Frantic & Frightened

The fourth of July is a time for reflection and celebration of our country's freedom. It's also a time of barbecues, parades, and the mindless setting off of fireworks.

Fireworks pose a particular problem for our animal companions. Even my calm, guide-for-the-blind-trained dogs, Fennel and Yoshi, dislike the noise of the fireworks and the excited voices of our neighbors.

Since I know that many frightened dogs run away from home in a panic on the 4th of July, I thought I'd list some tips to prevent such tragic losses:

1. Don't take your dog to a fireworks display. Trust me, your dog won't enjoy the show as much as you do.

2. Don't leave your pet alone in the car. It's summer, and it's hot. This equation can equal a dead dog.

3. Keep your dog indoors in a quiet, sheltered area, with soft music playing. Leave him some chew toys, but remove anything expensive that the dog might destroy if he panics due to the noise of the fireworks.

4. Never leave your dog unattended outdoors. Dogs will often dig their way out of the backyard and run away if they're traumatized by the noise of fireworks.

5. Consult your pet's physician regarding a tranquilizer, if you know your pet to be particularly high strung on the 4th of July. My husband Wolfgang, who grew up in Germany near a military training area, used to have to tranquilize his childhood pet, a stubborn Dachshund named Klipsie, each time the miliary set off amunition. Only then could poor Klipsie relax!

We used to give our nervous rescue dog, Ranger, warm milk and honey if she was particularly stressed out. This was quite often, as she had been treated poorly by whoever had her before we rescued her. I also used a lavender oil spray I bought at a holistic pet boutique, which also seemed to calm her down.

Domestic animals cannot be expected to have the capacity to take care of themselves--domestication means that animals thus classified are dependent on us to care for them and keep them safe.

Best Wishes,



Jennifer

Keep off the Grass!

On Monday, June 19, the West Hollywood City Council approved a resolution urging the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department to make marijuana a low priority that Sheriff's deputies should largely ignore.

Basically, the City Council is asking that its law enforecement agency look the other way when it in encounters recreational marijuana use.

West Hollywood, a 1.9 square mile city of 35,000, has no power to compel the Sheriff's Department to conform to its wishes. Even if the City Council did have this power, how much would the new resolution change? The Sheriff's Department already places a rather low priority on simple possession and personal consumption of marijuana.

My husband and I were watching COPS the other day, and the cop in question, not in California, mind you, pulled over a reefer-smoking teenager and basically just let him go with a warning. This indicates to me that most law enforcement agencies, even those outside of California, have already de facto decriminalized personal use of marijuana.

Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca is worried about the message being sent if law enforecement is being urged to selectively enforce state law.

I, too, am worried. What does it tell young people, with little life experience on which to base their decisions, about the dangers of recreational drug use?

I'm a vocal proponent of medical marijuana. However, I'm very hesitant about the benefits of its recreational use. A few of my close friends enjoy an occasional glass of liquor and/or a joint, and I can't see that it harms them or society.

But drug and alcohol addiction are serious social problems that ruin people's lives. Much more importantly, the innocent bystanders of drug addicts and alcoholics are inevitably the ones who suffer.

One of my former client's small children told me the other day, "My mommy locks herself in the bathroom and goes like this," she said, pantomiming her mother smoking a joint, inhaling deeply, and breathing out reluctantly. The mother, my former client, gave her daughter a jab in the ribs and mouthed, "Shut up!"

That's not funny, is it? When children are involved, marijuana use becomes a more serious issue than adults with few responsiblities having a bit of fun.

West Hollywood City Councilman John Duran said, "We've seen that marijuana use is certainly no more dangerous and destructive than alcohol use."

Perhaps Councilman Duran can try to explain that to my client's daughter, whose mother is somewhat less than "awake, aware, and alive" due to her extensive marijuana use.

Best Wishes,



Jennifer

What's a pineapple good for?

If you happen to have a pineapple in your midst, why not use the top and the husk for two cheap and easy domestic projects? The husks can be used as a makeshift bleaching solution for white clothes, and the discarded top can be grown into your very own pineapple plant. Don't these seem like better options than just tossing more discards into your compost heap?

Pineapple husks:
One of my Hawaiian clients passed this tip on to me, and I've found that it really works well.
1. After you have peeled your pineapple, toss the husks into a bucket of cool water overnight.
2. In the morning, remove husks, and immerse your clean white clothes into the solution and leave them there for the rest of the day.
3. When you get home from work, remove the clothes, and run them throught your washer's rinse cycle.
4. Line dry. You could toss these into the dryer, but I personally prefer the texture of line dried clothes. Besides, clothes last longer when you line dry them, and this option is more ecologically friendly, too.

Sidebar--you can use the discarded pineapple solution to water plants if your local soil is too alkaline. The slightly acidic water will help perk up plants that require more acidity than regular tap water provides.

