Painting The Living Room - Finally!

Ya'll know of the difficulties we went through with those painters last year. A couple days ago I took off the curtain brackets in the kitchen eating area and underneath it was the old wall paper. Can you believe that? I had to peel off the wallpaper, apply primer, and then paint over the spots. I said a few unkind words about those painters. And we finally decided to bite the bullet and fix the living room.

As much as I just wanted to paint the walls Saeed easily convinced me that these spots in the popcorn ceiling had to be fixed first.

This shows where the men had taped their plastic sheeting on our living room wall and then pulled it off along with some of the paint...

... and where they splashed something white on the wall.

We lugged everything into the middle and taped up our entertainment center.

After we put the plastic sheeting down three of the kitties had to investigate. Here's Tippy on top but she did a lot of underground (under plastic) exploring as well. (click to enlarge - she's particularly cute!)

Chappu (below) and Obi did the same. Sometimes I could hear dashing and scuttling around under there. I guess Frosty is above all that silly business.

After spraying the popcorn holes with 'popcorn-in-a-can' we had to let it dry for 24 hours. Next was to paint the molding and then the ceiling itself. While Saeed did that I spackled and removed hooks and electric plate covers and drove to the paint store to buy more paint. Am I boring you yet?

The happy painter. It's a relief to finally have this project underway. (click to enlarge to see how spattered he got!)

It'll be this weekend before we can actually paint the walls. The 24 hour wait period for the popcorn material threw us behind a day but that's OK. We got to spend lots of time together even if we were splattered with paint.

Bird Hit The Window

No pic today, just a comment that we did the right thing (which was nothing) and it was the right thing to do.

As we were sitting on the deck a bird flew into our back door window with a big thud and fluttered down. For animals lovers such as ourselves this is fairly traumatic... we killed an animal with our house. I went to check on the poor victim of our aggressive back door's action and it was lying askew in the bush under our kitchen window still breathing. Saeed said, "What should WE DO?" "Nothing" I said. He looked at me as if I truly did have the DNA of Hitler in me but I'd read that often they just stun themselves and when recovered fly away.

Happily this is exactly what happened, but previous victims haven't been so lucky. I've ordered some window decals for our windows with the most violent tendencies, to minimize their ability to lure in our favorite little back yard pets.

Unbelievable

I just want to say how disappointed I am that the Women's World Cup isn't being broadcast on network TV. Here we are, enjoying the finals, the USA against Japan, only by connecting our TV to the internet. Soccer in general doesn't get much attention on our main network channels, not even the men. But our women are in the FINALS! Something's just wrong about that.

Technology - The Double-Edged Sword

My days at work recently have been very difficult. In addition to accommodating the scheduling needs of a doctor who wants his first appointment to be at 7:05 AM  and work through lunch so he can leave earlier at the end of the day (that's got to stop) we have had computer changes thrust upon us. The process for entering patient info into their EMR (electronic medical record), specifically their prescription information and problem list, has not only changed but it has expanded. More data entry = more time.

Change is always hard at first and I congratulate myself at learning the recent changes with relative ease and a positive attitude. I always feel sorry for the EMR trainers who receive the brunt of anger and frustration from those who resist the new ways and/or have trouble learning it, but since this is what the trainers do they must be used to it. The changes will ultimately allow our docs to prescribe from anywhere to anywhere as long as they have access to a computer. In addition, when our patients leave they will have a copy of their visit with all their vital signs, the doctor's comments about their visit, and patient education information about their problems if this applies. These are the amazing benefits of technology.

Wow, fantastic I say! But why kill your staff in the process? They added these additional info entry tasks to what we're already doing with no added time allowance. I've been getting up at 4:50 AM every day, getting at best 30 minutes break midday to gobble down my lunch, and then working till the last patient finishes. I may get home at 6 PM, give or take. By 7:30 I'm sleepy and miserable. Two people have already quit, rightly thinking that there must be more to life than this! Others are getting their resumes ready.

