For a few days, I couldn’t walk Sassy. Not only was my hand all bandaged up and painful, I just couldn’t do it. I kept my distance, as much as it hurt to do so.
I’ve walked her at least twice per day, every day, for the nearly 13 years that she’s been living with me. It’s part of my life. Even though she doesn’t get excited about walks anymore because of her dementia — in fact, sometimes she appears like she really doesn’t want to leave the house — I still take her.
So, I just put one foot in front of the other and started taking her again a few days after I got out of the hospital, and it’s been fine.
We had one rough morning where we got back from our walk and I was trying to put her diaper back on and she wouldn’t cooperate.
With gritted teeth, I whispered under my breath: “You bit my fucking hand and I was in the hospital for two fucking days, you fucking dog. Let me put this fucking diaper on you.” Hey, at least I didn’t yell.
Gradually I began felt more and more comfortable petting her and cuddling with her again. I kept reminding myself that although she’s always been a biter — ask any of my friends or family members, because they all have stories — she’s always defended me, she’s always been gentle with me, and I think she loves me, and when she bit me it was an unusual situation and she had no idea what she was doing. She didn’t mean to hurt me.
I think I’ll always have my guard up somewhat, though. I wish I could forget about what happened, but I can’t.
Sassy still seems traumatized. When we’re on a walk, she will slow down and sometimes even stop if she sees another person. If she sees another dog, she won’t budge an inch until the dog moves out of view. The night of the attack, Wednesday, Jan. 6, she barked in her sleep.
I took her to the vet to get her eyes checked — she has glaucoma — last Wednesday and I mentioned to her veterinarian what had happened. She understood that the extreme circumstances made it unlikely that Sassy would do this again. After all, another dog was attacking her and I was just trying to pick her up when Sassy bit my hand
Still, she brought up the subject of euthanasia for the first time in light of her age and her dementia, which has only gotten worse over the last six months despite being on meds. I’m sure there will come a day when this has to happen. After all, she’s 16. She’s okay now, but if she continues to decline, it might be something we’ll have to face.
I asked Dr. L. how to make that judgment about “when.” She told me it’s not an easy call to make, and every person and pet is different. It hinges upon her quality of life above all, and if that goes into such a decline, it might be more merciful to let her go then make her continue.
I’m reading a book now (thanks again, Emily, for sending this to me!) called Speaking for Spot, which is about how to advocate for your dog as you navigate health issues, and I’m finding it helpful. If you’re going through something similar, of if you have a dog, period, I recommend it.
All of this is tough to write about, talk about and think about. I hope we won’t have to face this anytime soon.
My hand is pretty much all healed. I had a follow-up visit Monday and the infection is gone, and I don’t have to wear that cast/brace thing anymore.
If only emotional healing could be as clean and quick as physical healing.
Just over a week ago today, Sassy and I were about to finish up our evening walk when I spotted a guy with a dog approaching. It was dark, but as they passed under a street lamp, I could see the dog pulling and jumping all over the sidewalk. It didn’t appear to be leash-trained.
As we walked by them, Sassy and I stepped onto the curb, between a sidewalk tree and a car, so we could avoid them. Normally I’d either walk in the street or cross the street to prevent any encounters since she’s absolutely petrified of other dogs. But we were a few doors down from home, I didn’t.
Big mistake.
Somehow the dog got free and went directly for Sassy. She cowered and yelped and fell into the gutter and I put my arms around her to protect her. She’s less than 20 pounds and she’s 16 with dementia and this dog looked twice her size and young.
In the confusion and in what I can only assume was abject terror, Sassy accidentally bit my right hand.
Hard.
I screamed.
The guy just stood there and watched all of this happen. He said: “She’s only 10 months old,” as if that was meant to explain anything.
When a dog misbehaves like this, you can’t blame the dog. This asshole blamed the dog. It was his damn fault for not controlling her and allowing her to attack Sassy.
“Well, you need to control her better,” I said as I stood up, surprising myself at my calm tone and lack of profanity.
I took this about an hour after it happened. So small and harmless, right?!
We rushed inside and I got the first glimpse of my hand in the light. There was a puncture wound in the fleshy area under my thumb, and the first drops of dark red blood started to appear. The pain was sharp and stabbing and I screamed, I hopped around, I cried. I sat down on the couch and rocked and wailed and sobbed harder than I have in years.
