Choosing A Name

Like teachers, I have a lot of contact with people and therefore with names. I feel that for the most part parents have the right to name their kids anything they choose. We choose our children's religion, eating habits, entertainment and clothing. All of these things can be rejected once the kid grows up and can choose for themselves. They can't change their name, though, not without going through a lot of red tape. Seems to me this decision ought to be made responsibly, kindly.

We have a patient with the first name VA-Gina. She goes by Gina of course. WTF? What kind of seriously twisted parents does she have?

On a less serious note we also have a patient with the last name Trench-Gak. Now that's just plain funny to me. "Gak" is the perfect onomatopoeia for a cat bringing up a fur ball. And a trench is another word for ditch, so of course every time I hear her name I have this visual image of a cat throwing up a fur ball in a ditch. When Mr. Gak and Miss Trench got married they should have just picked another random last name, don't you think?

Not really a blog worthy topic but I had to get it off my chest, especially that first one.

Our Last Visit To Athens May 2014

It's fun to post old pictures and relive the memories, especially since these pictures were pre-wedding and the boys (and we) were getting to know their to-be Uncle Daniel.

Baba gave and taught the boys "No Stress Chess." It's been a great success.

We were treated to a leg-wrestling twin off. 

This was the weekend I brought the girls their portion of my mom (and dad's, really) will.


The emotional event was relieved by a bout of thumb wrestling.


Kai needs a lesson about passing the baton in a relay. (And Daniel needs a bigger bike.)


If Cyrus only knew who he was racing against!



Bye bye Athens. I have only fond memories of you.

My Two Little Helpers Make A Boring Job Fun

These are old pics (it feels strange to see the old kitchen floor) but I wanted to share one of Tippy and Chappu's favorite activities - the pouring of dry food from the large bag to the more manageable plastic containers. All it takes is for them to hear the crinkle of the bag (and me thumping the bottom of the empty containers to remove the previous bits of food) to coming running into the kitchen at top speed. Their joy comes from me spilling a few pieces in the process. Those stolen bits on the floor must taste more delicious or something.

Here you see Chappu yelling at me to spill more and get less in the containers.

I missed Tippy doing it, but she got around the problem by standing on her hind legs and eating directly out of the containers.

These cuties make what would otherwise be a boring job an enjoyable one.

Our Dinner At Fern

In my previous post I mentioned winning a dinner for two at Fern, a vegetarian restaurant in Charlotte. I always get silly happy when I know I'm about to enter an establishment in which anything I order will be safe from meat and has vegan options labeled. It's even better when the meal is free (especially to my better half.)

Fern is located in a part of Charlotte that has other veggie friendly, artsy, specialized businesses. The front leaves little space for anything other than parking, but they've managed to squeeze in a little vegetable patch that produces fresh yummies from Mother Nature for our meals.

The wall has an artistic hanging of fabric with cleverly tucked live ferns growing in separate pockets. This is a very cute idea but somewhat neglected looking. We arrived early and the only other customer was this family of four. I wondered if they were vegetarian or just veggie-friendly foodies?

Makes me silly happy.

 While we waited for our appetizer I admired the "ferny" silverware.

 We started with the bruschetta. I don't know what they did to make it taste so good but it tasted sooo good. 

 I got the smoked barley risotto and...

...Saeed got the crispy tofu pad Thai. I wished I'd gotten this once I saw it, not that mine was bad... it was just heavier.

I hope I don't have to wait for and win another raffle to come back here. I liked it a lot!!

Charlotte VegFest 2014

We went to the Charlotte VegFest this year. I think it was the third annual festival for all things vegetarian, vegan, and animal friendly. There were vendors, speakers, food, and music. The weather was fantastic and we met up with our neighbors Kelly and Mark. They are not vegetarian (though she has expressed a wish to) be but they are definitely veggie friendly.

The highlight for me was meeting Gene Baur, President and co-founder of Farm Sanctuary. I've posted videos of the animals at Farm Sanctuary before so you may recognize him when you see his picture:

He spoke at length about the problems associated with raising, killing and eating animals primarily from the ethical viewpoint of animal suffering yet also touched on the nutritional and environmental impact of this industry. I'm always awed when someone can speak passionately and eloquently for an hour without notes or props. He only had 10 minutes after his talk before having to leave for another engagement in LA, but I scooted to the front of the table to speak to him and have him sign my copy of his book, Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food.

I mentioned that we'd seen his debate on Intelligence Squared and he pumped his fist with joy and exclaimed, "And the vegans won!"

