The random thoughts & events in the life of an animal-loving, peace-loving vegetarian.
I can't promise to write regularly. And I can't promise that it will be interesting when I do.
As everyone knows she just showed up on our deck, skinny and hungry. We took her in to protect her from the elements, took her to the vet to be tested, vaccinated, and spayed, and then we put her in Shirin's old bedroom to recover. After two weeks of not being able to find her a home we took her to Shirin's to foster and use her status as a vet with connections to hopefully find her a home.
Home from the vet.
Out of the bathroom and into the more spacious bedroom.
In her new bedroom (the boys' bedroom) at Shirin and Gabriel's house.
Lucky Asali in the hands of a pro.
I cried a lot that weekend knowing that I was going to say goodbye to a kitty that I'd fallen in love with. I absolutely CANNOT be a kitty foster mother. Although I knew there was no way we could keep her I couldn't bear the thought of leaving her. I'm certifiably insane.
So here are a couple of cute videos of her while still living at our house. I hope Shirin can find her a home soon. She's not particularly nice to Earl and Satin so she needs to find her forever home.
It's hard to believe that Saeed has actually left his teaching job; I thought he'd never want to leave his university office but the endless possibilities of what he could do instead won him over. Adjusting to being more of a full time clinical psychologist will probably take time, but in the meanwhile he had to move out of his beloved #126!
The hallway leading to the psych department.
Each faculty member has their bio up on the board.
His bio.
The hallway in front of his office. He was giving away all those books.
Deciding what gets pitched and what goes home. Behind him is a poster of Picasso's Guernica, the epitome of human suffering, an interesting choice for a psychologist, no?
A more encouraging poster.
An inspiring poster.
It's nice to know the family is right up there with Ali and Einstein.
And a few little knick knacks given to him by two cute little girls sat on his shelves.
I'm sure he has mixed feelings but the way I see it, a page has turned and a new era has started. Now if we could just pry those office keys out of his hand! :-)
It's not that I don't have lots to blog about, which is odd since my life is so stable, fixed. But I struggle to find the free time to do that which interests me as well as that which will keep me healthy. I must accept the reality that my job takes up 10 hours of my day and that I probably spend another hour taking care of our cats as well as the strays at work (which my coworkers and I have started calling our office cats.) Add to that my need for sleep (not that I ever get enough) and that leaves pitiful few hours for the things I really want to do. I believe they call that finding a good balance. It's elusive and challenging for me. That fact that I can't manage to achieve a satisfying balance while working full time is a frustration for me. Time to retire? Not hardly. I enjoy my job, I need the salary, and I need the insurance. But having days off of work sure makes me think about it.
So what's on my plate these days?
I am focusing heavily on lifestyle activities to improve my quality of health in order to prevent those chronic diseases that begin to plague people my age. I do a lot of research to keep up on the current recommendations for all things nutrition-related. Saeed and I both have tightened the screws on our eating habits in order to get as close as possible to what is currently advised to achieve optimum health.
I am focusing on my LiveWELL criteria - an incentive program offered by my employer to make healthy lifestyle choices. This results in a reduction in my medical insurance premium; I saved $600 last year. This requires record keeping, logging in to the site to document, and calling my health coach. Ironically, if I didn't have to do all that I could spend more time exercising.
I am exercising nearly daily. I am happy to say that although I failed in my outdoor running program due to the three H's - hills, heat and humidity - I am having success on my indoor treadmill in front of which sits an air conditioning unit Saeed installed last year (thank you.) I am slowly increasing the number of minutes I can jog at one time. Perhaps one day I'll be able to do a 5K without having to stop to walk.
This weekend I am also trying to pin down some yoga and meditation routines. I won't have much time to do them but when the need arises I don't want to have to spend my time figuring out what to do. The secret is to have an arsenal of plans to implement when the mood strikes.
We have also nearly completed the rest of the painting in the living room. Last summer we did the big job, but the baseboard trim and the wall behind the entertainment center was left undone. We have painted these areas and will need to pull the painter's tape and touch up any bloops, but basically it is finally done.