Meanwhile, Sassy was pacing, which she spends a lot of time doing because of her dementia, but now she was running in circles. I noticed she’d peed on the kitchen floor, something she does out of anxiety sometimes. With my left hand, I stroked her whole body and didn’t see any signs of injury from the other dog. She was just completely freaked out.
I texted Mike at work and he called. He told me to wash it out but I couldn’t because it hurt too much.
After we got off the phone, I took a few deep breaths and ran some soapy water over it because he was right, it needed to be cleaned. Then I wrapped it in some paper towels, which were blood spotted before long.
After a bit, the pain was less acute, and Sassy and I were calmer and now exhausted. So I set out to do what anyone would do while I waited for Mike to come home: Sit on the couch, turn on the most recent episode of “The Bachelor” and drink a glass of wine.
But we recently got a new TV and I couldn’t figure out how to turn it on, and we were out of wine. Womp womp.
So, I sat back down at my laptop and wasted time using my left hand (I’m right handed) until Mike got home.
He cleaned it out more with soapy water and alcohol and covered it in bandages. It didn’t look good — it was starting to swell and it hurt like a motherfucker. It was bearable, though. I thought a serious dog bite would be bigger, bloodier, much scarier.
But I later learned smaller bites like this are actually more dangerous. Cat bites are even worse, I was told, because their longer, sharper teeth can send bacteria deeper into tissue, even though the wound would appear to be tiny.
We thought we’d keep and eye on it and maybe we’d go to the hospital in the morning but I didn’t want to be viewed as an alarmist hypochrondriac. It would probably be fine. I planned to email my boss in the morning to request a half day to get it bandaged up properly. We had no idea how bad it was.
This delay in getting treatment was the cause of all the crap that would follow over the next few days.
I took a Tylenol before bed and the pain woke me up when it wore off, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. In the morning, Mike noticed it had become even more swollen, and it felt like a piece of raw meat at the end of my wrist. He firmly said we were going to the ER. We didn’t know it at the time, but if we had waited any longer I’d be in an even bigger mess.
Hospital
We took an Uber to Thomas Jefferson University Medical Center last Thursday morning. There was nobody waiting in the ER so I got in immediately. I was put on IV antibiotics right away, and that IV stayed in my arm for more than two days. I got x-rays (nothing remarkable) and a hand surgeon was called.
In the ER Thursday. Getting more swollen.
The upshot was that in the hours since the bite, my hand had developed a severe bacterial infection from Sassy’s nasty hot garbage mouth. We should’ve come in right away because the infection just got worse overnight.
The other issue was that the wound was pretty small and the stuff coming out of it kept drying up, creating a roof on the wound when the nasty junk needed to get out.
The hand doctor squeezed the hell out of my wound trying to get some of the pus out.
I’ll spare you the other details but he did some stuff that hurt so much that I screamed fuck over and over while grasping Mike’s hand. (I also got a shot of lidocaine into my hand, but it hurt like hell and didn’t really numb me much at all.) Mercifully, I was given small doses of morphine every few hours in my IV line.
I couldn’t do much of anything with my right hand. I couldn’t even touch my pointer finger and thumb.
I was shocked when I was told I’d have to stay overnight. I had no supplies with me. I really thought Mike and I would be out of there within an hour or two and if we had time, we’d go to buy a new car, something we needed to do so Mike could get to his new job more easily, before I had to get back to work around lunchtime.
Mike brought his laptop and got some work done at my bedside
Later on I was moved upstairs for observation where I stayed until Friday night, then I was moved to a different part of the hospital until my discharge Saturday. I was on two different IV antibiotics and I’d get a new bag every couple of hours hours. Every few hours my vital signs — pulse, blood pressure and temperature — were taken.
So, I didn’t even try to sleep Thursday night, I just read news articles and blogs on my phone, texted and emailed people using my left thumb to type (very frustrating, but it killed time because it took me so long) and chatted with the nurses and techs who came in to do stuff to me. Mike had brought me my Kindle, but my mind was too foggy from pain pills to focus on a book. Because of all the activity and worry about my hand, I was barely even tired. At that point I was being given two Percocet every two hours so I was definitely woozy, though.
I had to wear this arm sock for a few days, which hung from my IV rig.
I was wearing my cherry and white Temple University shirt (until Mike brought me a new one) and just about everyone who came in asked me if I went to Temple, if I taught there, if I graduated from there. I was grateful for the conversation at first but after the third or fourth time I wanted to give everyone who brought it up the side eye. I also got tired of answering questions about how I got the dog bite. I just wanted to go home.
