That pet food recall has expanded yet again. Now it includes Alpo Prime Cuts in Gravy wet dog food (made by Purina) and Prescription Diet m/d (made by Hill’s) for cats … the first dry food to be recalled. None of the pets in my extended family circle eat these, as verified by my calling them all and making sure of that, but I wanted to pass it on.

What is really obnoxious about these latest additions is that Alpo is eaten by oodles of dogs. It’s a big brand. And … the prescription cat food? It’s for cats with diabetes who are overweight … so it’s getting fed to animals who already have problems.

Look, your pet’s food has no reason whatsoever to have wheat gluten in it. It isn’t there for any nutritional purpose, can’t even be digested (at least by cats, I don’t know about dogs), and all it does is act as a filler or for appearance sake. Read the labels. Avoid wheat gluten. I’ve been avoiding it since Fuzza got IBS, which the vet said probably came from … get this … eating wheat gluten. The kittens now eat Purina Kitten Chow, because once I got around to reading the label some of the expensive stuff we were feeding them did have wheat gluten, and quite frankly, I don’t want to end up with more cats that get IBS and then die too young from cancer (and yes, I think the two are related). Purina Kitten Chow may not be the best thing out there, but at least the ingredients are mostly identifiable and mostly not just there to make it look good.

My mom is currently cooking for her dog, because she’s a little spooked about what foods may be recalled next, and quite frankly, I don’t blame her. I am too. I am considering putting the cats on an actual non-cat food diet as well, though I don’t know how I am going to pull off making meals for the cats on top of everything else, even if I do it in bulk … and it’s not going to be cheap. We tried it for a while with Fuzza, and none of us were all that thrilled with the idea. But hell, I am nervous about feeding them anything I buy in a store right now.

Gods, the poor pets and poor pet owners going through all this, the thought just sickens me to the core, and even though I haven’t been personally effected by this recall of poisoned food, I can’t stop myself from crying about it every time it crosses my mind. It’s just so horrible.

Other posts at Just Orb containing more information about this recall:

Pet Owner Alert!
Deadly Pet Food

I’m having a somewhat crappy Saturday. How about you?

Yeah, that’s all I have to say at the moment aside from mention yet again how much I hate liars and the drama they create.

I’m going to go do yoga until I fall over in a heap of sweaty fatigue.

None of the big storms hit us. They all slipped just north or just south of Austin. While that is probably a good thing, because this house doesn’t need to get hit by anymore huge storms right now, it did lead to a long and boring day filled with nothing but dark skies and endlessly droning rainfall. At least a little thunder and lightning would have been nice to break the tedium.

I spent the day doing yoga, negating the positive effects of that by eating a bunch of junk food, and taking naps. A nap on the couch. A nap on the living room floor. A final long nap on the bed.

When I awoke from my last nap, I discovered that Lin had been home and left again. I have no idea where he is or what time he intends to come home. I suspect he is out with his friends. It would be nice if he’d bothered to wake me up to say “hello” and let me know he was going out. I assure you if I took off somewhere while he was sleeping without informing him, didn’t answer phone calls or text messages, and was out at this hour of the night, he’d blow a gasket. Yes, 15 years into this relationship, and we are still dealing with a huge double standard. One of these days, maybe this weekend when he falls asleep on the couch for an afternoon nap, I think I’ll just get in the truck and go hang out at a mall, not answer any phone calls or text messages, and see what happens. I’ve been wanting to get some new work out clothes, and I desperately need a new pair of casual shoes. I haven’t enjoyed any shopping therapy in a while. It’ll be fun and do me some good, as well as point out yet again how he doesn’t approve of his own behaviors when it is me doing them. So why exactly should I approve when he does them? It’s a very subtle form of misogyny to expect me to behave differently from him. If it’s good for the gander, it’s good for the goose. He won’t ever change, but at least I will get the satisfaction of my yearly effort to point out to him the ridiculousness of having two sets of accepted behaviors dependent on who is doing the behaving.

