What is That Bear…

….doing to that deer?? Seen in Folsom St. Coffee on a flyer for a concert to benefit wild animals.

A Peek Inside My Fridge

You know, they say that you can tell a lot about a person by what’s in their refrigerator.
What can you tell about me from mine?

(This is the cleanest my fridge will ever be … and that’s because it’s just 3 hours old.)

I Call 911 and Thankfully It Is Not a False Alarm

I was out with two colleagues last evening, turning what had been a pitiful excuse for an executive networking event into a very productive Internet and affiliate marketing business meeting. We were sitting in the outdoor dining area of 1010 in Boulder, on Walnut (it was quieter outside than in, so we could talk), when I realized I smelled….a lit fireplace? No, I was outside.

Then Gail, who was facing the street said “is that smoke coming from across the street?!” (I had my back to the street – I know, not safe given how many enemies I have).

We all look, and by golly it is. I reach for my phone, and Sopan gets up and goes into the restaurant and tells a waiter. Rather than calling 911, the waiter inexplicably comes out to the patio to look for himself.

There then ensues a debate about whether it’s a fire, or maybe someone is cooking up on the roof (not entirely implausible as the Med restaurant is on the ground floor of the building in question, and some restaurants in Boulder do have rooftop dining). Meanwhile smoke is clearly billowing, not just whisping as if someone were cooking.

Well, you all know me – I’m an action kinda gal, so I grabbed my phone, ducked under the railing while dialing 911, and ran across the street to the building, and went into the restaurant to ask them was there any known reason for the smoke on their roof. While I’m entering the restaurant, and quizzing a staff member there, I’m also telling the 911 dispatcher the coordinates – she is waiting to hear what the restaurant employee says.

“Smoke on our roof? That’s not good,” he says, and runs off to find the manager.

I relay to dispatch that the smoke billowing off the ceiling is not intentional, and she advises me to leave the building (I already am) and says that the fire department is already on its way.

I cross back over to the other side of the street to join my colleagues, turn to look..and..the smoke is gone. I kid you not.

Now I find myself in the unusual moral dilemma of wanting there to be a fire – or at least smoke – so that I haven’t just called in a false alarm, and, of course, not really wanting there to be a fire.

(Sidenote: I know a lot of people who face this same quandry in their dating habits.)

Fortunately, exactly the right thing happens to satisfy all requirements for moral and ethical serenity – the smoke starts up again (or maybe it never stopped, we just couldn’t see the smoke for the tree in the way), and there is fire but, as you’ll see, not one that had become serious.

The trucks arrive (3 of them!), and the firemen approach the roof – some by stair, and some in the cherry picker! That was very cool to watch!

They were there for well over an hour – maybe two – time flies when your enthralled, and eventually they all come down from the roof and start packing up. I’m still too embarrassed that maybe, still, I had wasted their time, and so despite the urgings of my colleagues, I don’t go ask one of the firefighters what it was. So Gail does.

It turns out that there was a fire – in the chimney – as a result of a not-entirely-properly-completed (?) cleaning of the wood-fired brick fireplace in the restaurant.’

So it was good that I called.

And it was good that it wasn’t actually a roof fire.

My colleagues also insisted that I take pictures – which of course didn’t come out as it was dark, and there were bright emergency lights, and it was a phone camera. But here they are.

At last! A shopping cart cup holder!

Have you noticed that nearly every Safeway, Albertsons, and other big grocery chain now has a Starbucks or Starbucks-equivalent in it?

And if you’ve ever been spoiled, like I have, with a shopping cart which has a shopping cart cup holder, you’ll forever long for all shopping carts to have cup holders, to hold your quad non-fat sugar-free frappuccino with extra whip.

Well, guess what I just found for you.

That’s right.

Your very own portable shopping cart cup holder, and it works fabulously! And it’s only $7.50! Less than the cost of just two of those fancy drinks that it’s going to hold!

The velcro straps are just right, and you can probably think of dozens of other uses for it, and other places to hang your beverage!

Pics are below, and you can go here to purchase your very own Shopping Cart Cup Holder

Church Giving Assault Rifle to One Lucky 15 Year Old

You know..I can’t even write about this, as it’s so preposterous – so disgusting – yet so…sadly..true.

So here is the link, but of course comments welcome back here:

Baptist Church in Assault Rifle Give-Away

iPhone Insanity

It’s 3:30 in the afternoon..it’s 96 degrees out.. The Boulder Apple store has been open for 7 1/2 hours..and look at the freakin’ line.

An unnamed Apple store employee said that they weren’t allowed to comment on the insanity..but seemed to agree that it was insane.

Us? We’re headed next door to watch a movie in the air conditioned theatre.
We win.