Things came to a head Friday afternoon. The day before, a nurse practitioner had drawn a line on my hand around the swollen part, which consisted of the area from my middle finger to my wrist to my thumb.
By mid-afternoon, the swelling had spread past the line. Now my paw was so swollen it appeared as if it belonged on someone else’s body. It looked like a meat balloon and my fingers looked like chubby hot dogs and it felt like it was going to explode. Even my wrist was huge and puffy.
From the start there was talk of possible surgery, which sounds scary but it just would involve cutting my hand open more to allow it to drain and combat the infection.
Friday afternoon, when it was clear that my hand was just getting worse, one of the hand surgeons performed a bedside incision and drainage procedure with local anesthesia as I held Mike’s hand. I was glad I didn’t have to go into the operating room, which would have cost so much more, even with insurance.
Exhausted and looking rough but happy to be talking a walk on Saturday
I hadn’t been permitted to eat for more than 10 hours in case they needed to put me under in the OR, so once my hand was bandaged up again, Mike and I feasted on veggie hoagies that his mom and stepdad brought for us.
I was able to sleep for a couple hours early Saturday, until I was awoken by another hand doctor before the sun came up. He cleaned out the incision and squeezed it and said it still didn’t look that great, but it did look better, so they were going to try to discharge me later that day. Woo hoo!
I was feeling better (maybe it was the Percocet) and they unhooked my IV and let me get up and walk around Saturday morning. After being in bed for so long it felt so good to stretch my legs. I wandered the halls, texted Mike — he was out buying a car with guidance from his stepdad — looked out the window, and just relished the freedom.
Bandaged up and ready to go home!
A little while later, another hand doctor came by and confirmed I would be discharged in a few hours! I had to keep my hand wrapped and they gave me an antibiotic that I have to take every eight hours for 10 days.
I was in the mood to celebrate with pizza as Mike picked me up in our beautiful, shiny just-like-new Honda Accord! But, they gave me one dose of the oral antibiotic before I left, and I hadn’t eaten. So I had Mike pull over and I got sick in some parking lot, then a little while later I got sick again at home as our victory pizza got cold. I fell asleep at 7 p.m. and didn’t wake until 15 hours later.
The current state of my hand
My follow-up at the Hand Center on Monday was a hot mess. I thought I was doing great and I assumed they’d take a look at it, pat me on the head and send me home. But there were worried looks and talk of a second fucking surgery to allow more of the gunk in there to drain. The infection is still there.
The doctor said they were going to put my hand in a splint. This is to immobilize my hand and keep the infection from spreading. I thought it would be some small thing, but I was fitted with a custom made removable plastic cast/brace with velcro straps that makes my arm look like a freaking robot arm. I couldn’t believe it.
Robot arm
I can’t work with that thing on. My right hand is busy! So I wear it when I’m done working. I also have to soak my hand for 30 minutes per day at least twice a day in a peroxide and water mixture. I go back next Monday so I’m hoping they’ll tell me it’s finally looking good.
The occupational therapist who made my robot arm asked me about Sassy and my injury, and I was surprised by the words that came out of my mouth: “I’m afraid of my dog now.” I felt tears coming to my eyes and I just wanted to sob, but I kept my shit together.
This is really long, so in my next post I’ll talk about the emotional side of what happened. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading.
Up until about 3 p.m. yesterday, New Year’s Eve, Mike and I hadn’t decided on how to celebrate. I thought we’d go to the South Philly Taproom or another neighborhood haunt. But in the end we felt meh about everything we came up with, so we stayed home. And it was the best decision!
The funny part is that we did what we usually do on Friday nights, although last night was Thursday. But there was something extra special about it. You see, not only were we celebrating the new year, we had something bigger to celebrate: Mike’s new job!
Pouring the Glenkinchie for the very first time!
The Friday night routine starts around 6. Sometimes we head out to The Bottle Shop, our neighborhood beer store, which also has a few taps and a little bar, for a beer. Then in the midst of that Mike will call to order a pizza. (Although this is my favorite version of our Friday night routine, sometimes, like last night, we don’t head to The Bottle Shop. It closed yesterday at 4 p.m.)
We like the pizza light on the bottom, so he’ll ask for that. Then we’ll finish our beers and walk to Francoluigi’s a few blocks away.