Pisses me right off actually, and his going out without any word of where he is going or that he is going anywhere pisses me right off too.

Well, the house just gave a huge thumping sigh, and my ears started ringing. Stepping out on the porch, I found there’s a mean wind blowing … the sort of scary wind that twists and turns and comes from all directions at once. I have a love/hate relationship with that sort of wind. It’s fun and exciting and feels good, but it also brings with it things like hail and tornadoes. I guess I better go see what the local weatherman is saying. We may get hit by a big storm yet. Why can’t they ever hit during the day so I can enjoy the excitement and not get nervous about what’s going on in the dark that I can’t see? I love a big storm during the day. At night? Not so much … especially when I am home alone and don’t know where my husband is.

I better take some aspirin now. I can feel the pressure headache coming on already. Man the air pressure here just dropped so dramatically! It’s freaking me out a bit. I could do without a tornado tonight, thank you very much.

One of the hazards of not changing the address on your mail, drivers license, and so forth when you move, is that there are occasionally some things you may really need to receive and which can get you into trouble should you not get them. I don’t speak from experience. I’m thorough and quick about changing my address everywhere as soon as I know where I am moving. The previous owners of this house still haven’t managed to get that small detail done, and so, we still get tons of mail for them … even though I took it up with the postal service and sent tons of stuff back over the years with “Not at this address” written on the front.

Those of you who have been reading my babbling for the last three or so years might remember that they used to come by all the time to either check the mailbox themselves or to ask me if they had gotten any mail. It didn’t bother me for the first month or so, because we did decide on the house and close on it rather quickly. There is always a little overlap on when mail gets forwarded to a new location. At the end of the first year, I realized they just weren’t going to bother doing anything about it, so I talked to the post master who informed me there wasn’t much I could do. Then I spent a good six months sending stuff back to the senders trying to get the point across to them. By the beginning of the third year, I simply started throwing it in the trash … after looking it over to see who was sending stuff, of course.

Hospital bills, Medicare letters, information from lawyers, Social Security letters, personal mail, credit card and bank statements, bills for cell phones, all manner of mail coming to my home, and it was all the sorts of things you A) would want to receive and B) wouldn’t want other people to have due to the personal information hiding inside. Every last bit of it the kinds of things you would shred before tossing in the trash for fear someone would steal your identity. I even once had a Sheriff’s Deputy on my front porch looking to serve a warrant, and had to prove they no longer lived here. The previous owners moved away, but the paperwork on their lives continues to reside here.

This evening I finally remembered to go check the mail, and tucked in among the bills and letters addressed to us was a letter from the Travis County Jury Management Office. I saw the back of the postcard first and had a moment of panic thinking I had missed a jury call (or Lin had), but when I turned it over, it was for the previous owner. One of the any letters Lin or I had tossed in the trash without paying attention to must have been a call to jury duty, because now there’s this postcard saying a jury summons was missed, you better respond … or else.

The “or else” in this case is having a warrant put out for your arrest followed by an appearance in a courtroom during which you have to explain why you didn’t respond to the summons. If the judge finds your “cause” to be feeble, which I would think “I didn’t get the letter because the address on my drivers license isn’t where I have been living the last 3+ years” wouldn’t pass muster, you can be fined between $100 and $1000, spend 3 days to six months in jail, or both … all depending on what sort of court summoned you in the first place. For the record, the higher end of the penalties are actually for Texas’s own, more local, court systems and much worse than the lower end which applies to skipping jury duty at a federal court … and Texas does issue warrants on a regular basis for skipping out on your summons.

Of course, H.V. isn’t going to respond to this card any more than she responded to the initial summons, because she doesn’t know a damn thing about it … being as she is still pretending to be living at this address, for some unfathomable reason. I suspect this may eventually lead to another Sheriff’s Deputy on my front porch at some later date. I guess I better make sure I have my proof they don’t live here anymore handy, just in case.