Me? I'm hoping things will change again for the better. I have ridden the ups and downs with this practice for twenty years; things always get better when a low point has been reached. Even so, I know that healthcare is changing. As much as technology is helping us take better care of patients the economy is forcing us to work on the edge of a knife. We are always functioning with fewer than needed staff because they can't afford to hire one more person than is necessary. God help us when two people go out for unexpected surgery and another two turn in their resignations... and this happened with all but one manager on vacation.

So bear with me if I'm testy, or don't blog, or don't call, or yawn in your ear when you call me. It's going to get better... it has to.

Dairy Intake and Osteoporosis

Taken directly from PCRM website:

Most Americans know that calcium is important for building strong bones, a message touted by the dairy industry for years to encourage milk consumption. But did you know there is little evidence, if any, to show that drinking cow’s milk can actually influence bone health? It’s true. Countries where dairy consumption is highest also suffer the highest rates in hip fractures and osteoporosis. (my insert also from PCRM's website: <In fact, in a 12-year Harvard study of 78,000 women, those who drank milk three times a day actually broke more bones than women who rarely drank milk. Similarly, a 1994 study of elderly men and women in Sydney, Australia, showed that higher dairy product consumption was associated with increased fracture risk. Those with the highest dairy product consumption had approximately double the risk of hip fracture compared to those with the lowest consumption.>)A new study published in the British Medical Journal found that people who consumed the highest amounts of calcium, up to almost 1,200 milligrams per day in some cases, did not have a reduction in bone fractures or osteoporosis. Although calcium is important, it is not the only important component for strong bones. Calcium’s role is to build hard bones, but vitamins C and D are necessary to support the bones. Vitamin C is responsible for building the bone matrix and offering structural protection. Vitamin D serves to regulate calcium absorption. Therefore, one nutrient without the other is subject to complications, such as osteoporosis. Here are five ways to assure proper bone health over the summer:

• Get plenty of sunshine. Fifteen-30 minutes of direct sunlight per day will typically supply enough vitamin D. Feeling like you do not achieve this? Choose fortified plant milks containing vitamin D, or talk with your doctor about a vitamin D supplement. The Dietary Reference Intake for adults is typically 600 International Units (IU) per day, according to the Institute of Medicine.
  
• Eat plenty of greens and beans. Plant foods are abundant in calcium and most of them (like broccoli and Brussels sprouts) have twice the absorption rate compared to cow’s milk. Fill up on these foods and check to assure calcium intake is sufficient. For more information about calcium, click here.
  
• Stay active. There is nothing the bones appreciate more than a little bone-bearing exercise. This is one of the best ways to make sure bones stay healthy. Try to get at least 30 minutes of physical activity a day.
  
• Boost up on vitamin C. Foods rich in vitamin C include citrus fruits, red bell peppers, and spinach, but just about any fruit contains some. Vitamin C helps build the bone matrix.
  
• Limit sodium and caffeine and avoid animal protein altogether. Studies show high intake of animal protein can leach calcium from the body. Similarly, too much caffeine (more than three cups of coffee per day) and sodium (more than 2,400 milligrams per day) can do the same.
  

Colorectal Cancer Risk

I like to pass on new medical information as it's released, especially if it's related to what we put in our mouths, one of the few things we have some control over. This is taken directly from the American Institute for Cancer Research website. I just want to say that when the article talks about red meat, I know many people will say, "Oh I don't eat much red meat any more." But the article also mentions processed meat; this includes lunch meats, hot dogs, and sausage meats like pepperoni, which most people do eat.

For Immediate Release: May 23, 2011
Contact: Mya Rae Nelson 202–328–7744

Most Authoritative Report on Colorectal Cancer and Diet Ever Conducted: Links with Meat, Fiber Confirmed