It is also time to obtain the CEUs necessary to keep my certification. I ordered and received four books with material to read and quizzes to take that will take much time to complete. I always feel jittery in my stomach until I have completed the steps necessary to keep myself current. I have to do this every five years and in the past I just took the re-certification exam but it's like taking the SAT and I thought I would try to do it differently this time. We'll see in the end which method is less painful.
And of course I spend a fair amount of time keeping my kitties happy and healthy too. Obi is happily living on the Banu/Lupe side of the house now. He challenges me daily when I try to give him his pill. Will he chew up the chicken-flavored chew tab? No. OK, how about the tablet hidden in a treat? No, spit that out. OK, how about in some easy cheese? Nope, licked up all the cheese and the treat but the pill is still on the table. OK, time for the transdermal ear gel which he doesn't enjoy near as much as Frosty enjoys having his ears rubbed when I apply his. I go through the same routine with Tippy but she has the added quirk of being put off by any noise or movement. When it's time to pill her I have to tell Saeed, "OK, no sudden movements or loud noises." I get the pill strategically positioned on my finger in some easy cheese and up walks Chappu and smells Tippy's back. No way man and off she goes. Sigh... There I sit with the glob on my finger and Tippy spooked and walking away. But I love them all. All the time spent obtaining the supplies to feed, medicate, and provide bathroom facilities for these creatures is worth it. Even the 40 lb. bags of cat litter I lug into the house in the 98 degree heat.
I want to blog, I really do. But as I sit here typing I keep thinking about the fact that I should have already left the house to go feed the office kitties and go to EarthFare to buy what I need to make tabouleh. Did I mention the ever present laundry? The fact that our cleaning lady is out to recover from surgery? That I only have 21 more daylight hours before I have to go back to work Monday morning? So I hope to find a way to resume blogging. I enjoy doing it and it's the only way my sister can see what I'm up to, but if "Life As I See It" goes dark again please know that I've probably chosen to take a run on my treadmill or carry in a 40 lb. bag of cat litter instead.
I don't have time to blog about Asali right now but Tita wanted to see a video of her. All I have is this one from right after her spay and she curled up in her bed to purr. I'll have to do better this weekend.
Just so you know I'm alive. Went to Atlanta last weekend, kids came in this weekend, and a stray cat wandered into my life again. Will blog more later.
Many years ago on one of her many travels, my sister brought back a very cool set of coffee cups that stacked on a wooden rack in an artistic arrangement. We still lived in the old house at the time and I'm not sure where all those cups are now but I do have one left. It is my favorite cup. It will be a sad day when I have to retire it due to its slowly expanding crack. Maybe I can use it for some other purpose, like a pen cup or a planter. I'll let you know. :-)
I am always searching for good information on nutrition and lifestyle factors that will increase our health and well being. I have discovered and added another tool to my tool kit: Dr. Greger. After signing up on his website I am periodically receiving links to a new blog post or video that he has produced, all based on the most recent science. Here is a short video about him and what he's doing.
Someone
who stays up past his bedtime to wait for his adult daughter to arrive,
even though she can let herself in.
Someone
who comes home early from the rat lab just so he can see those four little
brown eyes peering out the front door.
Someone who did without things for himself so he could put his daughters into private school, swim team, and piano lessons.
Someone
who draws up contracts to keep his daughters safe, contracts about
driving, smoking, spending money.
Someone
who spends his ‘vacation’ fixing one daughter’s apartment and buying her
new tires for her car, and buying new screens on the other daughter’s condo.
Someone
who is affectionate and teaches his daughters about the importance of
receiving love and affection from a man.
Someone
who teaches his daughters about the nature of men, instructing them to
make the man work hard to earn their position as significant other.
Someone
who spends his precious weekends playing basketball with them in the driveway in his
yellow shorts.
Someone
who is hard on them in all the right places to mold them into successful,
competent women.
Someone
who spends hours on the phone at all hours of the night to help his
daughters solve problems.
