Entry for January 05, 2007

My weekly news installment from the ASPCA. Lets take time to think about the other species of animals in our lives as we come up to Go Orange For Animals Day on January 10th. Lets see that orange.

TODAY IS NATIONAL BIRD DAY—ARE YOUR FEATHERED FRIENDS SAFE?
January 5 marks the fifth annualNational Bird Day, a time to appreciate the birds in our own backyard and reflect on how we treat native avians of other countries. And if you have companion birds in your home, it’s a great time to think about how to ensure that your feathered friends remain happy and healthy. To help raise awareness about responsible bird caretaking, we’re offering the following poison prevention tips to keep your companion avian in the “sing” of things:

* Birds are highly sensitive to inhalant fumes, so please avoid exposing yours to fumes from self-cleaning ovens and overheated cookware, automobile exhaust, tobacco smoke, glues and paints, insecticidal fumigants, perfume and hair spray.

* Keep all prescription and over-the-counter drugs out of beak's reach, preferably in closed cabinets. Pain killers, cold medicines, anticancer drugs, vitamins and diet pills are all examples of human medications that can be lethal to birds, even in small amounts.

* Never allow your bird access to areas in which cleaning agents are being used or stored. Should your pet ingest them, he could suffer from a range of symptoms, depending on the substance, from mild stomach upset to severe burns of the tongue, mouth and crop.

* Foods and beverages that could be dangerous to birds include:
- avocados
- chocolate in any form
- coffee & tea
- moldy or spoiled foods
- onions & garlic
- tomato leaves and stems
- yeast dough

Please feel free toforward this information to all the pet bird parents in your life. For additional bird safety tips, visitASPCA online.

WEAR YOUR ORANGE FOR ANIMALS ON JANUARY 10!
Here at the ASPCA, we’re going orange in a big way in 2007—and we need your support. Make sure to check our website next Wednesday, when we officially announce plans to help homeless animals this year and beyond.... You might say we’re on a mission!

In the meantime, get ready to show your love and support for animals by going orange in any way you can next Wednesday—and tell all your animal-loving friends and co-workers, too! Send in photos of how you went orange for animals and the ASPCA on January 10, and you could make it into a futureASPCA News Alert. Email your photos togoorange@aspca.org by January 26…and thank you for all you do for the animals!

Shown above are more of my furry family. You have meet Khay the Elder before, the one lying down, and the other is his younger brother, Wannabe. Arn't they beautiful. Of course I am prejudice. \

Happy Friday, you all have a great weekend.

Susan

Poetry Wednesday

photo: New Directions Publishing Corp. Dylan Thomas Dylan Thomas was born in Wales in 1914. He was a neurotic, sickly child who shied away from school and preferred reading on his own; he read all ofD. H. Lawrence's poetry, impressed by Lawrence's descriptions of a vivid natural world. Fascinated by language, he excelled in English and reading, but neglected other subjects and dropped out of school at sixteen. His first book,Eighteen Poems, was published to great acclaim when he was twenty. Thomas did not sympathize withT. S. Eliot andW. H. Auden's thematic concerns with social and intellectual issues, and his writing, with its intense lyricism and highly charged emotion, has more in common with the Romantic tradition. Thomas first visited America in January 1950, at the age of thirty-five. His reading tours of the United States, which did much to popularize the poetry reading as new medium for the art, are famous and notorious, for Thomas was the archetypal Romantic poet of the popular American imagination: he was flamboyantly theatrical, a heavy drinker, engaged in roaring disputes in public, and read his work aloud with tremendous depth of feeling. He became a legendary figure, both for his work and the boisterousness of his life. Tragically, he died from alcoholism at the age of 39 after a particularly long drinking bout in New York City in 1953. This has always been a favorite poem of mine. I hope you will like it also. Do not go gentle into that good night byDylan Thomas Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. A little tid bit of trivia "The White Horse Tavern " where Dylan Thomas literally drank himself to death was my neighborhood bar, one block from my apartment, in New York City. I went there for many years until it turned into a college yuppie hang out. What a loose to the great taverns of this world. click White Horse Tavern

Working in The New Year

I decided I would have a New Years Resolution. A really easy one. Before I start work everyday I am going to make sure I read the comics. I use to get the paper and that was the thing I did with breadfast. Then I started reading them on line from the paper I use to get. So I have them all set up, the ones I like one right after the other, but I sort of fell off the wagon and wasn't reading them for awhile. Now I have decided I need to start my day in a good mood this year and what a better way to do it than reading the comics. I have just finished the comics, my oatmeat and my coffee and I feel much better.

Who out there likes the comics and which one is your favorite. Comics arn't just for kids.

The picture is of my sister Robin and I from when they were visiting. It is an overlook above the valley I live in. The Verde Valley and we are on Mingus Mountain.

I just realized that you can not see the view from where we were standing and this silly Yahoo won't let me, for some reason, delete the picture without losing what I have written...so we are still on Mingus Mountain, you just can't see the Valley.

