Empathy Quotient

Although I worked all week, I am sick with a bad cold and cough. Each day I came home, scooped kitty litter, and went straight to bed. So here I am on Friday night still feeling like crap, sitting on the couch with my laptop, going through all the emails I ignored all week. One item I stumbled upon was a quiz to determine one's empathy quotient. I'm glad I didn't end up in the Aspberger's Syndrome category! Happily I got a 59, above average empathy........ Achooo!

Link to the test

Nail

Do you remember when I put up a video of the comedian Anjelah Johnson doing a parody of Vietnamese nail salons? In case you don't remember I will include the video at the end of this post -- the nail salon bit is in the second half of her routine.

Why am I bringing this up again? Because yesterday I was driving home from the Steele Creek office when I passed this sign. I had to turn around and snap a quick picture and then laughed all the way home. In her routine the name of the salon is "Beautiful Nail" (just one nail.) I guess this place doesn't promise how your nails will look when when they're done with them. :-)

Animal Rescue In The Electronic Age

It's gotten so easy (if you own a smart phone) to communicate quickly with many other people. Remember back in June when Neda Aqa-Soltan was shot in Tehran and people recorded the event on their phones? The people who uploaded their footage onto YouTube have been awarded (collectively and anonymously) the 2009 George Polk Award for Videography, an award created in 1949 in honor of a CBS reporter who was killed while covering the civil war in Greece. There is actually some controversy about awarding to non-professional bystanders with cell phones, but the committee felt it was important to encourage brave acts of reporting and brave acts of uploading since in some countries like Iran you can go to jail (or worse) for performing acts that are considered to be against the country or God.

The video below shows how the same process was able to save a dog's life. It is certainly meant to tug the heart strings and I wonder about all the other animals in the shelter, but in the case of the main character it has a happy ending. I love the little tail wag part!

Darn! The video is no longer available. Visualize: a woman was recording her walk through the cages of an animal shelter when she came upon a cowering dog at the back of the cage who would only look down, too fearful to look up at her or anything else. The dog had scars and raw injuries and was undernourished. Nobody was looking at this dog as a potential pet. She used her smart phone to email, twitter, and FaceBook everyone she knew and asked them to spread the word about this dog, seeking donations and/or willing adopters. Time was running out - the dog was scheduled to die the next day if no one spoke for him. By 10:00 am the next day she had received enough financial support to take him to the vet and received the support of a rescue agency that would keep him until they could find him a home. You see her go back to the dog at the shelter, pet him, talk gently to him, give him a treat that he doesn't seem to know he's supposed to eat, and then lead him out to her car. She puts him in the back of a hatchback on a blanket, and gives him more lovin' and another treat. This time he seems to know that something good is happening to him and you see the tip of his tail give the tiniest of wags, the "little tail wag" I mentioned above.

It would've been much better if you could have seen the video yourself, but my point is not lost by its absence. Immediacy of communication saved that dog's life, that and the efforts of one very kind lady.

Oh YAY! I was able to find another copy of it. Let's see how accurate my memory is of the story:


Well, I got some of the little details wrong, but I did watch this over a month ago and saved it so I could blog about it later. Not bad.

Reading Four Books At A Time...

...well sort of. I love to read the way George Bush loves to use good 'ole southern sayings to get out of tight situations (snort, har har har.) This can lead to a crazy balancing act sometimes.

I had already begun reading We Are Iran when my friend Priya lent me her copy of Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth, a book I've wanted to read since it was released. The day I brought it home my book club book, Half Broke Horses, arrived in the mail and I had only two weeks to get that read before our meeting. And as I do mundane chores I listen to audiobooks on my iPod; I was listening to The Host while holding We Are Iran, Unaccustomed Earth, and Half Broke Horses in my hands. What to do?