WASHINGTON, DC – The most comprehensive and authoritative report on colorectal cancer risk ever published has concluded that red and processed meat increase risk of the disease and found that the evidence that foods containing fiber offer protection against colorectal cancer has become stronger.
"This report shows that colorectal cancer is one of the most preventable cancers," said Elisa Bandera, MD, PhD, who served on the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research's Continuous Update Project (CUP) Expert Panel that authored the report. "AICR has estimated that about 45 percent of colorectal cancer cases could be prevented if we all ate more fiber–rich plant foods and less meat, drank less alcohol, moved more and stayed lean. That's over 64,000 cases in the US every year."
The report, released today as part of WCRF/AICR's groundbreaking Continuous Update Project, has examined the links between colorectal cancer risk and diet, physical activity and weight, and updated the colorectal cancer findings of the charity's 2007 Expert Report.
A systematic review of the evidence was carried out by WCRF/AICR–funded scientists at Imperial College London, who added 263 new papers on colorectal cancer to the 749 that had been analyzed as part of the 2007 Report. An independent CUP Expert Panel then analyzed the totality of evidence and made new judgments.

Meat Link Remains Convincing

For red and processed meat, findings from 10 new cohort studies were added to the 14 included in the 2007 Report. The CUP Expert Panel concluded that there is convincing evidence that both red and processed meat increase colorectal cancer risk.
AICR recommends that people limit consumption to 18 ounces (cooked weight) of red meat a week – roughly the equivalent of five or six small portions of beef, lamb or pork – and avoid processed meat. (The report showed that ounce for ounce, consuming processed meat increases risk twice as much as consuming red meat.)

Evidence of Fiber's Protective Role Upgraded

The CUP Expert Panel also concluded that the evidence showing that foods containing dietary fiber reduce colorectal cancer risk has become stronger since the publication of the 2007 report. They considered the evidence sufficient to strengthen the conclusion that foods containing fiber are protective from "probable" to "convincing".
The analysis for fiber added seven more studies to the existing eight from the 2007 Report; the CUP Expert Panel noted that the evidence has become much more consistent.
This reaffirms AICR's recommendation for people to eat a plant–based diet, including foods containing fiber, such as whole grains, fruits, vegetables and beans.

Evidence on Activity, Body Weight, Alcohol Still Convincing

The experts concluded that studies published since 2007 added to the evidence that maintaining a healthy weight and being physically active are both convincingly linked to lowering colon cancer risk, while a healthy weight is linked to lower rectal cancer risk. The CUP Expert Panel also affirmed that carrying excess fat especially around the waist is a convincing cause of colorectal cancer. There is also convincing evidence that alcohol consumption increases colorectal cancer risk in men and it also probably increases risk in women.
Dr. Alan Jackson, Chair of the WCRF/AICR CUP Expert Panel, said: "Our review has found strong evidence that many cases of colorectal cancer are not inevitable and that people can significantly reduce their risk by making changes to their diet and lifestyle.
"Because our judgments are based on more evidence than ever before, the public can be confident that this represents the best advice available on preventing colorectal cancer.
"There has been a lot of debate over the last few years about the strength of evidence that red and processed meat increase risk of cancer. We hope our review can help give clarity to those people who are still confused about the strength of the evidence.
"On meat, the clear message that comes out of our report is that red and processed meat increase risk of colorectal cancer and that people who want to reduce their risk should consider cutting down the amount they eat."
CUP Expert Panel member Dr. Elisa Bandera added: "Many people feel confused about cancer prevention because it can seem like a new study is published every week that suggests something either causes or prevents cancer.
"But the CUP takes the latest scientific findings and adds them to the existing body of evidence in a systematic way that ensures our advice takes the latest research into account. This means people can be confident that AICR's recommendations represent the most up–to–date, evidence–based information on cancer prevention available."

 Hee hee. Sorry. These last two images are my contribution! :-)

Book I've Read Recently - Part 2

Salt and Saffron by Kamila Shamsie

I got this one off BookMooch. Some years back my book club read Broken Verses by Shamsie and I like it so much that I mooched this and Kartography which she also wrote.