This is a great place and if you’re ever in South Philly you should go here. Here’s my Yelp review.
The front of Francoluigi’s consists of a counter and a few tables for takeout, and in the back is the High Note Cafe, a nice dining room with live entertainment. The last time we ate there a three-piece jazz band was performing. The owner is a singer, and he also cooks, so he’ll often pop in and sing a few songs wearing his white apron before heading back into the kitchen.
My awesome NYE attire. I really make the effort!
We don’t visit the restaurant part very often, although we should. We’re in the takeout part every week, so much that they know Mike. The guy behind the counter is a real character, and last night he crowned Mike as “Cooked Light Mike” because of his weekly request for a barely-cooked pie. Other customers who were waiting for their food chuckled too as the counter guy said, “Cooked Light Mike! You’re an icon here now!”
We left Francoluigi’s laughing our heads off as we walked into the night, pizza in hand.
The next part of our Friday night routine is we put the pizza aside for later and we each have a cocktail. Mike has a martini with blue cheese stuffed olives and he makes me whatever cocktail he can come up with.
But last night, we added something special.
When we were in Scotland, we splurged on some really good scotch. We learned so much about scotch over there and I really fell in love with it. We decided to taste it when Mike found a new job, though, so the scotch sat on Mike’s dresser for more than three months. I’d look at it every day and wonder when we’d actually get to try it.
Taking a deep whiff…
Well, this week Mike secured a brand new job, which means it was scotch time! (It’s funny that in Scotland it’s called “whisky,” but in the U.S. it’s called scotch to differentiate it from American-made whiskey, which we call bourbon.)
Anyway, in Scotland we bought a box consisting of a 12-year Glenkinchie, a 14-year Oban and a 15-year Dalwhinnie, all single malts. We learned the proper technique for tasting and how the character can change to much by adding just three drops of water.
We brought out the whiskey glasses and tried each, one by one. It was so much fun! It felt wonderful to finally try them.
After that, we turn on the oven and have another drink while it heats up. We choose the pieces of pizza we want to eat, and Mike adds some blue cheese from his martini prep and five minutes later the pizza is ready. (That’s why we ask for it light on the bottom, because we don’t eat it right away and recook it!)
By that time we have settled upon something to watch on Netflix or Amazon Prime or On Demand. Last night we discovered “Master of None,” a Netflix series starring Aziz Ansari, and it was so hilarious we actually laughed out loud for a few hours. I’d describe it as a combination of “Girls” and “Sex and the City,” but with men as the main characters, and a little “Seinfeld,” maybe. Go watch it!
As midnight approached, we retired to the boudoir with a bottle of champagne and watched the fireworks from the window. It was truly perfect.
If someone were to ask me to describe my ideal last night on earth, it would be this Friday night routine. I really love nothing more than hanging out at home with Mike and the pets along with some good food and drinks.
It’s the little things, you know?
I was going to make some New Year’s resolutions, but I really have just one: To have gratitude for the magical moments in life, even if they’re just routine nights at home with a pizza and Netflix.
The other thing we decided to hold off on, in addition to trying the whiskey, was buying a cat tree. So, I’m off to order one from Amazon…
How did you celebrate the new year?
We also had a new job-celebrating dinner at Izumi on Wednesday nightA good reason to stay home on NYE: Sassy is terrified of fireworks so she needs to wear her Thundershirt and be comforted by usFireworks are scary!
Since I wrote about Sassy’s eye emergency a few weeks ago, I feel like we’ve entered into a new normal: caregiving.
It might seem strange to refer to taking care of a pet as caregiving. Isn’t that what we do all the time — making sure our animals get food, exercise, medical attention, and so on?
Yes. But to me, caregiving is when things are intensified, when the animal needs care that goes far beyond the day-to-day stuff.
A screenshot of her meds on the Medisafe app
And that’s where we are with Sassy.
She’s still on the six medications (three oral meds and three eye drops) for her glaucoma and three medications for her dementia. Some of the meds are given every other day, some twice a day, others once a day.
This new normal means getting notifications throughout the day from an app called Medisafe that helps us keep track of what she needs. Otherwise it would be a confusing mess.
This new normal also means she’s wearing diapers now. She’s never been good at letting us know when she has to go, and one of her medications results in her having to pee all the time.
After too many accidents in the house, we resorted to buying Simple Solution dog diapers. The first time we put a diaper on her, she seemed upset and managed to pull it off. So I ordered diaper covers that have Velcro fasteners, so they act sort of like undies for her and so they’ve stayed on.