FDA Won’t Put Warning on Epilepsy Drugs Despite 80% Increase in Suicide Risk

In news of the disgusting, the FDA today decided not to put a warning on 11 epilepsy drugs known to increase suicidal thoughts and tendancies by at least 80%!!! (Some reports put the increase at 100%.)

The FDA, listening to a panel of outside experts, heard that the increase was “only” 2 people in 1000, and the experts said that they were “very concerned … about the risk of unintended consequences of influencing practice and discouraging patients” (from taking antiepilepsy drugs).

According to news reports, the FDA had wanted to require a warning in a big box on all anti-epilepsy drug labels, but was talked out of it by the panel which, of course, included representatives of the drug manufacturers.

The drugs implicated in the suicide and suicidal thoughts increase are:

carbamazepine (Carbatrol, Equetro, Tegretol, Tegretol XR)

felbamate (Felbatol)

gabapentin (Neurontin)

lamotrigine (Lamictal)

levetiracetam (Keppra)

oxcarbazepine (Trileptal)

pregabalin (Lyrica)

tiagabine (Gabitril)

topiramate (Topamax)

valproate (Depakote, Depakote ER, Depakene, Depacon)

zonisamide (Zonegran)

Patients taking any of the above drugs who become stressed at the thought that it might lead to their committing suicide are advised to take Prozac to help with their stress*.

(*That is irony – I am not a medical doctor, and that is not a real recommendation.)

Lovastatin in Over-the-Counter Red Yeast Rice Lowers Cholesterol, Reports Say

Now this is interesting. A new report confirms that the natural food supplement Red Yeast Rice (sometimes erroneously called “Red Rice Yeast”) lowers cholesterol because it contains lovastatin, which is one of the naturally occuring statins that is also used in manufactured statin drugs used to lower cholesterol. Red Yeast Rice is available over the counter, and even from places such as Amazon. The averge cost for a bottle of Red Yeast Rice capsules is $12.00 to $15.00; the average cost for the same number – or fewer – of Mevacor starts at $45.00 for the lowest dose, and goes up to as much as $125.00 for higher dosages.

The report on Red Yeast Rice and its lovastatin component also went on to say that levels of lovastatin in Red Yeast Rice supplements vary widely, and that some brands also contain citrinin, “a mycotoxin with possible nephrotoxicity,” (which means it’s toxic to your kidneys).

The report, from Consumer Labs, said that “Red yeast rice is made by fermenting rice with Monascus purpureus, a species of yeast; it naturally contains compounds known as monacolins, including lovastatin, which is the active compound also seen in some pharmaceutical cholesterol-lowering medications. Published studies have shown daily supplementation with red yeast rice may lower total cholesterol and triglycerides. Recently, a study out of China found people with a previous heart attack who took red yeast rice could reduce recurrent heart attack as well as reduce cholesterol levels.

ConsumerLab.com purchased 10 red yeast rice dietary supplements sold in the United States and tested them for levels of monacolins, citrinin and lead. None of the products were found to contain lead. Four productsâ€”from Solaray, Natural Balance, VegLife and Walgreensâ€”were found to contain citrinin, a mycotoxin with possible nephrotoxicity. Those four products also were found to have the lowest levels of monacolins; levels between 3.1 mg and 10.6 mg of monacolins per pill were reported for products from 21st Century, Cholestene, Chole-sterin, Healthy America, Natureâ€™s Plus and Schiff.”

The bottom line is that if you are going to take Red Yeast Rice supplements, you should avoid the ones with the citrinin, and take one of the four that ConsumerLab found to contain demonstrable levels of monacolins.

The Red Yeast Rice supplements which ConsumerLab found to contain monacolins but no bad citrinin include:

Nature’s Plus Red Yeast Rice supplement (you can purchase Nature’s Plus Red Yeast Rice from Amazon here)

Schiff Red Yeast Rice supplement (you can purchase Schiff Red Yeast Rice from Amazon here)

Cholestene Red Yeast Rice dietary supplement (you can order Cholestene Red Yeast Rice dietary supplement from Amazon here)

21st Century Red Yeast Rice supplement (you can purchase 21st Century Red Yeast Rice supplement from Amazon here)

You may also find these books of interest:

Seen in Espresso Joe’s in Boulder

I love this sign, seen in Espresso Joe’s in Boulder:

R.I.P. Tazi

This is one of the hardest notes I have ever had to write.

Yesterday afternoon I had to say goodbye to Tazi, our dear, sweet, old girl.

Tazi was 17. She’d been with us for 16 years, ever since Memorial Day weekend of 1992. She had been with us through many, many changes – three moves, her girl (our daughter Jessica) moving away, a baby arriving, saying hello and eventually goodbye to two other dogs, saying goodbye to two cats, saying hello to two different cats, and even recently saying hello to a third dog and a mother and baby goat – and had handled them all with remarkable aplomb, just happy to be with her family.

