BBC: Dog Owners Lead Healthier Lives
(See Statistics: “Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics” below for perspective. Ask “who did the study? What was the purpose of the study? Who profits?”)
This article is from today’s BBC News online. You can read the whole report here.
Dogs can provide companionship
If you want to live a healthier life get a dog, research suggests.
The companionship offered by many pets is thought to be good for you, but the benefits of owning a dog outstrip those of cat owners, the study says.
A psychologist from Queen’s University, Belfast, said dog owners tended to have lower blood pressure and cholesterol.
Writing in the British Journal of Health Psychology, she says that regular ‘walkies’ may partly explain the difference.
Dr Deborah Wells reviewed dozens of earlier research papers which looked at the health benefits of pet ownership.
In some cases, the social support offered by an animal is greater than the support than another human could offer
Dr June McNicholas
Health psychologist
She confirmed that pet owners tended in general to be healthier than the average member of the population.
However, her research suggested that dog ownership produced more positive influence than cat ownership.
As well as lower blood pressure and cholesterol, she said dog-owners suffered fewer minor ailments and serious medical problems.
There was also the suggestion that dogs could aid recovery from serious illnesses such as heart attacks, and act as ‘early warning’ to detect an approaching epileptic seizure.
Stress-busting
Dr Wells said the precise reason for the benefits was not totally clear.
“It is possible that dogs can directly promote our well-being by buffering us from stress, one of the major risk factors associated with ill-health.
read the rest here.
My comment: I hate a study that says dog owners are healthier than cat owners, but they say that the regular walking might be a factor. Have to admit, that is true. I have a leash for my cat. When I tried to put the body harness on him, some primitive switch deep inside switched on, and the Qatteri Cat went bat-crazy, clawing, biting, twisting, hissing . . . never tried it again.
We tried walking a cat once – we’ve been told it can be done. Our experience we called “taking the cat for a drag.” I’ve never met a cat who would happily take to a leash.
And I never met a dog who wouldn’t go for a walk with great enthusiasm. They wiggle with uncontrollable delight when they see the leash, wiggle so hard you can barely get the leash attached. They bolt out the door, sniff the air, and prance as you race to keep up.
You see life differently when you walk a dog. It’s all “go! go! go!” and then all of a sudden it’s “Hey! What’s this? Some dog peed here! Woooof!” You really do see the world in a blade of grass, when you are a dog, or a hedge, or a pile of cat poop. (“No! No! You can’t eat that!! No!”) Their love of life is infectious, and probably even the stop and go kind of walking you do with a dog is better than no walking at all.
Winter Comfort Food: Cornbread and Chili
The recipe for cornbread is right on the cornmeal bag. I bring back medium grind cornmeal (I like Bob’s Red Mill 100% Stone Ground Whole Grain cornmeal, found in the Health Food section of the stores that tend to carry it) when I travel, but I have also found cornmeal in a variety of grinds in Kuwait from time to time. You want to buy cornmeal in a store with high turnover, because it gets bugs if it has sat too long in a warm environment. I store mine in the freezer, and pull it out when I need it.
The secret to truly excellent cornbread is using a cast iron skillet. As the oven is heating, you stick the skillet in. When the oven has reached 425 F/220 C, you pull the skillet out and pop 2 Tbs butter in. Let it melt, and pour in the batter.
As my Southern husband reminds me “it isn’t Southern unless you start with a stick of butter.” You can try it with a stick of butter (1/2 cup) if you want, but I want to live a long HEALTHY life, so the 2 TBS are enough for me.
Cornbread
2 TBS butter (melted in skillet)
1 Cup Cornmeal
1 Cup Flour
1/2 tsp. Salt
4 tsp. baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk
Measure the cornmeal and flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl, add egg and milk and mix until smooth, but don’t mix too much. Bake in a buttered skillet at 425 F / 220 C for 20 – 25 minutes, until golden brown on top.
I also put some butter on top when it comes out of the oven, and spread it as it melts.
Chili
500 grams / 1 lb ground beef
1 chopped onion
2 cans red kidney beans, drained
2 small containers tomato paste
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp masa harina (this makes it real, but I don’t know if you can find it in Kuwait)
2 – 5 TBSP chili powder
4 cups water
Brown ground beef in medium large pot, drain beef in colandar. While draining beef, brown the onions. Add beef back into pot, add tomato paste, salt, cumin, masa harina, chili powder to taste, and water. Stir well, bring to a boil and then turn to lowest heat and let simmer 2 – 4 hours. Add more water if it gets too think or it starts burning on the bottom. The long slow cooking makes everything tender, and blends all the flavors.