Salt and Saffron is the story of an aristocratic nawab family in Pakistan. It is told by Aliya, the daughter who is educated in America. Aliya has learned her craft of story telling from her family. On her flight back to Pakistan Aliya meets a young man, Khaleel, born and raised in the poorer side of Karachi. The encounter leads her to question the class values that she is raised with. Her search takes her through a number of family secrets and legends. The legend of "not quite twins", the curse associated with it, the mysterious Mariam Apa who never speaks, the family tree chart with a star marking Aliya and Mariam as spiritual twins, and Aliya's interpretation of the parallels between their lives, lends the story its intrigue. Many of the stories are passed on from generation to generation orally, so no historical proof of any event can be found. Yet the stories do have powerful influence on the lives of the descendents as they are reinforced through the generations, keeping people trapped in the legends and curses. Aliya's only escape from the curse and the social division that separates her and Khaleel is to do some soul-searching, coming to an understanding of her family history and her position within it, and thereby discovering her own identity.

I loved this book; I'm looking forward to reading Kartography.

Night by Elie Wiesel

Sometimes I choose to read things because I should. This is the case with Night. Elie Wiesel is well known for many things (Nobel Prize for Peace 1986 for example) and I had heard that Night is a must-read novella based on his experiences as a holocaust survivor. Although it is the 'typical' holocaust story somehow it feels more potent because it is based on his own life and could be anyone's, even mine if circumstances were different.

What hit me in the stomach was the beginning of the story. Eliezer (as did Elie Wiesel) lived in the town of Sighet in Hungary. The town's people never dreamed that when the Torah teacher was taken away that anything disturbing was going on. When the teacher came back and told them about the horrors that were occurring everyone thought he was a lunatic... only he wasn't. Then the deportations began and yet people were still disbelieving. I think this is how I would react as well and I went there in my imagination. It was terrifying.

Eliezer was 15 (as was Wiesel in the picture to the right, just before he was taken) when he was loaded into a train car. Upon Eliezer's arrival in Birkenau he was separated from his mother and sisters, never to see them again. He manages to stay with his father until the physical tortures of their existence (including a long cold trek on foot in the snow to Auschwitz without food or shoes) kill his father. The agonies continue until the Americans liberate his camp. In Wiesel's life his father also becomes very ill due to camp conditions but actually dies in the crematorium, two months before the camp is liberated.

This is not easy reading, but it's necessary reading. I am no longer naive to think that merely reading about history will prevent us from repeating it, and yet I feel that it's everyone's responsibility to know what has happened. Certainly this story put another human face (The Diary of Anne Frank) on the problem.

If Today Be Sweet by Thrity Umrigar

The first book I read by Thrity Umrigar was The Space Between Us and I loved it so much I couldn't wait to read this. I did like this but I like Space better, maybe because Space takes place in India and this story takes place in the US.

The main character is Tehmina "Tammy" Sethna, a recent Parsi widow who has landed in suburban Cleveland because her beloved and very successful son (Sorab) settled there with his American wife (Susan) after finishing college. For decades she relied on her gregarious and decisive husband Rustom; now that she has lost him and left their Bombay home she feels more hesitant and ambivalent about everything. Although Sorab and Susan (who is really snobby and irritating) try to make her feel at home she gets on their nerves. And although her grandson adores her he is an American child with our culture's casual indifference towards societal elders. There comes a point where Tammy must decided whether to return to her noisy, crowded home in Bombay where everything is familiar, or stay with her son in an uneasy and uncomfortable guest status.

What awakens the dragon in Tammy is the cruelty and abuse she sees going on next door, where the owner's trashy sister-in-law mistreats her two young sons past the point of Tammy's ability to turn the other way. On Christmas Eve she takes matters into her own hands, leaps the tall suburban fence between the two houses and rescues the children from their sad situation. This turns out to be a transformative moment in Tammy's American life. She has not only asserted herself without her husband's endorsement but realizes her own strengths and capacities that allow her to see her life here and make her very much want to stay in the US after all.

The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani

This was on my BookMooch wishlist for a long time and I finally got a copy. I'm always looking for novels that take place in Iran that don't have anything to do with politics and being thrown in jail. After reading this book I will never again look at our Persian rugs in quite the same way.

