Some Hope, Please.

I am quite shocked at who America elected, and I don't really know what to expect.  This is one case where I hope one’s bark is worse than his bite.

I'll focus on something positive amidst this doom and gloom.  I finally read the China Study, a book I've heard about countless times from plant-based eaters via social media.  And now I know why.  It's based on an enormous and long-term study on the diet and resulting health of thousands of people in rural China.  This book has countless implications for society, and I see why the dairy, meat and pharmaceutical industries want to hide, criticize and downplay the contents of this book.  North Americans continue to look for a shortcut and magic pill while consuming hideous amounts of animal protein. The links are very strong between this way of life and diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, obesity, MS . . . even dementia!  The list goes on and on.  The research is right there and society is ignoring it.   I couldn't resist and immediately had to order a copy for my parents and my aunt in the US.  I commend both Dr. Campbells for ignoring food industry bullying and standing their ground in order to publish this book.  Same goes to others like Dr. McDougall and Dr. Esselstyn who have also been paving the way out of this unhealthy mess the First World has managed to get itself into.

It really is as simple as eating much more plants and being more active.  You live longer, the animals live longer and there's enough for everyone to eat.  Plus it's nicer to the environment.  I DON'T KNOW HOW MANY MORE WINS YOU CAN HAVE.

SIDENOTE:  There is an interesting role that Filipinos play in plant-based eating research.  Dr. Colin Campbell was brought on to study unusual rates of liver cancer in kids in the Philippines, which led him to isolate aflaxotin, a carcinogen that was found in moldy peanuts used in peanut butter.  He then went on to find out that many of the rich kids were getting liver cancer, which led him to figure out that the poor kids, who couldn't afford animal protein, were not getting liver cancer despite exposure to aflatoxin.

Dr. McDougall noticed that Filipino men who were first generation immigrant workers in Hawaii were much trimmer and healthier than their second and third generation counterparts.  The second and third generation Filipinos had traded in their rice and vegetables for a more Western-based meaty diet, becoming heavier and sicker in the process.  Dr. McDougall was amazed at some of the older first generation Filipino workers saving up to go to the Philippines and bringing back much younger wives and even starting new families well into the age of retirement.

Spreading Light.

I've been contributing to Amnesty International for maybe a decade now but hadn't actually been to any events until tonight.  My sis and I went to go see Alex Neve (Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada) speak tonight and it was so inspiring to see someone stay strong and composed and compassionate and eloquent despite having to describe much horror and apathy in the world.  His key word as a long term human rights activist? Perseverance. Decades and decades of it. 

Much progress has been made and there is still much to do.  Amnesty international had done great work exposing and fighting human rights abuses and continues to do so.  Its  simple but bright yellow candle logo wrapped in barbed wire is so very apt - I walked away from that speech feeling sadness because of all the injustice and suffering but also hope because I was in a room full of people that care passionately about the world out there.  

Booked Lunches.

A Canadian and two Italians have been kidnapped in Libya.  I hope they are okay.  As rewarding a career as my dad had in Libya, I am grateful that he is home safe and sound despite the forced early retirement. 

Mind Farts
-saw Bridget Jones' Baby with girlfriends and laughed. really. hard!  much of the time, sequels don't live up to the hype but this was wonderfully awkward and crazy.  and the female characters have sure aged gracefully :) i like how that was portrayed.  no spoilers, but i hope i can still go nuts at music festivals when i hit my forties.  i think that may be a key to aging gracefully ... you gotta keep appreciating the new stuff, including music!
-also laughed (and cringed and snorted) really hard while reading Augusten Burroughs' memoirs.  very big contrast to my last read about North Korea.
-three cheers for the public library, which allows me to keep inhaling books.  maybe it helps that i've been able to lunch on my own and read quite a bit - my usual work lunch buddies have been bringing their own lunches ... possibly to save money in the current sketchy economy.  i've noticed that even the usual busy restaurants are not as busy anymore
-another reason to lunch on my own: my fabulous mother veganizes Filipino dishes to feed her vegan daughters.  my lunch today is a delicious eggplant adobo :)

A Rude Awakening.

This morning I woke up to BBC announcing that Indonesia will be going through with the execution of Mary Jane Veloso, and that Philippine president Duterte had given the "green light" to do so.  It saddened me immensely.

Admittedly I have not read up in detail on Mary Jane Veloso or Duterte but what I've gathered so far is disturbing. To me, Mary Jane seems like a poor woman who was taken advantage of and duped into smuggling drugs.  I mean, wasn't her recruiter arrested for screwing her over?    