Cornbread and chili
Break cornbread into small pieces in bowl.
Cover with hot chili. Beans and corn are a complementary protein, so you can feel very virtuous eating this – besides, it just smells SOOOO good after those hours of simmering. To add even more healthiness, add some grated cheddar cheese over the top of the hot chili. YuMMMMMMM.
In the South, people break up their cornbread into a glass, and fill the glass with milk. My husband assures me it is delicious. I believe him, but because I didn’t grow up that way, it looks gross and I can’t even watch him eat it that way. But comfort food is comfort food, and if it works for him, I don’t have to watch!
Unexpected Pleasure
As I was leaving Seattle, my niece, Little Diamond, passed a book along to me. It’s part of our family culture – we read, and we pass along.
When my son was in university, I remember him telling me that I had addicted him to books. His first memory of books was living in Tunis, and when we would be going on a long trip, or when he had done something particularly good, I would pull down a new book from the shelf high up in my closet. Knowing he was approaching reading age, I had stocked up on books before we left.
As a student, he told me that as he approached final exams at university, he would motivate himself by telling himself that as soon as his last final was over, he could go to the bookstore and buy whatever the newest book out was that he was eager to read. Reading – for fun – during his school breaks was his great reward.
It’s that way for all of us. Before any trip, we stock up on good books to read. Before I left Seattle, I stocked up books for my Mother to read! We seek out places like Half Price Books (I do NOT own stock in Half Price Books) and Amazon.com to feed our habits. In our concern against running out of good books, we all have piles by our bed of books we intend to read. Some of my books have been there almost a year – since I moved to Kuwait!
So I accepted the book, Snake Hips: Belly Dancing and How I Found True Love, although I looked at the cover in dismay, and actually took it off for the trip. It’s about a Lebanese-American girl who goes in search of her ethnic roots. While at first I didn’t like her, I kept reading in spite of myself – the book drew me in. Little Diamond reviews the book here, (as well as several others that sound really good.)
This book was an unexpected pleasure – as are many of the books my book-voracious niece reads. The main character in this book has an unexpected wryly objective view of herself, is painfully honest, and you find yourself hoping she will find herself, and true love, in spite of her clumsy attempts.
Horror Movies: Night of the Living Dead
I used to love horror movies. At university, we would gather together late at night and watch the scariest movies we could find. I slept great. None of them really influenced me, none of them frightened me. Or . . . if they did, I guess I liked it.
And then a friend told me to go see The Night of the Living Dead. The Night of the Living Dead is a horror-genre cult movie, by George Romero. It was a low budget movie, filmed (if I remember correctly) in black and white. It wasn’t a smooth film, it had a lot of the same pseudo-authenticity of The Blair Witch Project, shot years later with hand held cameras.
It was a shocking movie. It crossed a lot of boundaries. While compared to the violence of Tarantino, it might appear mild, it was gruesome for its time. Woven through the movie were what we now call “issues.” Black/white issues, marital issues, death taboo issues, subtle incestuous references.
You may never have heard of it, but years after it was made, there were making sequels – Night of the Living Dead 2, Return of the Living Dead, etc. The movie has been re-done, I hear, I have never seen another.
Night of the Living Dead was too real for me. It’s related to Training Joke #2 which really isn’t very funny if you read it closely. it describes a world of “me first” when facing an enemy with whom you cannot reason. It’s supposed to illustrate the benefits of maintaining a low profile when living or working in a country where you may face hostility, but what makes it “funny” is the unexpected treacherousness of one friend to another.
And, as the bear in the training joke, the zombies were not malicious, they were just hungry. You can’t charm them out of their hunger, you can’t intimidate them. They have no compassion, no pity, no feelings whatsoever. Just hunger, a driving hunger, for flesh.
The zombies in Night of the Living Dead were occasionally known by the non-dead humans. Survival was based on recognizing that the zombie was no longer the person they had once known and loved – getting away, or killing the zombie, overcoming the emotions wrapped up in the person the zombie had been before death and re-activation.
One of the things I like about the movie is that they never really adequately explain how this all happened. There is speculation, and there is dealing with the immediate problem, but there is no real resolution as to cause. Just like real life, where we scramble to deal with things, but often, even years later, fail to understand what we were really dealing with.
And I have met a human zombie or two. No, they are not undead, but neither are they really living. About as close to emotion as they come is a curiousity about why feeling people feel as we do, and a mild niggling feeling that they might be missing something. If they are psychopathic, they can appear to be normal, but underneath is a great void. They know who they are. Sometimes, in an effort to feel, they inflict pain, the way a cat will toy with a mouse before killing and eating it. And, just as you can’t blame a cat for being a cat, I think these people are born that way, and can’t take responsibility for what they are – or are not. Scary people. Stay away, far far away.