This was a lush adventure into 17th century Iran (in the legendary time of Shah Abbas The Great) where a strong-willed 14 year old village girl with carpet weaving skills dreams of getting married and growing fat from easy access to gastronomic delights and having servants to do all the work. The death of her father changes everything and rather than starve, the protagonist (we never learn her name) and her mother travel to bustling Isfahan to live with a distant uncle. There she matures both physically and in her skills as a carpet maker at a time when women didn't work unless poverty demanded it.

Amirrezvani does a great job of portraying the lives of carpet makers, both the well established ones as well as the strugglers like the narrator. We get a peek into how designs are decided upon, how the perfect wool or silk is chosen and how the right colors are mixed and matched to create the softest and most delicate rug. (This makes me look at our Persian rugs with more appreciation and wonder.) While the designers agonize over color swatches and fiber quality down to the thread, the actual weavers (including the narrator) suffer from different problems: 

“I had heard stories about women who became deformed by long hours of sitting at the loom, so that when they tried to deliver a child, their bones formed a prison, locking the baby inside…Even the youngest knitters suffered aching backs, bent limbs, tired fingers, exhausted eyes. All our labors were in the service of beauty, but sometimes it seemed as if every thread in a carpet had been dipped in the blood of flowers.”   (thus the book's title)

But our protagonist is clever and seeks a better life than the harsh one she is offered. Although she manages to learn how to please her husband through sigeh, the situation becomes intolerable when he takes her wealthy friend as a 'proper' wife and rather than sacrifice a long-standing friendship she decides to walk away from the relationship. Banished from the uncle's home, she and her mother fall further and further into poverty and eventually create a new 'family' with friends in an impoverished part of the town. Our young carpet weaver expends great effort to develop into the artisan she believes she can become in the belief that she will then be able to assure a decent life for herself and her mother. The strictures of life for women of strict Muslim cultures are well-known, but the author's goal does not seem so much to point out the unfairness of the culture as to paint a portrait of a memorable and believable individual who learns how to prosper within these strictures

Amirrezvani also incorporates story telling within narrative, with each story beginning with, “First there wasn’t and then there was. Before God, no one was.” This is the equivalent of “once upon a time” in English. Not only do we learn about one of Iran’s most famous products but also about one of its traditions, which is telling a story within a story. The seven folk tales woven into the main story pay homage to the traditional folk storytellers throughout many cultures. The author's rich descriptive detail, each word like a tiny knot in a finely crafted rug, and her knack for good storytelling transported me to an ancient and exotic Iran. I really enjoyed this book.

The Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks 

I received this book from Gabriel and Shirin for my birthday. It was the perfect "car book" for me to read aloud to Saeed on trips back and forth from Athens since Sacks' topic (the brain) is Saeed's area of interest.

In The Mind's Eye, Oliver Sacks tells the stories of people who are able to navigate the world and communicate with others despite losing what many of us consider indispensable senses and abilities: the power of speech, the capacity to recognize faces, the sense of three-dimensional space, the ability to read, the sense of sight. For all of these people, the challenge is to adapt to a radically new way of being in the world. The Mind's Eye is a testament to the complexity of vision and the brain and to the power of creativity and adaptation. And it provides a whole new perspective on the power of language and communication, as we try to imagine what it is to see with another person's eyes, or another person's mind. Sack's himself goes blind in one eye due to cancer and includes his story along with the other narratives. Very interesting but unsuitable reading for anyone without an appreciation for science and research.

OK that's it for now other than to mention that I've recently finished listening to Alan Dershowitz's America on Trial: Inside the Legal Battles That Transformed Our Nation and am currently listening to Columbine by Dave Cullen.  I have also started reading a new book but will blog about that when I'm done with it; it's long, so it may be a while. You get a break!

Books I've Read Recently - Part 1

I haven't blogged about the books I've read recently. So here goes, in no particular order:

The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

My sister sent me this book and I've since lent it to two coworkers and just last week sent it off to a moocher on BookMooch. Somehow I'd also gotten an extra copy and gave that one to Shirin. Everyone seems to have liked it a lot. I certainly did.

