The Rest of Tita's Visit and Kai's Birthday

After Tita hung out with us in Rock Hill for a few days we drove down to visit with her twin sister and family.

This picture is actually out of order but it had to go first. It doesn't matter how old my girls are - I still love to see them together. (click to enlarge)

Not long after our arrival Tita and Cyrus were playing.

Tita kept trying to get Cyrus to make a funny face:


Tita, on the other hand, was very cooperative:

Cyrus discusses the finer points of color mixing with his mom.

Kai, on the other hand, is just a beginner.

Ooops! That doesn't taste so good, does it Kai? He looks like Mr. Pitt with his Hitler mustache (Seinfeld reference.)

It's hard to fly your three-year-old on your feet when your one-year-old is sitting on your face. Yum, diaper.

Kai gets some schmoozles from his Baba Saeed.

All that playing around made Shirin hungry, so Kai had to stab her in the back of her throat feed her:

Sunday morning the girls took us out to breakfast (for an early Father's Day) to Mama's Boy. It has regular food but also excellent vegetarian food. I had a tofu dish that was excellent.

Saeed impresses Cyrus with his coloring abilities.

Both the boys are very good in restaurants.

When we got back it was my job to watch the kids outside so everybody else could whip the house into shape for a prospective renter. Shortly after this was snapped Tita was recruited indoors.

Cyrus and Kai pushed this up and down the sidewalk a few times, but soon Cyrus snatched my camera to take pictures of...

... my rear end while I was trying to make sure Kai didn't take a dive into the parking lot...

... Tita who came back outside for something...

... and his friend Lucy and her Mommy and Daddy in front of their house.

Gabriel spent most of the weekend working on his new online business.

Tita gave Cyrus these really cool tattoos...

... of Sesame Street characters that...

... glowed in the dark if you held them up to the light.

We had sent Gabriel to the store with a list of items that included watermelon. The store only had a yellow watermelon so Shirin had to taste it to make sure it actually tasted like watermelon. It was great!

I think it passed the Kai test too.

Tita being held prisoner by one foot.

Buddies.

As Saeed is about to open his Father's Day presents Cyrus realizes that Tita's cherry pie looks really good and comes over for a bite.

It's a lucky boy who gets to pay a kiss for a bite of pie.

yum

family portrait

pictures of the girls in their BitCoin T-shirts
(go to the third banner to see them with Bren)

Recognize this as Tita's FB profile pic?

Another early celebration - Kai's 1st birthday!

Kai eating his "birthday cake" - actually he's smacking down his first muffin:

Concentrating hard on his new toy car-carrier truck.

Cyrus and mommy check out the new puzzle.

Is this puppy love or what?

We had to leave Kai to his puppy and everyone else to drive back to RH so I could go to work Monday morning :-( but it was a great visit.

Frosty Sleeps In Calvin's Spot

No sooner did I write the post about Calvin did I come home to see Frosty Paws sleeping in Calvin's spot between the couch, milk cactus pot, and the french doors. He's done that once or twice before, shortly after we put Calvin to sleep. I'm not sure what's so attractive about that spot but no one else sleeps there but the two brothers. Sweet.

If you don't notice the spot of white fur it could almost be someone else...

I know I'm behind in my blogging. I'll try to work some on the pictures from recent family gatherings. Right now chores have to be attended to.

Pecan Sandie Is Here For A Visit

We are so enjoying Tita's visit.We've talked, gone for a walk, cooked, watched movies, laughed and aw'ed over old photographs of the girls when they were little, and listened to her play piano.

Coming from an area of the country that doesn't have thunderstorms (I thought everyone had thunderstorms) makes her wistful for a good 'ole thunderboomer. Yesterday when we heard distant thunder she went running outside with her phone/camera to capture the sound, the wind, the smell -  the essence of a summer storm. This afternoon our weather did the same thing and so did she! I found her on the deck with her Daddy enjoying the storm.

Radiating pure happiness.

When the girls were little they used to make a lot of 'movies'. One of Tita's recurring characters was Pecan Sandie. Here's a glimpse of Pecan Sandie all grown up:


Tomorrow we're all (with Shirin's family) going to be together. Can't wait!

Calvin

I never blogged about Calvin. I just keep putting it off because it's so hard. But I do want to tell his story.

Calvin was the brother of Frosty Paws and Layli. We adopted them through Recycled Pets and because they were in a group with lots of other kittens they came home, unbeknownst to us, with a parasite called coccidia. The three of them stayed in the upstairs bathroom (to prevent spread to our other kitties) on medication for many weeks. Calvin was always the one who would escape the bathroom by darting out before we could stop him, only he would turn left and get stuck in an area where we could easily recapture him! Silly boy. If he had just turned right and he could've made us chase him for hours.

Calvin and Frosty turned out to be the big boys in the house but Calvin always behaved as if he were the runt, deferring to all the others except maybe Tippy. He would hide in the closet if someone new came over, and if one of us came home through the back door he'd peer up over the edge of the couch with great concern on his face to find out who it was. He was even scared of the collar we tried to put around his neck, and for nearly a year wore a blue curling gift-wrap ribbon around his neck to get used to the feeling. For a while his name was 'Ribbon-neck Boy'. And as much as he liked to eat, anyone, even tiny Tippy, could take over his bowl and he'd calmly move off to find another one.

One time around the holidays I came home for lunch to find the side door open from when someone brought a Christmas tree through the door. I fussed at the family and then counted up all the kitties to make sure nobody escaped. I couldn't find Calvin anywhere. So I went outside in my uniform calling out for him. It was cold and wet and after 30 minutes I still hadn't found him. I even called work and said, "I know this sounds crazy but I'm not coming back until I can find my cat who is lost somewhere outside." Eventually someone at home discovered Calvin calmly sitting in the middle of the kitchen, as if nothing was wrong. Apparently he'd gotten scared of something (the tree? the vacuum cleaner?) and hidden his bulky body where none of us could find him.

