It's A New Year, Can I Start A New Habit?

You're looking at my New Year's Resolution.

After half a bottle of limoncello, i expansively vowed to everyone celebrating New Year's Eve with me (which would include my daughter, my husband, one friend, a cockatoo, four dogs and a sleepy African Grey Parrot) that i would faithfully get this blog off its rear end and be entertaining and witty and whatever.
I have a headache this morning.
But a vow is a vow.

Question: Am I the only one who has to eat a piece of herring to start the new year? I think it's an old German custom, my family has always done it, but it could just be another peculiarity in a family known for a lot of them. And we eat hoppin' John on new year's day. Now, i know that's a southern custom, Louisiana, or thereabouts, and since i was born in Alabama, it's close enough. I like hoppin' John.
Herring and limoncello does not mix.
My second vow is to remember that next year.
wishing all of you jobs, prosperity, good health and better food choices.
judy

Is It Enough Yet?

You probably saw it. How do you feel about it? Can you even stand to look at the video, knowing she was five lengths, four lengths, two lengths from death? A beautiful young race mare running her heart out for her owners, coming in second against a magnificently strong male contender and dying for it. It happened to Ruffian, but that wasn't enough. It happened to Barbaro, although he was a male, he died for the "sport". It happens at race tracks all over the country, young horses pushed past their limit, too young for their bodies to carry the burden of speed, and snapping bones, bursting arteries, and becoming young cripples or slaughter house prospects. Yeah, the slaughter house. Do some research and find out how many top race horses, Kentucky Derby Winners, wound up falling through the cracks and landing in slaughter houses.

Maybe I should call this post "Why I don't Watch The Kentucky Derby". Horse lovers have known since horse racing became big business, that it's cruel to saddle "break" and start training a yearling horse for the races. That it's only done so that the multimillionaire investors can get quick returns on their money. They pay huge amounts for these race horses, and insure them to the max, then send them off to the trainers to push them into performing way too young. I won't go into a rant, you've heard it all before. These horses can be allowed to mature and then raced, it just takes about two more years. So take this away with you, if you are a big race horse fan, or you've partied and watched the Derby, Eight Belles died for you, too.

Good-bye Jean-Luc

Nah, don't get all teary eyed. I did it for love.
I gave away my beloved one year old Boston terrier (with maybe a pit bull grandmother?).
To the best home in the world.
This is what happened. I had rescued him from a back yard breeder. Jean-Luc was in desperate straits. He was malnourished, wormy, full of giardia, crypto-something or other, had a broken tail, a fractured cheek bone, and a few other problems, since the "breeder's" nineteen year old tatooed, purple mohawked son was using him as a live football. We fed him, paid for several restorative operations, neutered him, loved him, vitaminized him, and eventually brought him to full and totally vibrant good health. The problem was that he grew to fifty pounds (pit bull genes always out themselves) and was extremely - er- exuberant. The other problem was that we have two tiny full grown shih tzus that weighed about three pounds each, and were getting unceremoniously flipped through the air on a daily basis. Or squashed when he playfully pounced on them. There was much whimpering, limping, and soulful looks from the little ones. It wasn't that Jean-luc wasn't gentle, they could take food right out of his mouth, it was that he wanted to play with them so badly,which meant picking them up by their heads and carrying them around like they were one of his stuffed toys, or body slamming them against a wall as he ran in from the back yard. I was terrified that one day i would hear a fateful crunch and that would be the end of one of my little fluff balls.
So, my dearest friend Kay, offered to take him. She lives on a huge horse/cow farm and has three delightful kids, and two other dogs who are big, and lots of room for him to run his brains out. And as a bonus, is a dog groomer by profession, so is used to handling anything. He is quite happy there. Her kids adore him, and he sleeps on their beds, he eats calf poop and barfs it up in my friend's kitchen, he sits on her kitchen table and watches the world go by, and in general, is having a great life. Which makes me happy. Except that i miss him like crazy.
I guess sometimes we're just meant to be the intermediary, not the final destination.
Did i say i still miss him?
And if i should ever run across a petite Boston terrier, who looks like him.....well.....

You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do

I didn't want this blog to get political, as I'm a pretty tolerant person and advocate freedom of speech, thought, expression and chocolate, but sometimes we have to put down our candybars and take a stand.
Here's mine.
Boycott the Beijing Olympics.
It is a miserabe truth that the Chinese government is brutal and indifferent to the severe animal abuse that goes on within its borders. Animals suffer indescribably horrible deaths for the sheer entertainment of it (can you believe) and for the twisted tastes of their food industry. I don't want to go into detail here, because you won't sleep at night, but if you are interested, you can follow this link http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/395884823 and add your name to a petition that is trying to address these issues.
It's so important.
If you love animals, do it for them. Take humanity one baby step forward.
Thanks.
Judy