Getting the diapers on her is a struggle for me because she’s always squirming and trying to sit down and/or get away. So Mike has become the designated Diaper Guy, and he’s really good at it!
Another facet of this new normal: We have to carry her up and down the stairs. I think this is more a function of her dementia — diminished motor control is one of the symptoms. She’s also on a painkiller that makes her woozy, so it would be a disaster if she attempted the stairs on her own. We use a baby gate to keep her off them.
At first she was trying to bite us (and sometimes succeeding) as we carried her up and down the stairs, but now she’s passive and just lets us. I think she knows she’s not able to do it on her own anymore. We even have to carry her up and down the two steps leading from the sidewalk to our front door.
I had a dream recently that Sassy was flying up and down the stairs on her own like she used to, and that made me really sad.
She’s been at the veterinarian’s office every week for the past two weeks, yet another part of this new normal of ours, and it’s getting expensive. But whatever, you do what you have to do.
We have one visit this week, another the following week, and hopefully after that her eye pressure will be stable enough to go for longer between visits. We’re trying to transition her off one of the eye drops, but she’ll need some of these meds long-term.
I do know for sure we can’t leave her alone for more than an hour or two, so we won’t be going on any sort of vacation anytime soon. I’m glad I work from home and Mike does too most of the time.
She’s our baby and we’ll do everything we can for her.
I used to have lots of fears, and they mostly stemmed from my former job covering crime for the Las Vegas Sun.
I was afraid to answer my door because of home invasion robberies.
I was afraid to cross the street because of all the pedestrians I wrote about who had been hit while trying to make it across the wide roads in the Las Vegas Valley.
An armed bank robbery that I interrupted in a Philly suburb taught me to fear banks. I didn’t set foot in one for at least 10 years.
All of those are gone now.
My biggest fear now, besides clowns (a childhood fear that has never really left me) is financial ruin.
I can’t really explain why, because I’ve never been in such a state, nor have I really witnessed it close up.
Granted, I’ve been strapped and I’ve had money concerns — after all, the reporter jobs that messed with my mind so much never really paid all that well. (How’s that for adding insult to injury?)
But nothing awful ever happened. I didn’t have many luxuries, but I managed, and everything was essentially fine.
I guess having resources equals stability, and stability is important.
Articles like this and this, written by a woman who is struggling to get by on minimum wage jobs, terrifies me. I can’t imagine ever being in this situation, but I guess anything’s possible.
I don’t usually give money to homeless people, but I’m thinking maybe I should, since I empathize with them? Do you have any opinions on this?
Thinking about fears has made me see how destructive some fears can be.
Some people feel a need to carry a gun.
Some people support a ban on refugees and Muslims.
Some people are straight-up racist.
The way I see it, fear is at the heart of all of this. Basically the right wing machine has turned some Americans into extremely frightened and irrational people.
They are absolutely terrified of people who are different from them. They’re terrified of the world that exists outside their bubble. And fear drives them down a dark and hateful road.
And, some people do good deeds because they fear they’ll burn in hell if they don’t.
Some people believe in the concept of karma, which motivates them to do good things because they think good things will then come back to them.
What about just being a good person because it’s the moral, ethical, and right thing to do, and because people’s feelings matter, and not because you’re afraid of the consequences if you don’t?
Fears can also hold us back — they can zap our confidence and make us unwilling to try new things.
Fears can keep us in crappy situations, crappy jobs and crappy relationships. Raise your hand if you’ve been there. I have.
But fears can also fade.
I used to be much more terrified of financial ruin than I am now. Before, it was more comfortable to make minimum payments on my card rather than paying it all off every month because paying it all off every month meant waving bye-bye to a big chunk of change. Liquidity made me feel secure.
But I don’t do the minimum payment thing anymore because doing so ultimately costs much, much more. (Thanks to my husband for drilling that into my brain.)
See? Fears mess with us and make us act irrationally and in ways that are destructive. But reasoned thought can snap us back.
I hope that dreadful, frightened presidential candidate can snap back, too, or at least ease up on the rhetoric that’s poisoning the minds of his misguided, terrified followers.
Did you know a severed pig’s head was found outside a Philadelphia mosque? All because of a fear of Islam.
Now, that’s fucking scary.
What are your biggest fears?
(Also, what’s your take on giving cash to the homeless?)