Since We Are Iran is a series of blog topics and not really a story line with a plot to keep track of I decided to put it down for the time being. I had to finish my book club book on time so I went ahead and read that first. Half Broke Horses is the story of the author's grandmother in the 1930s and 40s in the untamed scrabble land of west Texas. You may know the author, Jeanette Walls, from her recent well known book Glass Castle which is the story of her own life. I didn't care that much for Glass Castle and had to make myself read Half Broke Horses and I'm glad I did. It was well written, interesting, and provided much needed background information about the author's family that helped me better understand the events in Glass Castle. All but one of my book club members had read Glass Castle and we couldn't help but discuss both books and compare notes about what we thought made her crazy family members do the things they did. We had a great discussion about what elements of a person's education make it better or worse than other forms of education, for example, the value of school education with books, paper and pen versus the learning that results from living the myriad experiences of life. Walls classifies this book as a 'real-life novel' since it was about her grandmother and many of the events were real, but she had to put words in her grandma's mouth and feelings in her heart that may or may not have been there. One of my book club members said she felt 'cheated' by the author's willingness to simply make up what she didn't know, but I didn't agree with her. Even in this day of high tech recording capacities you can't know everything about a person who is no longer here to ask. And unlike some other authors who wrote 'memoirs' that were later shown to be mostly fiction, Walls clearly labels this book as a fictional novel. If you currently have Glass Castle on your shelf I would advise reading this book first.

As soon as I finished Horses I began Unaccustomed Earth by one of my favorite authors, Jhumpa Lahiri. She also wrote Interpreter of Maladies (a collection of nine short stories) and The Namesake, a fantastic story which was made into a movie. Unaccustomed Earth is also a series of short stories, most of which involve characters from India now living in the U.S. Her stories deal with family issues, relationships, personal strivings and failures, and simply put, ordinary life. Lahiri is a gifted story teller and next time one of her books comes out I may not wait so long to read it. Life is too short.

The Host was written by Stephenie Meyer, the author of the Twilight Saga series which I have not read and probably won't. The Twilight series sounds too juvenile for my taste. Shirin and Gabriel like to read books that I normally would never choose, more fantasy and sci fi types, but I end up liking most of them nonetheless; The Host was an audiobook Gabriel put on my iPod. I ended up loving this story despite the fact that I wasn't satisfied with the ending.(*) The story focuses on an alien life form called "souls" that are embedded in the host species of a given planet, using their bodies to live on that planet. Souls are generally very peace-loving, group-oriented beings but because they must insert themselves (in the brain, no sexy business) in the host species they naturally have to take them over. On earth humans are, of course, the host species and as humans are wont to do, they fight like hell to avoid being hosts. The interesting thing is, the reader comes to know one soul in particular and follow her from her "insertion" to where she becomes part of a human outpost, learns to live with the group and ultimately chooses them over her own kind. It's kind of a rinky-dink, done it before idea, but the storyline is gripping and you come to love this soul -- I couldn't put it down, or, pull out my ear buds to be more accurate.

SO! Now I'm back to reading We Are Iran and won't start my next book club book till I'm done with it. That doesn't mean I haven't cranked up my iPod for the next book in line!

(*) The reason I didn't like the ending was because I didn't like Wanda/Wanderer in that tiny, fragile, high-pitch voiced, blonde-ringleted angel woman. I understand the author wanted to give Melanie back her life, and give her back to Jamie and Jared, but to me Wanda/Wanderer was a strong, capable person, though meek in nature. To hear that she began to giggle like a little girl in her new body made me SO MAD!

February 15th Resolutions

Are you a procrastinator? Do you feel ready to make new year's resolutions today?