And the stories I hear about Duterte's lack of class and tact and diplomacy when in the public spotlight and all the murders just completely blow my mind.  I can't help but think "WTF?!" Admittedly I am half a world away and don't see things first-hand.  I hope it's not as bad as it seems in Western media.  I know many of my relatives in the Philippines appreciate the changes that have happened since his presidency.  Yeah, I need to read up more on this.  

Mind Farts

-just read Charles Robert Jenkins' book about his many years in North Korea as a captured US Army deserter. He married Hitomi, a Japanese abductee. I had no idea there were so many abductees of so many backgrounds.  Hitomi's mother was kidnapped with her (they were going for ice cream in their Japanese hometown) and her whereabouts are still unknown :(

-really enjoying calisthenics classes. Honestly the closest thing to adult playtime.  I can now *sometimes* hold a handstand for a measly second, but it feels great when I do do it ... I am beginning to feel my bones stacking properly in the right alignment :)

-vegan donuts/cupcakes are really good here ... I've already skipped dinner a few times to eat them.  I think it's very possible to be a fat vegan in Edmonton nowadays 

-I keep running into salsa people ... Maybe it's a sign I should start dabbling in social dancing again?

I Stand Corrected.

Hachi was just fine at daycare and had a blast :). When we picked him up he was same old happy self.  Yay for good doggie daycares!

Browner and Back to Real Life.

Just spent a week in gorgeous Kauai.  I already miss the perfect temperatures and the sea breeze against my skin.  Glorious glorious brown brown skin.  I couldn't help but lay on the beaches and bake my skin as brown as possible.  I know, I know ... Not the healthiest thing to do but I honestly do love being tanned!  I shamelessly used to fake and bake for performances (my poor paler teammates had to try and fake and bake or even spray tan even more just to catch up).  In Kauai, it didn't help that there were so many beautiful shades of beautiful brown skin around me.  Hawaiian folks are soooo damn lovely!

It was so easy to get used to living in shorts and tank tops and sandals and NEVER ever even think about sweaters and jackets and pants.  In a perfect world I would live by the beach with Hawaiian temperatures and wake up and fall asleep to ocean sounds.  There is really nothing quite like it.  

When the waves were huge and crashing crazily against the rocks, I thought to myself:

"NATURE IS THE BOSS OF ME."

I felt like a speck by the enormous sea.  Combined with the extra backdrop of super starry sky, one feels extremely tiny and in awe of everything at the same time.    

And can I gush about the lush sceneries?  

How much more breathtaking can you get? 

It's tough to be back in dry Alberta, but I am looking forward to picking up the little munchkin from daycare tomorrow.  The doggie daycare posted a pic of him on Instagram and it almost looks like Hachi is sad and missing us and the little guy on the right is comforting him.  

Awwww.

Mind Farts

-I send mental bad karma to the idiot that previously sat in my seat on the plane and left his/her chewing gum on the seat which then got all over my clothes: I wish you food poisoning and a year of bad dates.  Grrr!

-Had my first taste of soursop in Kauai. Yum!  Quite a strong taste though - I find I can only take a bit at a time.  Not like mangoes or papayas, which I can annihilate quite easily.  And the hard shelled avocados were amazing!  Hard to believe they were ripe because they were so hard but sure enough the lady at the farmer's market wasn't lying - they were ready to eat :)

-Pretty interesting how the Filipino community has thrived in Hawaii.  My parents still got to eat Filipino dishes and chat in Tagalog/Bisaya with the locals during our trip.  A lot of Illocano folks in Kauai!  A trip to the Kauai museum revealed that back in the early 1900's, Illocanos were encouraged to come to Hawaii because they were thought to be hard workers.

Yowza!

Finally caught up on Game of Thrones - just finished Season 6 with my sister.  Nicely done!  This season was bursting with epicness and me and my sis were constantly gasping and yelling at the TV.  I was ecstatic to see the end of Ramsay Bolton.  He was such a despicable character and had a crazy face that reminds me of the worst boss I ever had at the worst company I ever worked for.  Same childish psychotic attitude and everything!  My ex-boss is uglier and chubbier though (ha!).  Good riddance to both :)  Brienne, Tyrion and the Onion Knight are some of my favourites and I'm stoked to see them not die (yet?) and play more and more of a central role in this amazing story.

I think my initial prediction from years ago based on the name of the series of Game of Thrones books actually has a chance of coming true!  The series is called A Song of Fire and Ice, which made me think of Jon Snow of the icy wall eventually ending up with Daenarys mother of fiery dragons.  They also might be related but hey, that's how the Targaryens (and Lannisters) roll anyway.