Transitions
This week, my Mom bought a new bright red, lightweight suitcase for her trip next week to Portland. We went to the train station yesterday to buy her ticket. She can get on the train here in our little home town and off the train in Portland, Oregon. It’s her first trip all by herself in a long time. She will meet up with her brother and friend in Portland.
Little Diamond is presenting at a conference this week, and then will head back for Seattle en route to her apartment in Beirut. She is SO excited.
Mom and I will go see Precious Diamond and her little Diamond Chip this morning after dropping Mom’s car off to be serviced. Precious Diamond is experiencing that huge transition called Motherhood. Whew! I remember that one! No one can tell you ahead of time how your life will change, how utterly and completely a tiny infant can become the center of your world.
And I am packing up in anticipation of my own transition back to Kuwait. I am flying a new route, as I had to reserve my flight so late that my regular route is totally booked. More take offs and landings, fewer hours. Go figure. I am guessing that with all the holidays falling in the same time frame, I am competing for seats with Eid travellers as well as Christmas/New Years travellers.
See y’all soon.
Seattle Earthquakes
This is for AbdulAziz. I had just posted my Pacific Northwest Bouillabaisse when I read his comment on the Seattle Houseboat Culture, and his experience with a Seattle earthquake.
In 1996, we bought a house in a Seattle suburb. We had been living in Florida, and I never liked it. In the Tampa Bay area, it was always too hot, too humid, I never felt like I had my normal energy. I was so delighted to get back to the Pacific Northwest.
“No more sinkholes!” I told my husband. “No more hurricanes! You’re going to love Seattle.”
We had just moved in. I was in our bedroom reading, my husband and son and a visiting friend were playing a board game in the living room and all of a sudden the game seemed to be getting a little rowdy. They must be wrestling or something, because the house was shaking. But the shaking got more and more violent, the entire house was shaking back and forth on its foundation. I could hear my husband in the dining room telling them to stop, and then realizing that the chandelier was swaying so violently because it was an earthquake.
That winter, the day after Christmas was a huge snowstorm, all the electricity went out for several days and we were totally snowed in, cold, freezing cold, no heat.
My husband has never let me forget it. I have photos of him, out in his big coat and fur hat, shovelling the acres of snow off the drive so we could get over to my parents and . . . shovel more snow.
“No hurricanes!” he taunts me. “No sinkholes! But earthquakes and snowstorms! Welcome to the Pacific Northwest!”
Beautiful MidWinter Day
Today was my Father’s Memorial service. My Mom chose to invite old friends, relatives, people who knew and loved my father on a boat ride. In the midst of a gloomy, dark wintery week, the morning dawned bright, clear and bright. The sun made everything crisp and clean, if not warm.
Our guests arrived, and the boat departed. People spoke of my Dad, and told stories about him – how he had influenced their lives, funny stories from his childhood, things they remembered about him. Then we shared a buffet lunch. The weather held. it was a beautiful day.
This is a photo of the freezing fog to the south, and a shadowy Mt. Rainier:
This is a photo of the Olympic Mountains, in the other direction from Mt. Rainier:
This is a photo of a boat on Lake Washington – I loved the RED against the neutrals:
After the boat ride, the family went back to my sister’s house, where I am staying, where we watched a hysterically funny movie, Kung Fu Hustle, and then went out for Thai food. As we were eating dinner, we got a call – my sister’s daughter had just delivered a baby boy!
We celebrated the full circle of life in one day – my father’s passing, a new life, the joy of being all together . . .it’s been a full day.
The Family Gathers
The flight from Amsterdam to Seattle runs around 10 hours – more or less depending on headwinds and tailwinds. Thanks to my almost-fully-flat seat, I was able to get about 6 good hours of sleep, just exactly what I needed to face immigration, customs, car rental and a drive through Seattle (four to five lanes of traffic in both directions) to a northern suburb.
It is COLD in Seattle – like the high is about one degree above freezing. It is also a damp cold that makes you shiver, and when the wind blows, it feels freezing. It is supposed to drop down below freezing tonight. I just hope it doesn’t snow again; driving can get problematic in the snow.
Grabbed a quick Pepperming Mocha (I don’t know why they don’t do these in Kuwait, but they tell me there would be no market. How do they know? Have they ever tried it?) and headed for my Mom’s. One sister, her husband, and Little Diamond were also waiting for me there, Little Diamond’s sister, Precious Diamond (sometimes called Pregnant Diamond; she is due to have a baby any minute!) and my other sister, her husband and son came by a little later, and we all had dinner together.
