comment, which was apparently intended as a complement: “Tastes just like Progresso!”
Hrmph.
Well, I think it tastes a damn site better than Progresso. And I made it myself =)
This cooking experiment was somewhat of a landmark to me; it highlighted my growing understanding of the importance of sequence in bringing out the flavors. A year ago, I probably would have heated the broth, dumped everything in at the same time, and wondered why it didn’t really come together and why it tasted so bland. I’m gaining an intuition of how and when to mix the ingredients together to really bring out their flavors and textures.
Boulder Conversation
I just called my friend. It’s 7:45 in the morning.
“Hey, could you bring your bike pump today? Eric may need ours.”
“Sure, no problem. At our house I actually have my own pump.”
… pause …
“That’s a really good idea.”
Hrmmm. I really like the Park Tool pump that I bought several years ago. Maybe I can get another identical one.
I suspect that Boulder is one of a very few select locations where “his and her” bike pumps actually sound reasonable.
really bad local advertisement
So have you ever been fast-forwarding through the commercials during a comedy skit show like MadTV? And you hit the “back” button because you see something that looks so cheesy it must be a skit where the actors are intentionally playing “inexperienced, awkward public speaker trying to look good on camera” … only it turns out it’s actually a real ad for the local news team or whatever?
As a side note, on MadTV, is the “moron daughter of famous civil rights activist” intended to mock a real person, or is it purely fictional?
Is your name Andrew, and did you send me a question about mysql?
Apparently my WordPress firewall software trapped it because of the SQL code in the message, but it didn’t give me your email address. If you’re out there, please feel free to send me a message without the SQL, and we can start correspondence from there. My best guess based on the error you quoted is maybe that your host provider only gives your DB user limited permissions. The firewall software munged your email a bit, so it’s hard to read the details.