The 19^th Wife is told with two separate but parallel narratives, each pertaining to a woman who is the nineteenth wife of a Morman man.  The first portion is narrated by Jordan, a young gay man who had been abandoned by his mother on the side of the freeway a few years earlier because she believed that God was telling her to do so.  Jordan never looks back and completely abandons the Mormon faith. Some years pass and he finds himself pulled back to Utah because his mother, wife #19, has been accused of murdering Jordan’s father.  Jordan attempts to get his mother out of jail and in the process has to reenter his past.

The other narrative is the story of Ann Eliza Young, the 19^th wife of Brigham Young, one of the leaders of the Mormon faith.  Ann Eliza has grown up in the Mormon faith but she has always been aware of her mother's negative feeling about polygamy, despite the fact that her mother is in a polygamous marriage. Ann Eliza is eventually coerced into marrying Brigham Young.  After a few years she flees the marriage and begins speaking out against Brigham Young and polygamy all over the country, drawing negative attention towards Mormonism.

The stories, though parallel, actually intersect very little, but the modern Morman youths do end up learning about Ann Eliza Young and I feel it was a very clever and effective tool to tell both stories simultaneously. It's not difficult to see how the events in early Mormon history lead to the Mormon reality of the current era.

Talk Before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg

Someone left this book at the office and after sitting around for about a year I finally picked it up. I'm not sure I'm glad I did. There were moments I liked it, but overall I found it contrived.

The main character is Ann, a woman with few friends who finds herself falling in love with Ruth, a woman who is popular and seems (to Ann) to have a perfect life. When Ruth is diagnosed at age forty-three with breast cancer Ann basically leaves her husband and nine year old daughter at home to care for her friend.  She even sleeps at Ruth's house at night, which I personally can't imagine a real person doing unless she dislikes her own family. There is also a close knit group of women that hangs out as Ruth lies in her sickbed, an odd group who you don't get the feeling would normally be friends, brought together only by their devotion to Ruth. Despite these unlikely "friends", Berg, who wrote this novel after losing her own friend to breast cancer, handles the topic of death with dignity and beauty.

If you enjoy reading about women and their friendships you might enjoy this book, but it wasn't my cup of tea. Talk was on the New York Times Bestseller List. Did they really think it was that good? Sometimes I think books that cover particular topics (breast cancer, refugee survival) tend to get higher praise than deserved due to the emotional load of that topic. What kind of a jerk wouldn't praise a book about such an important issue? Me.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid   (5 stars)

I'd had this book on my BookMooch wishlist for over a year and finally got a copy. I loved this book. It is so cleverly written. In my book club our November book is always a "grab bag" book, meaning we each enter the title of an unread book we have on our shelf and the title that's drawn is our selection for the month. I plan to enter this book into the hat (even though I've already read it. Shhh.)

The first page begins, "Excuse me, Sir, may I be of any assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my beard. I am a lover of America". This monologue style of writing is truly one of the highlights of the novel. Simply put, this book is about the love affair of a Pakistani man (Changez) with America. And as with most love affairs, he ends up feeling betrayed by the country he loved the most.

The novel is set in a restaurant in Lahore in which Changez engages an American stranger in a conversation over several cups of tea and a meal. He tells the American about his days at Princeton, which get him a job at a prestigious finance firm in New York city. As the top earner Changez feels that his life in America is like a dream. Then September the 11th happens and Changez becomes upset when America unleashes her furious bombs on Afghanistan. He avoids watching TV and as he puts it, prefers "not to watch the partisan and sports event-like coverage given to the mismatch between the American bombers with their twenty-first century weaponry and the ill-equipped and ill-fed Afghan tribesmen below." And while Changez had been happy with what life in America had offered him, he develops resentment about the standard of life in Pakistan compared to that of America as well as America's inability to see the reality of the lives of those beyond her border. As time passes he is unable to continue his successful life in America and returns to Pakistan. All of this he tells us through his conversation, no, monologue, with the American stranger across the table.

Before you think this is a depressing anti-American political rant, let me say that The Reluctant Fundamentalist is instead deep, witty, and incredibly engaging. I hope this book gets selected so I can listen to my book club discuss it.

