Month: February 2018

Cats and Carrots

I wanted to call this Carnivorous Cat Carrot Confessions, but decided that even for me that was a long title. As a total aside – part of me was terrified to use the word “confessions” in the title. Years ago, in what I think might have been my 4th or 5th blog post ever, I used the word “seducing” in the title. I’m not even going to give you the whole phrase. I was APPALLED at the hits on my blog and the URLs that sent people to my post. EUWWW. I changed the name of that post and it took weeks for all of the cached hits to finally vanish. As part of my TRUE CONFESSION (I’m sooooo daring!) I actually called this Cat Carrot Confessions. I then took a phone call, came back, looked at the title, shuddered, and changed the title. Ah, the power of the internet to ruin perfectly good words.

ANYWAY….

Cats are, so says the internet, obligate carnivores. I found a very interesting article that may or may not be accurate (the problem with the internet) but it supports my point of view so I’m using it. 🙂 Now I’ll pick and choose the facts that *I* find important. The author described the term “obligate carnivore” as an animal that MUST eat meat for survival. Cats –> eat meat. The author also states that cats have lost certain metabolic functions because the cats don’t NEED that function. Her example was on carbohydrates – you don’t need to break down carbohydrates if you are not eating carbohydrates. She (the author) goes on with some great examples of other meat-eating creatures and how no one would dream of feeding them vegetables but somehow we think it is okay to give carbs to our cats. Another article on “Vegetarian Cat?” put it even more succinctly: cats eat meat and if their health will be in trouble if you try to turn them into herbivores.

This brings us to carrots. According to Wikipedia, “Carrots are 88% water, 4.7% sugar, 0.9% protein, 2.8% dietary fiber, 1% ash and 0.2% fat.” See that 4.7% sugar 2.8% dietary fiber? There are carbs in them thar sugars and fibers.

Meat –> no carbohydrates.
Carrots –> carbohydrates.
Cats –> NEED meat.
Cats –> do NOT need carrots.
WHY ARE THERE CARROTS IN THE CANNED CAT FOOD??????

MY cats live a very good life and are very spoiled. My vet always says she wants to come back as one of my cats. I try to feed them well. Okay – I don’t take anywhere near as wonderful care of MY cats as @catsherdyou does of HER cats, but I’m pretty good. There are 3 of them now and they get wet food in the morning and evening. I use a mixture of prescription kidney diet and an over-the-counter (very expensive) brand. One of my girls has kidney and thyroid issues and that means I need to get medicine into her morning and night. Some people have cats that you can pick up and hold and cuddle, but my 2 big girls missed that memo. I cannot hold those cats. That means the medicine is delivered ground up and in the wet food. Which means I stand there watching the 3 of them eat and making sure that each eats from the correct dish (at least until all the treated food has been consumed). 3 cats. Two are over 15 years old, one is nearly 5. Not ONE of those cats eats the stupid carrots that are in the food. Even the PRESCRIPTION food has carrots in it!!!! (and potatoes!!!) Cats excel at pushing food around on the plate and picking only the preferred morsels from the middle of the dish. Once the food is pushed to the sides, it as if the dish was completely empty. Sad/accusing eyes implore me to “fix it”. I push all the food back to the center of the dish, add more warm water and replace the dish. The carrots are NEVER a preferred morsel. There are always carrots left on the plates.

Cats. Carrots. Where is the confession? I’ve begun picking out the carrots before I even put the dishes down. I don’t know who in canned cat food land or prescription cat food land thought carrots belonged in cat food, but I’m here to tell you that my cats don’t agree. Me-euwww.

I confess, your Honor – I remove the offending carrots.