I'm talking to myself. By mid February I'm ready to eat Twinkies again, so here's a nice pep talk/list written by Dr. Frank Lipman, M.D.:

20 (New Year) Resolutions For February

(I added in the "for February" part)

1. More Real Food, Less “Food-like Substances”
2. More Fruit and Vegetables, Less Sugar, Wheat and Corn
3. More Organic, Less Toxic
4. More Chewing, Less Eating
5. More Water, Less Soda
6. More Recycling, Less Waste
7. More Walking, Less Driving
8. More Exercising, Less Watching TV
9. More Outdoors, Less Indoors
10. More Sleep, Less Worry
11. More Calm, Less Chaos
12. More Being, Less Doing
13. More Consciousness, Less Ignorance
14. More Smiles, Less Anger
15. More Love, Less Hatred
16. More Play, Less Serious
17. More Letting Go, Less Holding On
18. More Forgiving, Less Blaming
19. More Generosity, Less Greed
20. More Ubuntu, Less Me! (Hey! He's heard of ubuntu too! my ubuntu post)
    

The Perfect Snow

Perfect because it started late yesterday, giving me time to drive safely home; perfect because it was fluffy snow, not the usual sleet and ice; perfect because it was three or four inches deep, not half an inch nor four feet; and perfect because the sun is out and it will all be gone from the streets so that we can function normally. Perfect.

The portico this morning.

 

Backyard.

  

Cute little birdie footprints.

  

After snapping this picture of the bird feeder plate totally covered with snow I stopped and filled the bird feeders. I could feel and hear the birds' frantic movements as they were all trying to find food.

  

Then I went to the front yard and filled those feeders too, but first I had to take this picture of our front sidewalk. A winter wonderland.

  

  

Sparrow.

  

Funny how the snow falls on each surface according to shape.

  

Cyrus' summer wagon is belly up and covered.

  

  

Ice in the street.

  

Our neighborhood.

  

We parked our cars at the bottom of our yard to avoid our steep driveway.

  

Another interesting pattern of snow on our neighbor's van. I would love to understand the physics behind this.

  

Dogwood tree branches: brown underneath, white on top.

  

These footprints belong to Maggie. I saw her out with her owner earlier... no yellow snow is visible - good Maggie!

  

Cute little hoofie prints.

  

Sweet gum tree cones wearing little white caps of snow.

  

Cat and bird prints, hopefully not made at the same time. I didn't see any clumps of bird feathers so I don't think this is the scene of a crime.

  

I noticed the robins being particularly attracted to this patch of melted snow on the street. I couldn't figure out if they were finding food there or just drinking the water; it looked like they were drinking. Don't animals know they can 'eat' snow in order to get water?

  

  

  

  

  

Rabbit prints.

  

Saeed's favorite bird (mourning dove) took advantage of the cleaned off, seed-laden plate.

  

Notice the snow whirling around in the background. The wind was blowing it off the trees but it felt like it was snowing again.

  

Mourning dove and tufted titmouse.

  

Female cardinal.

  

Chickadee.

  

Snow swirls off the trees.

  

Back inside I find Banu looking out the dining room window.

  

Banu's view through the window lets her see into the bushes where birds take refuge. They are unaware that she is looking at them from inside the house.

  

In our bed room she does the same thing, only it's a cedar tree the birds hang out in.

  

When the birds sit on the edge of the roof gutter their tails hang down and move around. Such good kitty TV!

  

Lazy Lupe just finds a nice patch of sun in which to take a bath prior to her nap.

  

Layli stretching awake...

  

... and trying to look cute.

  

Cat silouette.

 

Last night:


This morning:


A winter zen moment:

Olympic Snowfall?

Perhaps if Vancouver doesn't get enough snow the athletes can come down here to South Carolina... you know, the 2010 Winter Olympics in Rock Hill, SC - catchy title, no?

 It started as I left work at 5:00. If you look real hard you can see the snow against the dark car.

 

Front yard when I got home; snowflakes in the air.

  

Front holly bushes when I got home.

  

Banu was huddled as the cold air came in as I stood at the front door taking pictures.

  

Layli stops in her tracks when she sees the snow falling.

  

Lupe watches from the safety of the upstairs. She's such a chicken.

  

Below the window on the second floor is the portico. I sit at this window when I work at my computer. Here it is at about 5:30...

  

...about 5:45...

  

...about 6:00. The snow was falling fast.

  

This is the front yard at about 8:30, three hours after it started.

  

The same front holly bushes.

  

The back yard...

  

...and the back steps.

 

See ya in the morning!!