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa

This was a book club book. It was OK but I didn't pass it on to anyone (sent it to a moocher who wanted it) because I didn't like it that much.

The main character (also named Mario whose life is loosely based on the author's) is a college student in Peru who ends up falling in love with his aunt (by marriage) with whom he has a long, unconsumated affair. The family is kept in the dark for a very long time but when they find out all hell breaks loose and the two begin a journey though the country to find a priest who will marry them before they can be separated.

A large portion of the book is about Mario's job at a radio station and the engaging soap stories his Bolivian coworker writes. In fact Vargas Llosa cleverly intersperses the chapters about Mario and his Aunt Julia with chapters from the Bolivian's soap operas which are interesting at first but then awful toward the end when the Bolivian has a break down and all his stories begin to run together.  I began skipping those chapters.

The girl in my book club from Turkey said she remembers her grandmother being glued to her radio to listen to her daily soaps. She really liked this book, as did the girl who just recently returned from a trip to Peru. I think Vargas Llosa is a good writer, but after about 200 pages I just lost interest.

Game of Thrones George R. R. Martin  (guilty pleasure)

This is one of those books that Shirin and Gabriel got me interested in. I listened (on my iPod) to the first four books in this series which is called "A Song of Ice and Fire", and the much anticipated fifth book will be out in a couple of weeks. The series was picked up by HBO as a TV series and the first season just finished. Next year HBO will do book 2 which is A Clash of Kings. We recently watched 8 of the 10 HBO episodes, rekindling my interest in the stories; I broke down and bought the boxed set of the first four books. Recently I finished this one, book 1, and as much as I'm dying to proceed to book 2 I'm making myself wait till just before season 2 starts so it's fresh in my mind.

Because this series is complicated to explain and there are about a zillion characters I will simply give the Wiki link here if you're interested. Let me just say that the books are very long, the shortest being over 800 pages, but somehow they end way too soon.

Digging to America by Anne Tyler

This is another book my sister passed on to me, in part because she knew I'd appreciate the bits about the Iranian family who are half of the story.

The story begins in the Baltimore airport as two families await the arrival of their new Korean babies. One family is the Donaldson family, American, loud, friendly, and over-the-top excited with balloons, stuffed teddy bear, and video camera rolling. The other is the Yazdan family, Iranian American, polite, reserved, well-dressed and quietly waiting off to the side with much less fanfare. Tyler does a good job of developing both sets of characters and I was amazed at how well she represented the Iranian culture and immigrants who attempt to adapt to their new reality in this country. She must have Persian American friends!

The families' differences don't stop there. The Donaldsons keep their Korean daughter's original name and dress her in Korean clothes. The mother reads books about how to raise children exactly right, feed them exactly right, which play groups are just right, in short, drives me crazy and unfortunately reminds me a bit of myself. The Yazdans change Sooki's name to Susan, dress her in jeans and T-shirts, and send her off to daycare. Nevertheless, the two families end up becoming friends and hold an annual celebration of the girls' arrival date.

For me the highlight is the Persian family's matriarch, Maryam, a widow who still looks good, takes care of herself, and exudes a quiet strength and dignity. She navigates the Western world with apparent grace and ease, and yet she holds herself away from getting too close to anybody, by instinct and habit elusive. Although she comes across to the others as being unsociable and a bit prickly, she is actually a very empathetic and helpful person; she just doesn't want to step on anyone's toes. Her character is developed more thoroughly than any of the others, and really, the novel belongs to her.

I liked this book quite a lot, enough to recommend it to my friend who is adopting a Korean baby this month, but I wouldn't put it on my top ten list. But remember, out of all the thousands of books I've read there are only ten in my top ten list.  :-)

Our Feline Ninja

Anyone who reads this knows that Obi and Frosty Paws are recovering from some serious relationship problems. It amazes me how the kitty group dynamics can change seemingly overnight after years of peace and harmony. Think back to the days before the wall came down. Banu and Frosty coexisted for four years in apparent accord. In reality their problems must have started days or weeks earlier than his first assault on her, but the doltish humans were unable to perceive the subtle feline cues.