Yesterday was a painful day for me, Mike and Sassy. I know Sassy’s physical pain far outweighed the anguish we felt, though. She was diagnosed with canine glaucoma, a very painful condition that could result in blindness.
When I got out of the shower Saturday morning I noticed Sassy had vomited some watery, foamy stuff, and a few minutes later, she curled up in a tight little ball in the upstairs hallway.
I knew something was wrong because she usually paces back and forth during that time of day. I went over to her and saw she was trembling and didn’t seem to be able to open her eyes. I called Mike and asked him to come home immediately from the gym, I called the vet but they were closed, so I called the emergency vet and was told to bring her right away.
Waiting and waiting and waiting, just trying to comfort her.
We were there within minutes, but we had to wait three hours to be called. During this time, she was really struggling and appeared to be in a lot of pain. Mike took her outside to see if she had to pee, and she bumped into things outside — she seemed to be blind. I sprawled out on the floor of the waiting room with her on my lap in an attempt to soothe my baby.
Finally they brought her into the back. We couldn’t be in the exam room with her; we were told to leave and come back in 90 minutes. We headed to a pub for lunch but it was hard to eat when all I could really do was cry. What would life be like as a blind dog? How could we prevent her from getting hurt? Then again, there are some cool blind people, like Stevie Wonder, right? I thought the cause was something neurological, like a stroke or seizure.
When we returned, the vet brought us into an exam room and told us she has canine glaucoma in her left eye, characterized by a great deal of pressure caused by fluid buildup. It’s much more serious and painful for dogs than humans (and I read that humans rate the pain level as 12 on a scale of 1-10) but the good news is she’s not blind right now. The vet said Sassy was in a lot of pain and was keeping her eyes closed or squinty to help ease it, so that was a relief.
More waiting.
Canine glaucoma can come on suddenly, and it’s always an emergency. The vet said she believes she has secondary glaucoma, which means it’s probably caused by something more serious, like cancer. It does cause blindness in dogs, but we got her medical attention quickly, so it looks like that was mitigated or delayed.
We were sent home because the vet wanted to stabilize her before she was discharged. I trudged up the stairs and I fell asleep on the bed and awoke a few hours later when my cell phone rang around 8 p.m. The pressure in her eye was finally down to normal levels, and it was time to pick her up!
We were given three different types of eye drops as well as three oral medications (not to mention a bill of $611, but I feared it would be much worse, so I was happy to pay this). One of the meds is a painkiller, which knocked her out. It was good to see her resting and feeling some relief.
Today the bloodshot squinty eye condition came back. She seemed to be in pain even an hour after getting her pain meds, so it was difficult to see this. She was pawing her eye and rubbing her face on the bed — poor puppy. We’re going to make an appointment with her regular vet tomorrow, because this is a lifelong condition and it’s likely that the right eye will also experience glaucoma. And we need to pinpoint the cause of this. Cancer? Something else?
Her eye this afternoon — a setback?
She’s now on three meds for dementia, three oral meds for glaucoma, and three eyedrops for glaucoma.
I’m so glad I work from home because she can’t really be left alone now.
She’s my interspecies life partner and I’ll do everything I can for her.
I’m a lucky woman. My husband cooks for me just about every night. Even when he’s tired and doesn’t feel like it, he’ll put together something that’s usually amazing.
(Let’s face it, if he didn’t, we’d probably starve…)
The task of cooking for me is a daunting one. I’m a pain in the ass when it comes to food — I’m a vegetarian for going on 18 years now, and I’m mostly vegan, too. But that part is easy. The frustrating part is that I’m a picky eater, and my preferences change — sometimes I’ll find I really love something only to despise it a short time later.
I think I get my unadventurous palate from my dad. He loathed tomatoes, and by extension, all Italian food. I’m not that extreme — my main dislikes are onions (but onion powder is okay, and I’m usually fine with actual onions as long as they’re cooked and nobody tells me they’re in there), mushrooms (but I’m starting to like chantrelles), hot peppers and really anything that’s remotely spicy. I also don’t like things with an onion-like texture, like celery, but celery seed is okay. And I’m not into drippy, messy stuff.
So, you see, I’m a total nightmare and I feel bad about it. But Mike loves me and wants to make me happy so he keeps my preferences in mind when he cooks for me.
Today is his birthday, so I’m honoring him by having a little brag session and showing you some of the wonderful dishes he’s made for me recently.