Really do need to re-read the books again - it's been so long!  Or at least Wiki the characters and houses.  I've been terrified of spoilers so I haven't even been Googling anything related to the show.

Now I can.  

Killing is Dumb.

Many people here in Canada know of the Montreal Massacre, where a young man who "hated feminists" stormed in to the Ecole Polytechnique and murdered fourteen women, most of them engineering students.  Recently I read an article that mentioned a book by his mother Monique Lepine and I was curious enough to go and grab it from the library.

It was frustrating to read.  She grew up in a middle class family, was well-educated and yet for some reason still ended up dating and then marrying a horrible man.  He wouldn't let her work, he was unfaithful and he was abusive towards her and their two children.  Monique only finally left when he hit her son (the Montreal Massacre shooter) so badly that the physical marks stayed for weeks.  She ended up being a working single mom, leaving her kids with caregivers while she worked to earn a living (the ex husband stopped sending alimony after two payments).  From her standpoint, she seems to blame herself for not being there for her son.  

In my opinion I think it starts before that.  Why the hell would someone put up with dating someone so abusive and mysoginistic in the first place?  And to top it off, she endured several abortions (which he wasn't even there for) and then married the asshole.  AND THEN REPLICATED HIS PSYCHOTIC GENETIC MATERIAL BY HAVING KIDS WITH HIM.  What did she expect was going to happen?  The kids were abused, they saw their mom getting abused, plus they ended up inheriting unstable personality traits.  The odds were stacked up against them already.  The daughter ended up being horrible to the son (which could've played a part in his hatred of women) and being addicted to drugs, eventually taking her own life via overdose after her brother killed 14 innocent women and took his own life.  

I respect that Monique Lepine has spoken out and given her side of the story, but I can't help getting the sense that she still harbors victim mentality.  Much of the book is about how horrible she felt and how horrible society was to her.  She needs to teach women need to stay away from male idiots.  Or at least not to start families with them!  If you hopelessly (and pathetically) want to try to "change" the moron then fine, subject yourself to his idiocy.  But don't bring poor children into the mix :(  I know that kids won't necessarily be exactly like their psycho parents, but damn, do we have to make it THAT hard for them growing up?  

Ugh I need to read something a little more empowering.

Mind Farts

-The senseless killing of black men can't seem to stop.  RIP Alton Sterling and Philando Castile :(  One good thing about today's world: video evidence  

-I feel sick every time I think of the dog eating festival in China.  At the very least, there is worldwide outrage and I hope it will add to the vegan spark that is growing.  Dogs are smart and lovable beings and so are other animals. 

-I have to say, Edmonton is actually not so shabby in vegan eats.  Even a sketchy part of Chinatown houses a marvelous place called Veggie Garden and their vegetarian lemongrass "chicken" is fantastic.  I enjoyed vegan cupcakes at the 124 St Market and there is a new plant-based cafe that opened on 104 St as well :). Wheeeee!

-Kettlebells and calisthenics are pretty dope.  I was able to hold crow pose for a few seconds for the first time last week!  I'm not gonna lie, I kind of wanted to dance around and squeal a little but I kept it all in.
-Listening to tropical house music makes my hips reminisce about dancing to kizomba and bachata :)

Night Owling.

If life accommodated my internal clock, it would let me to go to bed past midnight and wake up after 9AM.  This week was a bit sleep-deprived but totally worth it.

This past weekend I was in Toronto for a bachelorette party.  Loved the city! Stayed downtown and the weather was fantastic - I was in a fabulous hot concrete jungle.  It was an interesting change chatting with folks who work in industries not so directly affected by oil prices.  And out of all the people I met, only one lightheartedly made fun of me for being from "Deadmonton," so not too much of that stereotypical Centre-of-the-Universe snottiness at all!

Shortly after I came back, my sister and I started playing the very last Dreamfall Chapters game, which pretty much ruined any chance of recovering more sleep when combined with work and kettlebells/dance/climbing/calisthenics/Hachi.  It took us a few nights to finish and felt bittersweet when we finally got to the end ... we so love the story and didn't want it to stop.  Ragnar Tornquist did such a great job with the storylines - I would love to pick his brain one day regarding globalism, feminism, technology, corporations, culture and all that good stuff.  Both my sis and I are actually going through a bit of withdrawal!  I guess when a video game spans over a decade, the loss hits kinda hard.  Ok, no more gamer talk.
 