With Shirin's invaluable assistance, along with a little help from the pharmaceutical industry, a tenuous peace has once again descended upon the downstairs hamlet and our two Ninja. Obi receives his chicken-flavored Prozac pellet in the morning after a night without food (if he's full he won't eat it) and in the evening Frosty happily eats his chicken-flavored Anafranil pellet along with some Easy Cheese which he loves (so does Tita; I had to wrench it out of her hands as she was about to squirt it into her mouth - the Easy Cheese, not the Anafranil.) The skirmishes have for the most part abated. Last night we saw them nose to nose, which as catster.com says, "The nose-tap is the most common form of communication between cats that are friends. When cats share a nose-to-nose greeting, they're depositing their scents on each other and checking out where the other has been." :-) Friends? :-)

Early morning, when I'm preparing their bowls of food, has always been the primal point of Ninja conflict. Even before our recent battles Obi showed food aggression during this time, circling my ankles and lunging toward anyone who even looked like they were thinking about eating cat food that day.  For weeks now I have been feeding Obi on the counter and Frosty on the floor with the others. Yesterday morning as I was scrambling to make ready his bowl containing the magic pellet and a couple of pieces of food (which takes about 30 seconds, long enough for him to jump down to the floor) he was advancing on Frosty with his food-aggressive squawking. Frosty reacted a bit but nothing happened. (Yay drugs!)This morning when Obi attempted to replicate the scenario Frosty graciously walked away. (Just say yes!) Tomorrow morning? This slow-to-learn human will have Obi's bowl readied the night before so he will have no time (well, maybe 5 seconds but not enough time for him to jump to the floor) to launch an offensive. He will be whisked to the counter with the mind altering drugs under his nose before he knows what happened.

Will Frosty Paws and Obi ever be buddies? Nopers. Will they ever play patty cake? (see video below) Not bloody likely. But it looks like the crisis is almost over... for now... maybe.

This is a recent pic, although their usual hangouts are elsewhere. Obi likes to lie under the kitchen table - this is an improvement from his safe zone on our kitchen counter which is up and away from Frosty (who is too tubby to jump up that high.) Frosty likes the spot between the couch and cactus pot, a nice change from being locked in the computer room. We've even seen them lying two feet away from each other, Obi lying under the kitchen table and Frosty just outside the chair legs.

 But don't look for them to be doing this anytime soon:

Bird Feeder Evolution

Saeed has been working on the bird feeder arrangement. A couple of years ago his mission was to get rid of the marauder squirrels who were eating all the bird seeds. After heckling from me that squirrels were cute and had a right to eat too (and that they were an amazing North American version of monkey), he began to provide special feeders for them as well. The pictures in this post (taken through the kitchen window screen) from about a month ago are already 'old' because he has changed the feeders again to maximize attraction of various bird species, but show two species that we are seeing more frequently than previous years. I'm sure the feeders have a lot to do with it.

We have American goldfinches (Carduelis tristis) GALORE this year. They are primarily seed eaters though will occasionally eat insects. This image is so poor; I need to sit with my camera on our deck like Jim Brandenburg or something. It's so tempting to snatch a beautiful goldfinch image from the internet, but I'll resist.

Yellow - breeding range, Green - year-round, Blue - wintering range

We're lucky to have them all year in the green zone. They are beautiful birds. 

(image definitely snatched from the internet)

This is a red-bellied woodpecker, Melanerpes carolinus . What's odd is that I associate woodpecker eating behavior with pulling insects out of the bark of trees, but we see them (almost always sideways like this) cruising our feeders. Huh! After reading up on it they do eat bugs out of trees and even catch them in mid-air, but they are indeed omnivores and eat seeds and fruits too.

Red-bellied woodpecker range.

No wonder they're called M. carolinus!

(image snatched again from the internet)

I enjoy trying to capture the wildlife in our yard. I'll try to get better pics in the future, but it's hard without a fancy camera and telephoto lens. I'd also like to try to snap each of the species we see since there are so many, but you have to be in the right place at the right time. Too bad I have to work:-)