Tazi came to us when she was about one-year old, from a home where she lived for nearly a year with her much-beloved boy, Chuckie. Chuckie was a teenager who had found Tazi as a puppy. On his way to school one day, he had seen a group of kids throwing rocks at something. That something was a little puppy Tazi. He rescued her, and brought her home, and in that classic way of kids, had asked his father: “Can I keep her?”

Dad had said yes, but the next spring, when Tazi started digging in step-mom’s flower garden (she was left outside alone all day while Chuckie was in school), step-mom said that Tazi had to go. It broke Chuckie’s heart – they had been best friends, and every day after school Chuckie would rush home to spend the whole rest of the day outside with Tazi, just sitting with her, and playing his guitar, the two of them together.

And so Tazi came into our life, following a very tearful parting and goodbye from Chuckie. But he said that he was glad that, if she had to go, it was with us. When we went to meet her, he let us take her for a ride, and she jumped right in our car – something that amazed Chuckie, as he said that she *never* did that, so he knew that she knew we were the right ones. We were glad that she picked us, too.

And she always loved going for a ride, and she never dug – anywhere – ever again.

Tazi immediately took to being allowed to be an indoor dog, going in and out as she pleased. She was beautiful, and so very smart. We taught her to ring a cowbell suspended from the doorknob on the back door when she wanted to go out – she would move the bell with her nose so we could hear it and let her out. It took her exactly two times to understand what we were teaching her and to master ringing that bell, and when we later brought our second dog, Nika, home – mostly to keep Tazi company – she taught Nika how to ring the bell as well.

When something was going on outside and Tazi was anxious to get out to see what was going on, she would run up to the door excitedly and bat the bell with her nose furiously, very clearly conveying that she Wanted To Go Out NOW! Other times, when she just maybe needed to go out, or it just seemed like a thing to do, she would saunter up to the bell, and barely touch it all – slowly and lackadaisically brushing the bell with her nose – almost as if to say “Ho hum, I guess that I should go out now, but it’s not really urgent, so I won’t put that much energy into ringing the bell.”

Tazi also very quickly took to protecting her new teenager, Jessica. One time, early on, at a dog park, a dog rushed up to Jessica, barking, and out of nowhere Tazi was in between Jessica and the other dog, teeth bared, warning the dog off.

Her protection extended to all of her family, too. Not long after we got Nika, both dogs were out in the back yard one evening. Tazi came barking to be let in, and we let her in. Then she immediately rang the bell to go out. We let her out. She asked to come in again. Then immediately went out again. It took her stupid humans three times of rapid in-and-back-out for us to realize that she was trying to tell us something and we should follow her. And there was Nika, trapped in a coil of chicken wire, completely immobilized. Tazi had come to get us to help Nika.

One time Simon and I took all three dogs – Tazi, Nika and Ryzhik – camping. We took two tents – one for us, one for the dogs, and set them up right next to each other, about three feet apart, doors facing each other. We settled the dogs down in their tent, then went to sleep in ours. Only Tazi didn’t stay in the dogs’ tent. She spent the night – unmoving – in the space between the two tents – so she could watch over and protect us all.

Tazi came to us just as I graduated from law school, and so I was home all day, studying for the bar. It was summer, and the ice cream truck drove right by our house every afternoon. When we would hear the music of the ice cream truck, we would grab Tazi’s leash, and all three of us would rush out of the house – me, Jessica, and Tazi. And we would each get an ice cream – Tazi too – a little dixie cup of vanilla. She always loved ice cream.

By the time we moved to Colorado this past October, Tazi was slowing down – very much. She was arthritic, and her rear legs were starting to give out. She made the move, however, amazingly well. We drove to Colorado, and she hung out in the back of the car with her companion, Ryzhik – whom we so sadly lost in March. Both dogs, so aged, made the trip so well – three nights in hotels, three-plus days in the car. We were amazed, and grateful and blessed.

In the past few months, though, Tazi’s body deteriorated – although her will to live was always strong – to the very end, she would eat with gusto anything put in front of her. She was on anti-arthritis medications, and taking some homeopathic remedies suggested by our vet, and they did help some, and for a while. But more and more she had trouble getting up on her own – and where, once up, she could walk, although slowly – this week she couldn’t stand or take more than a step without falling over, and her efforts to get up once fallen were heartbreaking. Yesterday the quality of her efforts, and her yelps for help, were drastically different than even the day before, and, it was clear.

It’s a horrible, helpless feeling when the *only* way left for you to help an old friend is to help them die.

Goodbye, my sweet, sweet Tazi. I’m so very very sorry that I couldn’t do more to help you, and I miss you so terribly much.