Here’s today’s dabbling with Vue 6. Still not a full resolution render with all the bells and whistles turned on, though I did use soft shadows and a few other picky little settings. Not declaring this one finished, just finished for now. I want to work on this one some more, but not when the urge to be a lazy slug is so high. I’m feeling the need for a nap.

I just got an email with some more information about the Audio Inversions concert Lin and I are going to on Monday evening. Here’s a list of the instruments that will be used during the performance:

• 5 break drums
• 1 sistra
• 2 coils
• 1 roto-tom
• 5 coffee cans
• 1 sizzle cymbal
• 1 small mounted frame drum
• 2 gongs (Burmaese)
• 5 snare stands
• 4 cymbal stands
• 3 trap tables
• 4 tom toms
• 1 flute
• 1 violin
• 1 marimba
• 1 vibraphone
• temple cup gongs, temple blocks, windchimes, and some flower pots

Sounds really interesting now! Can’t wait to see how the flower pots get used.

Once again, if you are in the Austin area and looking for something different and interesting to do on Monday night, why not come to the Austin Museum of Art and hear some tunes and fill your eyes with some artistic workings? You can read more about it in my original post on the subject.

Paging Piper: Hey, this sounds like something you would REALLY enjoy. If you aren’t busy Monday night, why don’t you come out?

There’s a massive storm headed our way, so I was debating whether to try to beat it and go to Walgreens before it got here or wait and go after. I decided to get it over with so I would be done with it. Who knows what sorts of storms would hit next, and then the cats wouldn’t have food and Lin wouldn’t be able to eat any cookies for lack of milk. Nothing worse than two crying cats and a whining husband. I don’t need that kind of stress in my life today.

The only thing I didn’t get was bread, because they were out. They were also almost out of milk too. I had to practically crawl on the floor to get to the last few 2% milks they had. And … I bought the last bag of Purina Kitten Chow. I think a lot of people had the idea to just run to Walgreens to pick up some essentials rather than go grocery shopping today. I also bought Dr Pepper, which I told myself I wasn’t going to do, but due to the lack of bread in my free hand, when I passed the Dr Pepper, my shaking addict hand reached out and grabbed a two liter bottle and wouldn’t let go. I really need to cut back on the Dr Pepper. It isn’t going to be easy.

I think I have figured out why Annoying Boy has been so damn persistent about the lawn mowing, aside from being annoyed when he has to mow theirs. The trailer is in their driveway again, and there are a slew of cars too … some even parked on my lawn. I guess they are having a lot of guests this weekend, and maybe they wanted our yard to look nice for that. Well, had they come at it from that angle … would you mind mowing your lawn since we are having lots of guests coming this weekend … I might have done just that. Or maybe not. But bugging me several times a day and just demanding I mow my lawn? That’s only going to get a none response at best and outright anger at worst. Neighbors can ask me to mow my lawn, but they cannot TELL me to mow my lawn. It’s my lawn, and they aren’t my masters or my parents. I don’t have to do anything they tell me to do.

Quite frankly, I’m glad we didn’t mow, and I am glad the people PARKING ON MY LAWN have to walk through wet weeds while they are WALKING ON MY LAWN. And … I better not see any grey water drain hoses running from that trailer into my yard. I know I will, because they have it parked right on the property line and as far from their own front yard as possible. I swear these people have no concept of property lines.

Still toying with the idea of a Weed Garden in the front flowerbed. Still enjoying the idea immensely too.

I’m now going to declare it officially the weekend. Right after I take out the trash and do some yoga, major bum-like activities will commence. I have a bunch of comments to reply to and some Ask Orbie questions to answer, but I want to turn the computer off before the storm gets here. Our electricity always gets so flaky during storms. I’ll try to get to all that later, provided the house doesn’t blow away, we don’t have some sort of flash flood of epic proportions in my neighborhood, or I can’t remove my butt from the couch once I get settled into it.