More Progress :)

Yum.  Padmanadi's vegan General Tao "Chicken" is one of my favourite splurges.  I'm currently eating Easter dinner leftovers for lunch at the office.  I think I have leftovers that will last several days - this is always the aftermath of a dinner at my parents' place :) 

I did an observed visit at a hospital this weekend and watched a therapy dog in action.  This one was a very lovely and well-behaved Shih Tzu (I'm still completely immature and I still want to giggle because I always hear "Shit Zoo") who visits rooms in a specific unit every week.  It was pretty amazing to see patients completely light up and transform at the idea of being able to hang out and pet a dog, even for just a few minutes.  I saw patients who were physically very weak but were still doing their best to be able to reach out and touch this little therapy dog.  I heard dog stories from patients and patients' loved ones.  I saw wide smiles appear and tension leave bodies.  Pet "therapy" is more than apt a term for this volunteer service.  

There were many types of patients and families ... really hits home that sickness/age eventually hits everyone.  It still makes me want to stay as healthy as possible though (maybe even more so now).    It also makes me want to remain loving towards my parents and raise loving kids too.  Many of the patients had their children visiting for Easter.  It was heartwarming to see families of all backgrounds spend some quality time together.
 

Progress :)

Hachi passed pre-screening - Yayyy! 

Paperwork is mostly done. Did the vet checkup this morning.

Just have to do a bit of therapy dog observing and then a weekend of training and hopefully Hachi will be on his way to making others feel better :) 

A Lady's Holiday

Reminder: vegans can get still get food poisoning. Ate some pretty old food from the fridge in fear of it going to waste and ended up puking the night away and taking a sick day the next day. Some soylent (awesome for nourishment while recovering from food poisoning), ginger ale, sweet chili chips and almost 9 hours of napping (one thing I like about being sick is being able to really really hardcore sleep) got to me to about 70%.  Still feeling just a bit sketchy, I made it to dancehall and twerking classes (finally!).  Worth it! 

The next day was the arrival of my monthly visitor (yay nutrient loss follow by blood loss).  My Ashtanga class was about to be cancelled that evening since I was the only student that showed up. Was contemplating going for drinks with the teacher instead and feeling ok about it since traditionally female Ashtangis are supposed to take a "ladies' holiday" during that time of the month. Another student showed up last minute and so we did the class anyway (minus inversions for me).  Glad I did, even though my body was all "WTF?!! I thought we were having a relaxing drink!!" at first. But hey, I came out of the class feeling refreshed and accomplished. Again, worth it!

Moral of the story? Sometimes it's just better to trudge through an activity anyway, even when not feeling 100%. I don't think I've ever regretted it thus far.  

Tonight is Hachi's pre-screening to see if he can become a therapy dog. I'm excited!  I think I need to join more animal loving/vegan type groups. Been feeling a bit isolated lately, even though I'm stoked my sis has gone vegan as well.  I'm reading Proteinaholic by Dr. Garth Davis about how society has become extremely unhealthily obsessed with animal protein (kindle version only $1.99 on Amazon this month!) and it's a bit depressing. Basically there is a big correlation between animal protein (not just meat, but dairy and eggs too) and cancer, heart disease and even diabetes.  Not to mention weight gain and gross bowels.  There is even a correlation between animal products and early onset of puberty.  My future daughter does not need titties and curves at the age of 8.  Hell even the World Health Organization recommends eating less meat.  It is a challenge to learn all this and figure out how to balance what I say to those around me, especially loved ones.  

Like I've said before, sometimes I daydream about moving away to some sort of veggie promised land. 

Stylin'

This might be the best looking pair of nation leaders along with their First Ladies ever.  Ever!

Photo from CBC's Instagram post.

Enlightenment: Why I am a Bit of an Indiaphile

Happy International Women's Day!

For International Women's Day I Instagrammed a pic of my mom and I on the beach back in the day when we used to live in Brunei. Of course I hashtagged it "Brunei" and out of curiosity I did a search with that hashtag.

All these beautiful wedding pictures popped up and I had a sudden flashback of our Muslim neighbors when I was a kid. They were a young Malay/Chinese couple and I remember looking at their wedding pics and seeing for the first time the beautiful combination of bright colors and textures and henna that the bride was wearing. I was quite enchanted!  There was also a significant Indian population in Brunei, but I didn't get to witness an Indian wedding until coming to Canada.  I do remember the saris and jewelry though.

Fast forward to my giddiness at the opportunity to wear a sari and henna in my 30's.  And my love of Indian food and novels.  Yoga even! 

Cuteness Overload.

Photo from Justin Trudeau's Twitter feed.

Double pandassssss!  Auggghfhfhh I am super going through "gigil" which is the Tagalog translation of "I can't even!!! It's so cute I want to die!" 

In other news, the Rock Jungle climbing gym out west is pretty sweet! And I finally used my new food processor (my sis has used it multiple times already for vegan meal preps). I know I'm late, but man is that thing ever AWESOME for making fresh sauces.  And it was just a generic no name one from Superstore that was on sale. Worked wonderfully for making Glory Bowls from a Shelley Adams Whitewater Cooks cookbook:

She Would've Been 94.

Happy Birthday dear Nanay Carmen. Hard to believe it's been almost a year since you've left this earth. You are dearly dearly missed. 

I think my lovely grandmother would have approved of what my sister and I did today. We went to a therapy dog info session and signed up Hachi for pre-screening. It's something I've wondered about and now I'm excited we've done something about it.  Another byproduct of this "just do it" mission of mine.

I'm pretty fortunate - loving family, access to education and freedom and all that other good stuff.  I've played with the thought of volunteering to give back to society.  I thought about causes I feel strongly about, like poverty and racism and refugees and animals and violence against women. Being a therapy dog handler encompasses helping others AND spending time with Hachi. Plus he will just get even more affection from even more people.  Who in turn will feel love and non-judgement from him.  It's this amazing win-win situation.  If he passes the screening and training, he will be able to comfort so many different folks in different scenarios! The elderly, the ones with special needs and disabilities, the sick, kids learning to read with confidence, those in correctional facilities who don't have much to look forward to day-to-day.. The list is endless really.  

We shall see what happens :) Hachi is so gentle and well socialized that I already feel he'd be such a good fit for this work, but there is still pre-screening and tests and checks and training to go through.  Plus I may be a bit biased since he is my very own fur baby after all!