Entry for December 31, 2006/ A wonderful thought

A friend sent this for a New Years wish and I thought It so wonderful a sentiment that I wanted to share it with everyone.

Entry for December 30, 2006/Pet Poison Danger Alert From the ASPCA

PET POISON ALERT: LIQUID POTPOURRI PACKS A PAINFUL PUNCH
Want a fresh and fragrant home? Before setting out that delicious-smelling potpourri simmer pot, please take heed. Many liquid potpourris contain essential oils and detergents that could prove hazardous to your furry companions, based on an analysis of calls to the ASPCA’s Animal Poison Control Center.

According to the ASPCA’s Dr. Steven Hansen, veterinary toxicologist and senior vice president, the essential oils found in many of these products can cause irritation of the skin, gastrointestinal tract and mucous membranes. More significant injuries are typically a result of thermal burns or exposure to a specific type of detergent. Says Hansen, “A class of detergents known as cationics is usually responsible for severe ulceration of the membranes of the mouth, throat and gastrointestinal tract. Where there is contact with the skin, redness, swelling and extremely painful lesions can appear.” Symptoms of these exposures include drooling, vomiting, depression, metabolic disturbances and difficulty breathing from fluid on the lungs.

Although 10 percent of the liquid potpourri poisoning cases managed by the ASPCA since 2001 have included life-threatening effects, most animals make a full recovery if treated promptly. “However, it is important to note that treatment can be very extensive and may involve a lengthy hospitalization,” says Hansen.

And feline caretakers, please take note—cats are more likely to be at risk than dogs. “This is most likely because cats have greater access to the simmer pots, which are usually kept on countertops or other high-level surfaces,” explains Hansen. Most exposures occur when cats lap up heated liquid from the simmer pot, or when liquid spills on their fur from a leaky container.

To avoid exposing your pet to the dangers of liquid potpourri, ASPCA experts offer the following tips:
- Place potpourri simmer pots and unused liquid in rooms where pets cannot gain access.
- Consider using relatively safer alternatives, such as plug-in or solid air fresheners. (Do take care to use these in out-of-reach locations as well.)
- If you suspect your pet has been exposed to liquid potpourri, please call your veterinarian or the APCC's emergency hotline at (888) 426-4435 for round-the-clock telephone assistance.

For more information on poison prevention, visitAPCC online.

The picture above is Jake dog, my boyfriend and Khay the Elder, ( he's 17)the broken kitty in our family. He has neck problems and doesn't walk to well. Obviously get along great with Jake.

Update on entry of the 28th. My next door neighbor, who is crazy about pit bulls, is now also on the case and swears she will find a home for Smokey(the poor doggies name). In the mean time I have talked to my friend and told her to hang in there. It seems her son really wants to keep the pup but his new wife is too prissy to live any where they might be able to keep him. But they have taken him off to play in the mountains today so he is having a good time. I will go over to her house tomorrow and help her train him to a Gentle Leader, a great training collar, face harness thingy, very gentle. See if we can't help with the barking issue. So keep good thoughts and I thanks you all that have left such wonderful comments regarding the Smokey's plight.

Soon is the new year and that always brings good things (as long as we have no tidel waves)

Entry for December 28, 2006

Christmas is over and the virus I had seems to have run it's course, so I am feeling pretty good and hope that I can finally start cruising everyone's blog. By the looks of it some of you have been busy during the holiday posting away. I on the other hand decided that I would give my shoulders and fingers a good rest while I was laid up.

I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who is trying to find a home for a poor dog that sort of belongs to her son. This kid adopted two dogs about three years ago when he was living with his mother(my friend) then moved out and basicly dumped them on her. She didn't have the gumption to tell him to take the dogs with him. In the mean time he has gotten engaged, had the dogs for a while, has to move found a home for one of them and because the other one is a pit bull can't find a home for him and has dumped him on his mother again who can't keep him because he barks too much. So the kid needs to be out of his place by the middle of January and no one wants the poor dog and my friend is saying(to me of all people) wouldn't it be kinder to put him down if she can't find him a responsible home. Well I jumped right down her throat screaming murder, literally. Told her she was enableing her irresponsible son by taking this burden on herself and he must find this dog a home. Everyone around here has a pit bull, but no one will let you rent with them.

My question is why people are so irresponsible with four legged animals. Especially young adults. Are they brought up wrong? Are most people in general just not caring when it comes to dogs and cats. Their lives mean nothing? Would they have their own children and be this responsible with them, maybe, who knows. Let my folks take the responsible, is that the attitude of most young people. Even my friend seems to have an irresponsible attitude and I know her to be a loving person.

Well I think the thing I can do that will help them most right now is put her in touch with Best Friends, Maybe they can help them find a home for this poor dog and maybe A Paw UP Rescue. On to the phone right now.

I will let you know the out come.

This was going to be a different blog , but things happen.

Susan

P>S> That is my Goldie in the picture

Wishing You a Happy Christmas

I want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a really Fabulous New Year.

This is my wish for that New Year and all those to follow.

PEACE TO ALL BEINGS......

See you all after Christmas. Again have a great one.

I love you all.

Susan