go blue

Sigh. Just when you thought the pet food recall was over and done with...

Almost two years ago, I switched my cat and dog food to Blue Buffalo, which is a brand I can only find at Petsmart and is rather pricey. However, they use human-grade meat, and they don't use fillers or ingredients that animals are often allergic to, like corn gluten, which several studies show can cause diabetes in animals, and I'm convinced my cat's cancer progression slowed considerably because of the better-quality food.

The people at the company are also extremely nice. I once e-mailed them to ask some question or other, and they not only answered my question very quickly, but they also sent me coupons for free 20-pound bags of dog food, and I didn't even ask for the coupons.

They came out with a line of dog treats, and Petsmart had finally stocked them, and I bought a bag last week, and now I find out that one of their vendors was AMI, and this vendor was adding rice protein concentrate to the Blue Buffalo canned dog food, canned cat food, and dog treats without Blue Buffalo's knowledge or consent. This is the same rice protein that was possibly contaminated with melamine.

While this irritates and alarms me (thank heaven I hadn't opened the package yet and given one of the treats to my dog), you've got to give Blue Buffalo credit. They immediately put out a press release two days ago and voluntarily recalled all their canned dog and canned cat food and dog treats even though so far, none have shown to be contaminated. They're more concerned that an ingredient was added that they didn't know about, and while this particular batch shows no signs of contamination, they're not taking any chances, and they've also decided to switch to a new vendor.

Their dry pet food hasn't tested positive for the rice protein concentrate, so that's still safe at least, and I'm obviously returning the bag of dog treats that I bought. Now if they'd only come out with cat treats...

san francisco days

I almost forgot - I wrote travel blogs while I was in San Francisco two weeks ago. They're here, complete with photos. The trip starts with "shaky start" - see list of entries on the right side.

send in the bees

Cell phones are possibly causing bee shortages.

Neil Gaiman has taken to beekeeping (is there anything that man can't do? - read the March 5 entry).

I suddenly have a craving to re-read Sylvia Plath's bee poems and eat toast with honey.

Miss Potter

I watched this movie on a flight home from LA this past weekend. I had heard about it, but hadn't seen any previews or notices that it was even in theaters. There were a lot of sniffles in the main cabin once the movie was over.

It was truly lovely - the acting, the costumes, the scenery, the humor; and the animation of her paintings was a nice touch. Renee Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, and Emily Watson were terrific. Zellweger and McGregor were both in Down With Love (which I swear must have been based on Sex and the Single Girl with Natalie Wood and Tony Curtis), and Emily Watson always does great parts - Gosford Park, Hilary and Jackie.

I had no idea Beatrix Potter's life had so much sadness in it. She obviously got through it with as a good an attitude as she could muster. A stuffy mother and the loss of a love would have made lesser people give up, but she did what Virginia Woolf recommended all women do, which was to get a place of her own, and then she went further and started buying up the property around her farm so that it wouldn't be snatched up by developers, and then she gave it back to the nation as preserved land. I love that women think to do good things like that.

I've got a copy of the complete works of Beatrix Potter. I love her watercolor paintings. Now I'm really looking forward to my watercolor class this Saturday.

gives me the shivers

Last week, I worked on two slide decks about treatment of cyanide poisoning. Mainly, they were very clinical and all about smoke inhalation due to combustion of substances that release cyanide and the antidote that can be administered, which is a form of B12. I felt a bit like Agatha Christie when she worked in the hospital dispensary, learning about poisons so she could write about them in her mystery novels.

So I'm feeling a little clammy tonight, because I was flipping channels, and I caught the end of a documentary about Jonestown, Guyana, where 900 or so of the People's Temple cult members, some of them children, drank Kool-Aid mixed with cyanide. I had come across descriptions of this mass suicide in my reading while I was working on the slide decks last week. The descriptions were very dry and scientific and used the event as simply an example of how cyanide can be administered. It apparently has a very bitter taste in Kool-Aid.

The majority of the documentary was narrated by the handful of survivors, as well as ex-members. Every one of the narrators lost family in that mass suicide, and few could get through their narration without breaking down. One man recounted holding his dying wife in his arms while she held their dead baby son, who was foaming at the mouth. Hardly clinical.

chocolate crowded easter house

You know it's going to be a mighty fine (if somewhat cold) day when you've gotten your hair done the day before, you've got dark chocolate eggs to eat, your going to pal/co-worker Bob's for Easter dinner, and you find out Crowded House is re-forming and putting out a new album this year and will tour.

And people are really getting fancy with the eggs this year. It was all I could manage to get the color on evenly with the PAAS kits as a kid.

Gorey tale to be a film

Gorey tale coming to screen for first time

The world of Edward Gorey is coming to the big screen for the first time with a live-action feature based on the illustrator-writer's classic tale "The Doubtful Guest."

The project is being developed by Walden Media, the firm behind the "Narnia" franchise, Fox 2000 and the Jim Henson Co. Brad Peyton ("Evelyn: The Cutest Evil Dead Girl") will direct from a script written by Matthew Huffman.

Gorey, who died in 2000 at age 75, was an artist and writer known for his macabre bent, with works that had an ominous and somewhat Victorian air. His influence can be seen in the works of Tim Burton and in music videos like Nine Inch Nails' "The Perfect Drug," and while none of his works has ever reached the silver screen, the opening titles of the PBS series "Mystery!" done in animation style are based on his art. He also was a successful set and costume designer, earning a Tony for his Broadway production of "Edward Gorey's Dracula."

Originally published in 1957, the whimsical story revolves around a quirky family whose life is turned upside down when a mysterious, mischievous creature arrives unannounced and unwelcome, bringing trouble with him and wreaking havoc.

"It's hard to come up with a creature that you've never seen before in any medium, and he's a unique little creation who is very appealing without being cute or cloying," Jim Henson Co. co-CEO Lisa Henson said. "He's sophisticated yet simple at the same time, but it's not overly juvenile. Adults can find him cute, too."

the power of a little black dress

Think of all the good a girl could do in the world if one of her dresses could fetch this kind of a price:

School built with money from auction of Audrey Hepburn dress is inaugurated in India


BISHNUPUR, India - The sale of one black dress will pay for 15 schools for poor children in India .

The garment achieved icon status when Audrey Hepburn wore it in the opening scenes of Breakfast at Tiffany's. It sold at auction for $807,000 in December.

The first of the 15 schools was inaugurated today.

The dress, designed by Hubert de Givenchy, was bought back by the company, and then donated to the City of Joy Foundation .

library cats

If I ever decide to open a library, I'll have cats in it:

Dewey Readmore Books

Library Cats of the World

gahhhhh!

BI - ZARRE day...

got chewed out in the morning, so was depressed all the rest of the day

worked frantically on reference annotations all day, having worked on them all weekend as well, only to find out at the end of the day that we got an extension

wrote blurbs for World Health Day and Earth Day for another work project, and did it in an eerily short period of time, which leaves me wondering if I left something out or got dates mixed up and may have written crap despite my efforts

forgot that I need to look up Prasugrel

never did get to go outside for a walk in the nice weather (still grumbling about that)

found out that John Inman had died at the beginning of March (how did I miss that?)

read a funny article a day late that Neil Gaiman has been nominated for sainthood, even though he's not dead

suddenly remembered that I'm going to San Francisco at the end of next week (somehow I thought it was further off)

realized that I'm out of yarn for my current knitting project (gross miscalculation on my part)

goingtodrinkaglassofwinenowandthencrashbyebye