I watched Metro Manila on Netflix and loved it.  It definitely doesn't sugar coat corruption and poverty in Manila but still manages to capture how loving a Filipino family can be.  One of the main actors, Althea Vega, is breathtakingly beautiful and makes me think of what Filipinos must've looked like to their first Spaniard visitors - a ton of inky black hair, cat eyes and smooth brown skin.  

Check out Althea Vega in this movie still:

Check out this photo of a Filipina from the 1800's:

Similar, right?

To the Psychotic Murderer that Killed 50 People in Orlando:

This moronic selfie is fitting for you to be remembered by.

Photo from CBC.

Despite the current level of technological advancement, I believe more and more that the true measure of society's advancement is the level of empathy present - especially towards those that are more disadvantaged and helpless (non-humans included).

WHY CAN'T WE USE IDIOTS LIKE HIM FOR ANIMAL TESTING?  Sorry, rant over.

On a happier note, I received Hachi's official pet therapy scarf today :)  It even matches my pants for some odd reason.

A New Balance.

So I guess I'm kind of dancing again :)  I performed with some ladies from my dancehall class and it was fun! I'd forgotten about that pre-performance, during-performance and post-performance rush. 

I decided to place yoga (both Ashtanga and Iyengar) on the back burner.  I joined a kettlebell/calisthenics gym to help my pulling strength and holding up my bodyweight strength.  Which probably stems from trying to get better at rockclimbing ...

... yeah I'm spinning my wheels a little.  Prioritization is in order.  In addition to my full-time dayjob, seven days a week doesn't seem enough sometimes. 

Plus *drumroll*... Hachi will become certified to be a therapy dog! He rocked all the practicums between my sister and I.  So now we have to figure out when and where we want to take Hachi for visits :) There's a big demand, but we also have to be careful not to overcommit.  Turns out the little guy is a natural at this stuff :)  It's great to be able to take him almost anywhere.  Last weekend we took Hachi with us to Jasper and stopped by the area close to where he was found (near Nordegg) on the way to watch his dad run the Banff Jasper Relay race.  It was pretty much effortless to have him with us despite crowds and hotel rooms and get-togethers.  It was also great taking him on walks in the beautiful Rockies - on-leash the whole time of course.  

Watched Warcraft last night - thank goodness I haven't played the game because I can see myself getting addicted to magical worlds of humans and orcs.  Speaking of magical worlds, I even checked out some Ant-Man comics - hilarious!  I also watched the new Avengers movie and was intrigued by the superhero ex-convict with a master's degree in electrical engineering.  

I Kind of Have to Read This Now.

Imagine my delight when I saw this BBC headline this morning.  A combination of things that fascinate me have collided wonderfully and now I'm frothing at the mouth: Korean culture, Vegetarianism and Beautifully Written Books! 

It's already unavailable at the local library. URGFHFHFHFJFJHDDHHS.. I'm twitching so bad to read it! This might warrant a purchase :)

This So Awesomely BADASS!

I know, they weren't "supposed to" and it may have been dangerous.. But they did it and saved animals in the process :)   And of course let's not forget that there is ongoing efforts to free these trapped animals by city-designated teams as well.  200 rescued animals arrived in Edmonton today :)

Stories like this give me faith in humanity. Thoughts of trapped pets have been haunting me and even though donating money to the humane society (and Red Cross) makes me feel like I'm helping at least a little bit, I still feel really helpless. 

But reading these articles made my day :) Between entering the world of pet therapy and learning how many distraught pet-lovers there are around me, one cannot underestimate the power of the human-pet bond.  

..the Power of Man's Red Flower (c)the Jungle Book

The scale of the Fort McMurray fires is unbelievable.  I can't even imagine trying to drive away from this:
 

Picture from Reddit.

Worst of all, I know there were pets that weren't able to be rescued and this just crumples my heart (as I type this Hachi is sleeping peacefully on his dog bed).  That is truly one of my worst worst nightmares - not being able to save my pet in a situation like that. I would've lost my mind. 

It might've been a blessing in disguise that there aren't as many workers at the camps due to the low oil prices.   At least evacuees were able to take refuge at the work camps.  Despite being called "camps" these facilities can be quite nice. I've stayed in one with a huge cafeteria and gyms (including a separate women-only gym) and a huge game room and movie room.  Now it is probably housing not just parents but kids and pets too.   

Even though I see stupid anti-oil-sands and anti-government comments about the fires, I'm extremely impressed with the warmth and kindness pouring out of not just Alberta but the whole country. Even at my office there are people opening their homes.  The oil companies are housing evacuees in camps and flying them out. Businesses are giving away profits to help.  Firefighters are risking their lives around the clock.