Second Chances

Well, the good Lord took pity on me and gave me another chance to redeem myself by allowing me once again on the radio. I'll be on Fiction Nation, with host Kim Alexander, on Satellite Radio, XM 155. Here are the dates: Sat. Jan 5 at 3 p.m., Sun. Jan.6 at 10 a.m., and for those of you who can't sleep at night, there's Mon. Jan. 7 at 3 a.m. Also, Sonic Theater, Thursday Jan. 10, at 3 p.m. all EST. I'll be reading a bit from my second book Still Life With Elephant (from my favorite chapter, so tune in to find out which one it is) and in general talking about my book and how to help with the elephant problem, both globally and locally.
Thank you to those who have sent me comments on my blog. I am trying to answer them, and publish them, but i'm one of those types who has trouble turning on the television from my remote control, so i will get your stuff on the net, just be patient. I had someone ask me to reccommend a place to take dressage lessons when she gets to NYC, and i since i don't know how to answer my comments yet, I want to ask her to please email me and i will answer.
So, i am preparing for my January holidays. For those of you who don't know, i pulled a white rabbit this holiday season, late, late, late for a very important date (Alice in Wonderland, if you don't get the reference.) I am just sitting down now and writing out my holiday cards, even adding in the few birthdays i missed back in September and October. I take consolation in knowing that I will be brightening up someone's dreary blah January with a holiday card and a late, unexpected gift.
Tonight is the last day of December, the last few minutes of 2007. It was both a good and terrible year. My book came out to really good reviews. We got a new puppy and we rescued a critically ill Moluccan cockatoo, who is doing better (will post reports on his health as time goes on). Also, speaking of second chances, I got very sick but survived (still wrapping my mind around that one) and made a ton of wonderful new cyberfriends courtesy of my website and email. I wish all of you a really good, joyous, prosperous, love filled, great-sex filled, animal filled year ahead.
Party on,
Judy

Glad To Be Here to Write This

In between glasses of eggnog, and noshing on trays of red and green decorated sugar cookies, I am taking the time to sit down and ponder on the Importance of Things. I had a near death experience not too long ago, early October, to be exact, and for a while, didn't think I would see this holiday. And what came to mind was not the Ipod I wanted, or the Palm Pilot, but my daughters and how much I loved them, and how much I suddenly wanted to tell them that.
Now that the crisis is pretty much over, I am left with the odd, disquieting sensation that I have been given this holiday season to not only put things in order, but to keep them there. To remember that the important things are family and good friends and all the good animals in your life.
Take a few minutes to tell everyone that you love dearly, how you feel. Be charitable. Let the little crappy things go. (I'm working real hard on that.)
I want to thank every one of you who bought my books. And every one of you who took the time to write me via my email. I met some incredible people through my website, and made some wonderful friends. I appreciate all of you.
I wish you all love, and good health, and close friends, and lots of animals. I wish the same things for me. Especially the continued good health.

And I still want my Palm Pilot, of course.

Best Intentions

I know I promised to post frequently and wittily. I also promised to lose fifteen pounds, straighten out my bedroom closet and clean the basement. I have done none of these. I'm sorry.
But I did add to my menagerie. We got a Moluccan cockatoo. His name is Sammy and he is sweet and adorable and had been owned by a little old man, who had gotten too sick to care for him. The l.o.m. was of Puerto Rican descent, so Sammy favors rice and beans and yells "Hola!" whenever he wants to greet you, which i think is very amusing. He joins my African Grey parrot, two cats, two dogs and two half dogs (will explain later), a canary and a guinea pig. Not to mention three horses. It's a full house, but it's exactly the way i like it.

Okay, I have to explain the math on the dogs.
Our first full dog is a Boston terrier, Jean-Luc, who was a rescue. He's a tad big for a Boston T., about forty-five pounds big, and my vet has a sneaking suspicion that he might have had a pit bull grandma or something. But he is very sweet, even if he is one of the dumbest dogs i have ever owned. It took him a whole year to learn to sit, and he still hasn't learned that the kitchen floor is slick, so he races into the kitchen and does the water slide, like the scene in "Risky Business", crashing into the wall on the other side of the room. At least once a day.
Our second full dog is a toy poodle, light red, named Lola. She is the polar opposite of J-L, and has not only learned to sit, but stays, lays down, makes my morning coffee and toast, and dances on her toes, for our entertainment. The two half-dogs are "tea cup" shih tzus. Mimsy is full grown, topping out at four pounds and is so utterly adorable (and untrainable) that we ran right back to the breeder and snapped up her half sister, whom we named Sadie Petunia. Sadie, named for my grandmother, weighs two and half pounds at three months old, and looks like an ewok. In fact, that is what we tell people when they ask us what breed she is. Ewok. Let them figure it out.
It is snowing right now, and i am sitting in my office and trying to write my next book, and the dogs are all wrestling, and the parrot is yelling hello, and the cockatoo is answering Hola! and the phone rings., and it is my mother, who thinks i am certifiable for owning all these creatures. She has called to tell me that it is snowing outside and that she misses Phoenix, from which she moved only a week ago, and that she is unpacking and can't find her make up. I can hardly hear her over the noise.
Perfect.