Someone
who emphasized the importance of virtues and values to his daughters so
that they grew up to be honest, hard-working, compassionate, trustworthy
women.
Someone
who always makes his daughters laugh, resolving many a strained situation
with a funny comment.
Someone
who supported and pushed his daughters to become the best they could be
even when they didn’t want it.
Someone
who spends the money to buy one daughter a new amp for her keyboard, and a
newly cemented backyard for the other daughter’s children.
Someone
who has instilled pride in his daughters for their Persian background.
Someone
who stays up late cooking for his daughters’ visits.
Someone
who suffered the pain of his daughters’ slings and arrows because he made
them practice piano until the timer went off.
Someone
who instilled in his daughters a love of classical music and nature.
Someone
who taught his daughters how to ride a bike and change a tire.
And
most importantly, someone who taught his daughters about living a moral
life by living one himself.
Happy Father’s Day to
my wonderful husband and father of my lucky daughters.
I have written before about Brendan Brazier, a vegan former Ironman triathlete who has won several major races. Now I can add Rich Roll to my list of people I admire for their athleticism and will power. Boy, would I love to be a female version of these guys. All I have to do is find two extra hours each day since that's how much Roll works out.
By Dana Shultz for Diets In Review
Imagine the typical middle-aged American dad. What does he look like? Slouchy business suit, slightly overweight, balding? If this is the person you’ve pictured, consider Rich Roll the exact opposite.
At 45, Roll, a father and entertainment attorney in Southern California, sports a tall, slim physique with well-defined muscles, and dons athletic gear most days. This is a far more accurate picture of this middle-aged dad who became an elite athlete practically overnight.
Roll defied all odds when, at the age of 40, he became an Ultraman – someone who has completed the three-day race in Hawaii that spans 320 miles, including a 10K ocean swim, 260 mile bike ride, and double marathon run.
Becoming an Ultraman is an impressive feat for anyone, but especially for Roll who, just six months prior to the race, was 50 pounds overweight and nowhere near athlete shape. The father of four used to enjoy lounging around and eating a steady diet of pizza, burgers and dairy products. But now, he is 100 percent vegan – practically the opposite of his former self. So what inspired the change?
Roll reached his eye-opening low point when he was climbing the stairs in his home the night before his 40th birthday and became winded and had to stop to catch his breath. It was in that moment that he decided to make a change to better his health and fully committed himself to his transformation, which led him to complete his first Ultraman race less than one year later. Where most extreme athletes would just hope to finish the race, Roll placed 11th without any formal training.
“I couldn’t have imagined it [happening],” said Roll in a 2010 interview with CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He’d never pictured himself at the place he is now, but he admits he’s never felt better.
As for how Roll went about his transformation, he says it took plenty of determination; but it began with food. After analyzing his diet, he determined that eating a vegan diet would be the healthiest route. So instead of pizza and burgers, Roll now eats fruits and vegetables; no meat, no cheese, no eggs or dairy. And despite how many calories he burns in his two-hour-a-day workouts, he says his vegan diet satisfies his body and is capable of powering him through his intense training sessions.
Roll credits his high performance and new vitality to his diet change, saying “I’ve never felt better. My body has never performed better as an athlete, as a father, and as a human being.”
After workouts, the elite athlete says the most important thing to do to help your body recover is to get electrolytes, replenish your glycogen stores, and provide your body with protein. For an example of what Roll eats, a typical breakfast is a blended beet, kale, pumpkin seed and apple juice smoothie. It’s these types of super foods that fueled Roll’s transformation, which took him from overweight dad to fitness guru. Just two years after the switch in 2009, Roll was named one of the “25 Fittest Men in the World” by Mens’ Fitness magazine.
In his new book Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World’s Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself, Roll talks about his amazing transformation into an extraordinary athlete, vegan, author and ultra-marathoner.
Besides just sharing his story, Roll’s ultimate goal for the book is to inspire others to get healthy. “My hope and my inspiration is to be able to play a small role in trying to create a healthier America.” While this may sound like a lofty goal for one man, big challenges haven’t stopped Roll before.