Calvin had the best purr of any cat I know. His sister Layli comes in a close second. His favorite thing was for Saeed and me to sit on the living room couch so he could squeeze in between us, happily touching both of us at the same time. He would then purr for a very long time as loud as could be, and I remember more than once having to raise the volume on the TV to hear it over the purring. If I were writing he had a thing about sitting on the paper I was trying to write on, and would grab my pen repeatedly until I just gave up and let him have it. Of course if I used a different pen he would then start grabbing that one. He was funny about the camera and I always had a hard time getting a good picture of him because he would turn his head away. For every good picture I took there were 20 of the side of his head! Chappu really loved him and followed him around the house and sat outside the closet door if he were in there sleeping.

Last summer it was clear that he was ailing. He was losing weight and one day he just looked at the food longingly but couldn't eat it. Cutting out the details, he was diagnosed with a renal lymphoma (?) and we had to put him to sleep at age 8. He was sweet even though all of that. The vets had a hard time listening to his heart because he was purring so loudly, and he purred in my arms for 30 minutes before the vet put the final medication in his IV. What a sweet, sweet boy.

Here are some pics and one video of our sweetheart Calvin.

Roger Ebert on FOK and Trailer

Forks Over Knives
Eat meat and die!
Release Date: 2011
Ebert Rating: ***    
By Roger Ebert May 11, 2011


Here is a film that could save your life. So you'd better stop reading now, because you don't want to go to the trouble. You are addicted to fat, salt, sugar and corn syrup. Your body has established a narcotic-like dependence on them, and you're comfortable with that, just like smokers know why they keep on smoking. If you have to die 10 or 25 years sooner than necessary to smoke, if you need Viagra because your vascular system is compromised, or if you're overweight, you can live with that.

Hey, I'm not going all holier-than-thou on you. Think how fat I was for years. I knew the solution, I was weak and lazy. Over 12 years I was eventually able to lose about 70 pounds with a proper diet, but my current weight and superb physical condition can be attributed to my illness. I am unable to eat or drink anything, and my (therefore) perfect diet of canned nutrition has given me an ideal weight and incredibly good blood numbers. I don't recommend that you get sick to get well, however.

What every human being should do is eat a vegetarian diet based on whole foods. Period. That's it. Animal protein is bad for you. Dairy is bad for you. Forget the ads: Milk and eggs are bad for you. Skim milk is no better, because it contains proportionately more animal protein. What you're trying to avoid is dietary cholesterol. You also need to cut way down on salt and sugar, and run like hell from high fructose corn syrup.

"Forks Over Knives" is a documentary in which Lee Fulkerson enacts a mirror image of the journey taken by Morgan Spurlock in "Supersize Me." Instead of eating only at McDonald's for a month and nearly killing himself, he eats a plant-based whole food diet for six months, gets off all of his cholesterol and blood pressure medications, drops a lot of weight, sleeps better and has more energy.

His film follows three other sick people: one with breast cancer, one given less than a year to live because of heart problems, one with murderously high cholesterol. All are well again after the vegetarian diet. The movie opens with a warning that no one should take such steps without consulting a physician, and I quite agree; I would not have depended on nutrition to cure my cancer, but I'm convinced that I would always have been healthier if I'd eaten correctly.

The film hammers us with information. It centers on the work of famed nutritionists Dr. T. Colin Campbell of Cornell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn of the Cleveland Clinic. Campbell conducted the awesome China-Oxford-Cor­­nell study, which fol­lowed millions of Chinese over decades and found that increases in their incidence of cancer and heart disease directly paralleled their adoption of a Western diet.

Short term studies show the same thing: When Nazis commandeered all the food animals in Norway and rationing forced Brits away from meat, disease rates plummeted. After the war, they moved up again. In the traditional Japanese diet, breast and prostate cancers are all but unknown.

These facts have long been established, not only by Campbell and Esselstyn but also by Dean Ornish, John McDougall and the researchers at Pritikin. There is a Catch-22. The federal government subsidizes such crops as corn, which is used for lethal corn syrup and to feed animals which we then eat. It puts bad foods in school lunches. The lobbyists of agribusiness control national farm policy. The government spends millions to subsidize an unhealthy diet. We are raising the first generation of children who will not live as long as their parents.

Over the years I tried vegan and low-protein vegetarian diets, benefited from and enjoyed them. I found by experience that all one needed was a rice cooker, a knife, a chopping block, whole grains and fresh fruits and vegetables. I got all the protein and calcium I needed. I enjoyed it. But I was tempted. I strayed into the Elysian fields of pizza, steaks, hamburgers and soft drinks. I once was blind and now I see.

"Forks Over Knives" is not subtle. It plays as if it had been made for doctors to see in medical school. Few doctors seem prepared to suggest proper nutrition as an alternative to pills, stents and bypasses. Although regular exercise, especially walking, is invaluable, the film shows only a little exercise and focuses singlemindedly on nutrition.

The bottom line: I am convinced this message is true. A plant-based whole foods diet is healthy. Animal protein is not necessary, or should be used sparingly as Asians did, as a flavoring and not a main course. This adds the advantage of allowing us to avoid the chemicals and carcinogens pumped into livestock and poultry. Fast food is lethal. Parents who feed it to their children are helping them get hooked on fat, salt and sugar addiction. The facts are in. Didn't I warn you to stop reading?

P. S.: I have recently decided to ditch my canned nutrition and switch to a liquid diet based on fresh fruits and vegetables. Yes, I consulted my physician.