Mom has asked me to make a kind of photographic tribute to my Dad for the service on Saturday, so we got out all the photo albums, collections, boxes and had a lot of fun going through and remembering all the good times with Dad. I have a stack of photos from different times in his life, and will take them in to get them copied, enlarged, etc somewhere where they can do it FAST. Little Diamond will help with the graphic design and Fonts – she wrote the obituary for the paper and did a truly masterful job.
Thanks to the sleep I got on the plane, I was fairly fresh . . . well, I did fall asleep for a while after dinner, but rallied and got another couple hours of work done.
I am guessing I will get a good night’s sleep and dive in to all the work that needs to be done tomorrow. With everyone in the family taking a part, it should all work out smoothly. I found the photo of me sitting almost on top of the mountain. I will see if there is a way I can blog it.
Chinese New Year’s
Today I am busy packing for my upcoming trip back for my father’s services, and taking down the Christmas decorations. Why now? I won’t be back until after New Year’s, and I don’t want to have to face it all then.
My son and his wife left late last night, and will be meeting up with me again later this week. As soon as they left, I stripped the bed, threw the sheets in the wash, started taking down the tree. My method of coping with grief is to stay busy.
But I also have another agenda. And I am going to tell you something that may change your life, as it changed mine. So if you are very very happy with your life right now, stop reading NOW. It’s a Locard Principle kind of thing – if you read this, it will leave a trace on you. OK. You’ve been warned.
I have a very good friend, an amazing woman. She was born in Hong Kong, into a wealthy family, and married an American. Not only was he American, but he was in the Navy, and he was a Mormon. So she had to learn three cultures at once – American, Navy/military, and a new religious culture. I tell her I am amazed that she survived; that is a lot of new information and new ways of doing things to do all at once.
Who knows why people become friends? All I know is that friends like this, you keep. From the beginning, we were like sisters. For all our differences, we never had a problem making conversation – we both liked investing, and we talked money, real-estate, stocks endlessly. And we had sons the same age who became – and still are – best friends.
We settled in the same area, and while I am living in Kuwait, she has visited my parents, called them, and frequently sat with my Dad while he was recouperating from his latest debility. She would take him flowers from her own garden, and magazines, and keep him distracted. She has been a blessing to us all.
Several years ago, in one of our conversations, she told me about Chinese New Year. When the New Year comes, your house must be sparkling clean, your bills must all be paid, and you must have money in your pocket, food in the refrigerator, and friends in the house. The way you start your New Year is the way your new year will be. So if you want order and prosperity, you have to be prepared.
I’m not Chinese. I’m not superstitious. And what if she’s right?
Every year, I have to have the tree down and everything put away by New Years. (Traditionally, the tree can stay up until the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6th, when the Wise Men come to visit the Christ child, and should be taken down the next day. Especially when using live trees, you want to anyway, as the tree is dried out, all the needles are dropping and it becomes a fire hazard.)
What if the Chinese are right? I make sure all my bills are paid, and I pay a little extra on the mortgage. I make sure we have money in our pockets, and plans with friends that include good food.
I’m not Chinese. I am not superstitious. But why take chances?
From time to time I think about NOT having everything done by New Year’s, but if I try that, I get too nervous and end up having to do it all on the last day of the year. My friend says you do NOT want to start the New Year cleaning your house!
She told me. I just told you . . . are you starting to get nervous? (wicked gleam)
Two Photos
I have a photo of my Dad and me when I was only five or six months old. I am in my snow suit, with a big hat on my head. My dad has lifted me high on his right hand, high above his head, and I am oblivious to the danger, and out of my mind with delight – you know how babies are. I have a look on my face of delerious happiness. I am almost as high as the mountain in the background. I am – almost literally – on top of the world. My Dad is young and thin and strong. He was a great skiier in those days.
The second photo is of my Dad and my Mom, on a visit to Germany, only eight years ago. Dad was 80. They flew to Germany and rented a car to visit us, and to tour some of their old haunts from their own ten years of living in Heidelberg. He and Mom crawled up on the fountain at Deidesheim to stand behind the bronze costumes for a photo. Their faces are effused in smiles; they are still young in spirit if not in body, and having a wonderful time.
In recent years, my Dad was less and less able. His big project every week was to program the video recorder to record two tapes a week of prime time American television for my husband and I – we would watch it whenever we wanted and had time. He was known at the post office as the man who came in twice a week mailing these videotapes to us, and he loved it that he was so well known by the folks at the post office.
Dad died last night. He was 88. I’ll be going back for a short time. Dad, I know you’ve gone to a better place. Alhamdallah.
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