Questions on My Mind

Celery. My experience has been that either people love it or hate it. It seems most of my coworkers’ spouses HATED it. With a capital H. Or would that be with a capital C? I know this because I used to bring celery sticks to munch and my coworkers would steal some because they never had it at home. I confess that I don’t always like celery in my salad because sometimes it just has TOO MUCH crunch, right? You don’t always want your salad fighting back. But for a dietetic snack, especially when you know you will be indulging later in the evening – celery is great. Because I’m out of cucumbers which are actually better, but not when you don’t have any.

Which brings me to the question. No, not why are there no cucumbers in the refrigerator – we put them in the salad. I made myself some celery and took a bite and – YUCK. It was bitter. The celery I was munching on YESTERDAY wasn’t bitter. It was almost sweet. Why is some celery bitter and why is some celery NOT bitter and how can I make sure I have the not-bitter celery? I guess that’s actually 3 questions. 🙂

The next question on my mind is tougher. I’m sure there will be no answers for this one. Search on the internet all you want. I have a scar. Don’t worry – I’m not going to discuss where it is or how I got it or how old it is. *I* understand that there are somethings which don’t need to be shared with the world at large. Or at small, either. What you DO need to know about this scar is that it is my weather forecaster. I never ever think about this scar. I’ll be minding my own business, thinking about things like celery, and hello! My scar aches. It has a special “the weather is going to change” ache. It’s right too. The weather DOES change. The tricky part is WHEN will the weather change??? Once my scar wakes up and says “weather’s going to change”, how much time elapses before the barometer drops and the storm moves in? According to the weather forecasts – sometime tomorrow night. That seems a long way off for my scar to know. Surely the barometer or whatever isn’t falling already, is it? Does my scar get weather alerts from some other source? Should I be prepared SOONER than the internet predicts, or should I be prepared LATER? The scar alert has sounded. When do I take heed?????

Is a puzzlement. And aren’t you glad I didn’t post any pictures?

Don’t Share

In this world of social media, in this world of sharing our every thought, our every reaction, what we eat, what we don’t eat, what we like, what we don’t like, and every breath and every everything, I still believe that there are some things that don’t need to be shared.

Ahhh, I’m sure you all think I mean politics or religion or guns or all the OTHER things that I skip over in my various social media feeds. You’d be wrong.

One of my contacts just posted (with photos) that she is starting a 5 day juice cleanse. Instead of eating her veggies she’ll be drinking them with a whole lot more water.

I rebel and protest. This is really the kind of thing that gets you blocked.

#TMI #TMI #TMI #TMI #TMI #STFU

Identity Crisis

If you have known me awhile, or read this blog back in its early days, you know that I have several defining traits. I like shoes. BIG TIME like shoes. One could even say I adore shoes. You could even call me the Imelda Marcos of SL/NJ.

I also love to read. Waaaaay back in the dark ages before kindles and ebooks and the internet, I would frequent the book stores on my lunch hour and buy and buy and buy books. Paperbacks, hardbacks, authors I knew, authors I didn’t know. Books. I was always reading. It’s a family trait. Time for a little reminiscing. When my sister and I were young ‘uns, there was a bathroom in the basement of the house. The basement was totally icky. Really icky. Bugs. Spiders. Those horrible hundred-legger thingies. Dark with naked light bulbs with strings for on/off. My father asked us what he could do to get us to use the bathroom in the basement. We conferred and came back and said: put in bookshelves. He didn’t and we continued to not use that bathroom. *grin* Books & reading. That’s my pleasure. We’d go to the beach for a week in the summer and I’d bring 14-16 books with me and finish them all.

This next trait may be less well known, or maybe I’m kidding myself. 🙂 I push myself hard. I like working out. I subscribe to the “no pain no gain” mantra. I know there are pictures of Ahuva on the treadmill here in this blog. I have a treadmill, rowing machine, bicycle and free weights in my basement (which is NOT dark and icky and DOES have bookshelves). I love my rowing machine and treadmill. My treadmill is fairly new – only 3 years now, and it has a zillion trendy features. For years my friend tried to get me to do yoga (she’s a yoga instructor) and then my sister took it up and loved it. My sister got me to go to a stretch class last year. The class was great even though they were “sneaking” yoga moves into it. But yoga is NOT for me. I DID try it once and it did NOTHING for me. I always sneered and said not my thing – it has to HURT to be good. Run. Weights. Row. Core. Sweat sweat sweat.