Saeed and I really enjoyed the debate and I would love it if you'd watch it:
 

Another celebrity in attendance was Leilani Münter, one of the few successful female race car drivers. Her phrase is, "Never underestimate a vegetarian hippie chick with a race car." Discovery named her the "#1 Eco Athlete in the world." Her website is carbonfreegirl.com.

I did a poor job snapping pics. When I'm enjoying something I pretty much forget to take pictures. I got none of the food vendors but found this cute lady who runs a chicken sanctuary in NC.

I won the raffle (thanks to Saeed's suggestion to put all three tickets in the same jar) and we got a free dinner for two at Fern, a vegetarian restaurant in Charlotte. The lottery tickets I bought were 'delivered' inside this cute bag:

I hope to attend next year and will do a better job with my pic snapping. :-)

Meet Our New Surgeon General - There's Hope For 2015

Don't know if any of you paid much attention to our President's selection of our new Surgeon General who after seven months of squabbling was approved a couple of weeks ago by a 51-43 vote in our Senate. It's really quite amazing that he made it through since he's anti-gun and the NRA was having a fit with his nomination.

Meet Dr. Vivek Murthy, seen here with Senator Cory Booker. 

(I love Booker who is vegan but that may be another post.)

  
So why am I blogging about him? Because he is a breath of fresh air. A growing minority of us believe that the government's status quo position on health care and the role nutrition plays needs to go. We still give subsidies to the meat and dairy industries and not the fruit and vegetable industries, knowing that our citizens don't eat enough produce. We have one of the sickest populations in the West. Hate to go all valley girl on you but, um helloooooo?

Dr. Murthy is wicked smart. He graduated valedictorian of his high school, did his undergrad at Harvard University (graduating magna cum laude in three years' time) then got a combined medical and business degree from Yale. He currently practices at Brigham's and Women's Hospital and get this --- he's 37 years old. I've also read that Dr. Murthy has almond milk, carrots, and high-protein grains in his fridge, another sign of intelligence :-)

 I reward you for reading this post with the following Jon Stewart video:

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive

Wishing You a Healthy Happy New Year!!

(eat your fruits and vegetables)

Buddies - Love This Picture

Chappu (L) and Tippy (R) can often be seen just hangin' out together. Chappu likes to lick Tippy's head and Tippy enjoys it so much she never asks Chappu to stop. Obi used to enjoy Chappu's licking but after a minute or two it ended in a tussle. The relationship these girls have warms my heart. It looks like Tippy has her arm around Chappu... OK tail.

Final Kitchen Post

I'm not as tardy as you'd think, seeing as we still have to do the final walk through with the folks who did our remodeling. There have been A LOT of problems. Our biggest complaint is that no one seemed to be overseeing the work that was being done. Instead of a supervisor noticing that the shoe molding hadn't been replaced, that the old paint was showing through the new paint, cabinet doors had gouges in them, a few of the floor planks had lumps under them, the caulking was cracking off, etc. etc. etc., we had to walk around with note pads and keep asking them to come fix stuff. We do like the final results though; here it is from left to right: (click on any pic to enlarge)

Let us know when you're available and we'll invite you over for dinner!

Hmmm...

Seems at the very least I could complete posting about the new kitchen. Perhaps tomorrow...

Remodeling The Kitchen - Update #1

There has been more activity on our kitchen project recently. A couple of weeks went by when nothing much happened but the original finish date was to be October 2 and that date has come and gone. I expected as much. Lowe's has been good about keeping us up to date on the calendar changes but they haven't seemed to hire the best quality workmanship. Saeed contacted them to say we are seeing some problems and today I spent two hours going over the work and putting sticky notes where the problems are. Our project manager will be coming tomorrow to see what's going on. I feel sure they'll address the problems satisfactorily.

The cabinets have been put in. The structure in the foreground is the island. I didn't realize it would be so long but that's all good - lots of extra storage space inside it.

This is where our white desk and phone used to be.

This used to be our pantry. The refrigerator will go in there and we have nice cabinets surrounding it.

The counter top has been installed. This picture doesn't do it justice.

It's very pretty.

One day half the floor was down and...

... the next day it was done.

The backing of the island was attached and an electrical socket was put in so appliances can be used on the island. Notice also the under cabinet lighting that's reflecting off the counter. Pretty!

Our new sink (no water yet) and our new dishwasher.

So that's where we are right now. Hope the meeting with the project manager goes well tomorrow.