In fact, I’m rolling out a new blog feature I’m calling Mike’s Eats where I’ll highlight his creations!
Let’s get started…
This is one of my favorites. It’s a veggie pot pie made with vegetarian ground beef, lentils, carrots, peas, and red potatoes sauteed in vegan butter, red wine and rosemary and baked in a nine-inch pie crust. Vegan.
Vegetarian pot pie ready to be devoured!Mashed sweet potato crowned with sauteed kale and chickpeas with tofu that’s been marinated then topped with vegan mayo and basil, then baked. Vegan.
Quorn Tur’ky Roast (we tried it shortly before Thanksgiving) with roasted multi-colored carrots and roasted cauliflower on a bed of quinoa. A piece of oven toasted French bread with homemade herb butter is on the side. Vegetarian.
Roasted acorn squash with wild rice, carrots, pistachios and Craisins, plus a bowl of homemade curried cauliflower soup. Vegan.
Tempeh club sandwich, Mike’s version of the Royal Tavern’s tempeh club, my favorite sandwich in the city. Marinated tempeh with tomato, lettuce and vegan mayo on toasted sprouted bread. Vegan.Quinoa with marinated tofu, roasted broccoli and roasted carrots. Vegan.
Eggplant stew with wild rice, cranberries, chickpeas, tomato, carrots. This is one of the few dishes he made from a recipe — the rest is just improvised. Vegan.Curried cauliflower soup made in our Vitamix blender using fresh cauliflower. Vegan.
Grilled cheese sandwich with havarti, cambozola and homemade herb butter on crusty French bread. On the side is roasted honeynut squash and Trader Joe’s pumpkin soup. We had this with a Southern Tier Pumking, the best pumpkin beer ever. Vegetarian.Vegan french toast with Morningstar Farms vegetarian bacon. V/V
Homemade tomato sauceDough waiting to be made into pastaRunning the dough through the pasta machineThe finished product — perfection! Vegetarian.Butterbeer adapted from a recipe in the Harry Potter books. Mike’s version contains homemade butterscotch syrup and whiskey and some other things, served hot.
“There’s a sunrise and a sunset every day and you can choose to be there for it. You can put yourself in the way of beauty.” – Cheryl Strayed
I’ve been thinking about this quote a lot recently. To me, the act of putting yourself in the way of beauty means to actively choose people, things and experiences that lift you up, that bring goodness and happiness to your life, and to avoid the people, things and experiences that do not. It makes more sense to focus my thoughts and actions on what I love and what I want out of life, not only for myself but for others, than it does to dwell on things and people that upset me and make me feel bad.
The recent awful events in the world seem to have brought out so much fear and anger and has created such a divide, particularly on social media. While I applaud people who try to argue their positions, at the same time it seems pointless. This is especially true when debating with someone who’s shared thoughts that are xenophobic, racist, uninformed or all of the above. These beliefs are deeply ingrained and aren’t likely to change.
Instead, I simply put distance there and avoid or ignore them. I unfollow or unfriend the people on social media who support xenophobic, racist and uninformed points of view. Why waste the energy on anger? There’s so much ugliness in these views, so much negativity, hatred and cruelty. At most, I feel bad for them that they’ve let hate poison them.
If you don’t like something you read, if something irritates you, you can just try recognizing that we all have opinions and we don’t have to agree, and simply move along and don’t let it bother you. You can’t change other people and you can’t make demands as to what they do or don’t share, but you can call upon your emotional intelligence and choose how you react to it.
Putting yourself in the way of beauty also means, to me, that you can direct light toward others by showing kindness and understanding and just being a compassionate, ethical, empathetic person, not because of some ultimate reward, but because it’s simply the right thing to do. It also means viewing the world around you with gratitude, and believing it’s a place where amazing things can — and do — happen.
Put yourself in the way of beauty. What does this mean to you? I’d love to hear it.
This holiday season, my family and I will be making donations to the International Rescue Committee’s educational programs for girls in conflict zones. More information. The International Rescue Committee is a global humanitarian organization that delivers lifesaving care to people fleeing conflict and natural disaster. To donate to the IRC in support of their other efforts in assisting refugees, click here. My niece Christina, one of my favorite people on earth, worked with the IRC in San Diego and she’s now serving in the Peace Corps in West Africa. If that’s not beautiful, I don’t know what is.