I don’t watch TV much. Yes, my Superbowl party IS one of my top parties of the year for me, and yes, I did go and buy a brand new TV this year just for the party. (I can explain why if you are really interested. Even if you are not. I didn’t want to move the 55″ curved TV from the sunroom into the living room so I bought a 49″ 4g tv for the party. Anyone interested in buying a used TV?) But TV is not my thing. I had 2 exceptions to that: True Blood and the old Weather Channel. I LOVED the original weather channel. I can’t stand what it’s become. But I would turn on the TV and watch the weather channel and be entertained. True Blood. Oh Em Gee. I loved loved loved True Blood. I thought about Sookie and Bill and Tara and Jason and all of them regularly. I STILL feel as if they are people I really know and are my friends. I was Club Bill, btw, not Club Eric. 🙂 But other than the old weather channel and True Blood, I really didn’t watch much TV. I’ve been watching much more in the last few years (True Blood kind of broke down my resistance) but mostly it’s because I’m hanging out with my husband. It’s the togetherness and not the longing for a show.

So that’s me. Shoes, books, working out and pushing myself, no TV. Or is it?

I think I might have been swapped.

The last 4 times I have walked into DSW, the mecca of the shoe buying world, I have not even found anything I wanted to try on. Not boots, not heels, not sandals. Nothing appealed. It’s been MONTHS since I saw any footwear that called to me.

I went into Barnes & Noble as a treat to myself the other day. Wandered all over. Fiction. Mysteries. Sci Fi. Remaindered. I could not find a single thing I wanted to buy. Even buying ebooks – very very few things for which I’ll pay the $. There is always at least ONE new book to call my name in a bookstore. Nothing.

Back in October I joined the local fitness studio. They have 2 studios – fitness and yoga. I hung out in the fitness studio, doing boot camp at 6:30 am Mondays and Wednesdays. Gabe is a fantastic instructor – positive, encouraging, suggestions for alternate moves that take into account damaged knees, neck, feet. I needed a third class. I tried the TRX (you use these hanging hammocks – go look it up). Didn’t like it. I tried the warm yoga flow – couldn’t keep up, had no idea what they were doing. Couldn’t make the Zumba time slot.

I took the beginner yoga class every Sunday morning. It was a lot like the stretch class if I tuned out the Om. 🙂 I got better and better at the positions. I ventured back to the warm yoga flow class. I could DO it. I even – yes – LIKED it. In the meantime, I went to those boot camps every time the studio was open and I was healthy. If I missed Gabe in the morning I’d go for Kelley in the afternoon, another phenomenally upbeat great trainer. I HATED boot camp. HATED it. It was everything I used to love. I spent every minute of it hating it and saying to myself “only 60 more seconds – you can do 60 more seconds”. I went, I didn’t miss because I hated it, but it was 3 months and I still had not slipped back into loving/needing/craving my workout. When the workout was over, even then I didn’t feel good. All I felt was thank heavens I’m done for x hours til the next class. And I added hot yoga to my scheduled. In the middle of January I reached a decision: no more boot camp. I proved I could do it. I proved that my willpower is still intact. Yes, I got better and stronger but so what. I checked my schedule and I can make a lot of the yoga and every now and then I get lucky and can fit in the ultimate stretch class too. 🙂

The final blow came just a few minutes ago, the prompt for this post. Jessica Jones Season 2 is being released March 8. I got all excited and sent an email to my husband in all caps about JESSICA JONES!!!!!!!

Who the heck AM I?

I don’t buy shoes.
I don’t buy books.
I’m excited about a TV show.

And omg – I’m loving yoga.