Sassy’s behavior has really gone downhill in the past six months or so due to her dementia, and we understand none of it is her fault. So we’ve been patient with her when she gets mouthy with us and when she goes to the bathroom in the house.
This morning, though, I completely lost it. And I feel awful.
She’s not really peeing or pooping on her walks very much anymore. It seems like she’s forgotten that relieving herself is one of the purposes of a walk.
So, we started letting her out in the back as soon as we get home. We give her a treat whenever she relieves herself appropriately, either in the back or on a walk, and just cleaning it up without flipping out if she goes inside.
But this morning, we got home from our walk and I was taking my shoes off. My next step was to let her out the back, but before I could do so, she peed on the floor right in front of me.
Luckily it was on the wood floor and not on the rug, but I felt SO frustrated and I let my frustration get the best of me.
I burst into tears, yelled at her, told her I hated her, and tried to get her to go outside. But yelling makes her run away, so I had to pick her up, which she doesn’t like — and she mouthed my hand — and plopped her on the ground out back.
It was awful and I feel absolutely terrible. I’m so ashamed of myself to have let my emotions get so out of hand when she’s in this vulnerable state. She has dog dementia. How will I ever forgive myself?
It’s like it had been building and building and I just exploded. I don’t want to be that type of person. It makes me sick that did that to my sweet puppy.
I just want this day to be over so I can do better tomorrow.
Most people who know me know that I love beer. Good beer. It’s so much fun to try new beers and talk about them with other beer lovers. So that’s why I’m taking part in this craft beer linkup organized by Jacqui at Drink the Day!
This time of year is awesome because we leave behind the light session-type beers of summer and enjoy the richer, more flavorful beers as the temperatures drop.
The beer I’m profiling fits this category perfectly — Manayunk Brewing Company’sFestivus Ale. Manayunk is a local brewery, but I’ve never been there, probably because Manayunk is kind of a hike even though it’s technically still in the city. And let’s face it, I rarely leave South Philly.
But the Festivus Ale is impressive enough that I’d actually get into a car and drive out to where this stuff is made. It’s classified as a “winter warmer,” which is basically a full-bodied, malty, sweet seasonal beer brewed with spices.
Unlike other winter beers, Festivus is a lighter, easier-drinking beer. You can taste the spices immediately, and it also has a distinctive fruity flavor, which makes sense since it’s created using plums and raisins. In the background there’s a hint of chocolate thanks to the chocolate malt. Manayunk says it brews a single batch of this stuff per year, making each year slightly different and unique. Pretty cool, right? The ABV is a respectable 7%.
And really, who can resist a Seinfeld reference?
I’d give this beer three out of five stars only because I prefer hoppier beers, but for a seasonal ale it’s pretty great. You should definitely try this is you see it on tap or in the case at the beer store.
Since we’re talking about beer I thought I’d share some relevant photos. Mike and I had some pre-wedding photos taken by the amazing photographer Melissa Hassey, and one of the places we visited was The Bottle Shop, our neighborhood beer store.
We’re regulars there — it’s a fun place to hang out (there are a few taps) and they allow people to bring in food so sometimes we go there with a pizza. We also stop in at least once a week to get a six pack or two of our favorite regular-drinking beer, Newbold by the Philadelphia Brewing Company.
We wrote out our wedding invitations there, as well as some of our thank you notes. We even signed our marriage paperwork there with two employees as witnesses.
So when it came time to take photos as we got ready for the wedding, this was a no brainer. Melissa got so many great shots and here are just a couple of my favorites. That day, we had Destihl Brewery’s Nouveay Amis white IPA. Two thumbs up on that one.
Down it! Photo by Melissa HasseyDrinking Destihl Brewery’s Nouveau Amis white IPA. Photo by Melissa HasseyOutside The Bottle Shop. Photo by Melissa Hassey
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Photo by Melissa HasseyPhoto by Melissa Hassey
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And this is Sassy, my 15-year-old puppy and interspecies life partner. She's my proofreader, too, so any errors in this blog should be blamed on her. (RIP Sassy, 2000 - 2016)
So, I just put one foot in front of the other and started taking her again a few days after I got out of the hospital, and it’s been fine.
I took her to the vet to get her eyes checked — she has glaucoma — last Wednesday and I mentioned to her veterinarian what had happened. She understood that the extreme circumstances made it unlikely that Sassy would do this again. After all, another dog was attacking her and I was just trying to pick her up when Sassy bit my hand
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