Pineapple tops:
1. Trim the top of the crown (the leafy top part), removing all the flesh. Scrape the crown until you see small root buds.
2. Strip off about an inch of the lower leaves, to make a stem for planting in the soil.
3. Let the plant top dry out of direct sun for at least seven days, in a dry place.
4. Plant in a terra-cotta pot with a mixture of potting soil and sand, which will allow your pineapple's roots to breath, and will also prevent overwatering.
5. Water once per week, and spray the leaves in addition to wetting the soil.
6. The pineapple requires a lot of sun, being a tropical bromeliad. However, don't let it burn, either.
7. To get your pineapple to bear fruit, after it has been growing vigorously on your windowsill, is the best part of this project. Wait until winter to do this, which is the time of year that pineapples normally begin to fruit. But it's a little tricky--first, place the entire potted plant into a plastic bag filled with ripe bananas and apples, and leave it in a sunny window for about two weeks, until a flower spike forms in the center. You may then remove your plant from the bag of rotting fruit!
8. After several months, the flower will dry out and a pineapple will form. It will be a small pineapple, to be sure, unless you happen to live in a tropical climate. But you can continue to grow another plant from the crowns of the harvested fruit, ad infinitum, leaving you with several free new plants!

It seems almost unbelievable that anyone could duplicate these Martha Stewart-like pineapple projects in his or her own home. But with just a little bit of effort, we can all do things that help to make our lives more meaningful, and at the same time keep us in touch with a nature, if only in a small way.

Best Wishes,



Jennifer

Bush apologizes to visually impaired reporter

Yesterday, during a news conference in the White House Rose Garden, President Bush mistakenly poked fun at a visually impaired reporter's sunglasses.

It's not funny to ridicule the handicapped, but President Bush jabbed at Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Wallsten's shades, apparently not realizing that Mr. Wallsten suffers from Stargardt's disease, a form of macular degeneration that causes vision loss.

Mr. Wallsten graciously accepted President Bush's rueful apology, and insisted that he was not offended.

Obviously, we can't always tell whether someone is handicapped or not. Yet common sense would tell us that a professional reporter would not show up to a formal event wearing sunglasses as a fashion statement. Certainly there must be some other reason behind the dark glasses.

The problem, therefore, is one of a lack of common sense on the part of President Bush. This is yet another one of our president's many gambits into poor taste. While jokes about President Bush abound, is it really funny anymore? It's been quite a while since he's been elected, and his behavior hasn't noticeably improved.

That our Commander in Chief consistently fails to behave in a dignified manner is very significant. I believe that the president's offensive remarks are symbolic of a number of deeper issues facing our country that were instigated by this presidency.

As Goethe once said, "He who tells a joke reveals a problem." I have a feeling Mr. Bush is going to continue to reveal many more problems!

Best Wishes,


Jennifer

Here kitty kitty!

A man approached me at the elevator when I was coming back to my office after an afternoon break. He said he had a couple of very young orphaned kittens in his car--did I want one?

Well, yes, I did. Or at least I wanted to help rescue one. We have two dogs, Yoshi and Fennel, who have been known to chase kitties. So I asked our friend Angie who works in the building as a janitor if she'd like a kitten. To my happiness, she said she did! My husband Wolfgang even went out to the pet store to buy kitten formula, since the poor little thing is too young to eat regular cat food.

It's a darling little thing with violet blue eyes and a gray and brown shaggy coat. I deeply love animals. One problem in our society is that people allow their animals to reproduce. The offspring of our pets become unwanted nuisances and are brought to shelters and euthanized. Euthanasia is a kind word for the killing of an unwanted animal.

While I'm not sure that I would join animal rights activists in harassing animal control officers, or comparing the raising of livestock with Nazi deathcamps, certainly I'm against the killing of animals. Not just dogs and cats--I am a dedicated vegetarian, and I even try to avoid leather shoes. The new law that has passed requiring the average pet owner to spay and neuter their dogs and cats is a step in the right direction. But it's not enough.

Our society needs to radically revise its ethical standards, emotions, biases and habits to which we rarely give a second thought. Mahatma Ghandi argued that a nation could be judged by its treatment of animals, and he's right. When we talk about animals, we are really talking about ourselves. If an animal is cute and wanted, we might dress it up in expensive collars and take it to the beauty salon to be groomed. However, pit bulls, who have the misfortune to belong to an undesirable breed are deemed to be expendable and are killed by the thousands.

In 35 years Los Angeles shelters have killed more than 5 million animals. Those who abuse, abandon, and/or fail to spay and neuter their pets are guilty of a grave wrong.

Alton Brown

"Good Eats" is a hilarious and informative cooking show hosted by Alton Brown. The show is a stand-out, because Mr. Brown combines subtle humor with information about the science behind cooking.

Most of us probably don't think of the cellular lives of yeast when we bake bread, but Mr. Brown explains the exact microbiological reasons of the leavening process, which is often puzzling to those of us who like to bake. For example, why do we have to let the refrigerated dough sit in an oven over a pan of hot water? It's to wake the yeast before we bake the dough, in order to preserve the slightly sour yeasty flavor.

He also finally explained to my satisfaction why it is that we need to sift flour and add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in order to avoid a tough cake. It's so that the individual molecules of flour are coated with the tenderizing wet ingredients of the cake. I never knew that before, but now I feel a certain fulfillment in knowing the true reason why following these baking rules yields the perfect cake.

We live in a physical world, but few of us know even the basics behind the science of physics. Life abounds with chemicals and chemical reactions, but the popular culture concept of "chemistry" is usally limited to the feelings we have about a romantic interest. All most of us know about microbiology is how to spray contaminated surfaces with Lysol.

Alton Brown has created with his show a unique venue not touched upon by other popular cooking shows, which usually just showcase the chefs' obnoxious personalities. While I watch "Good Eats" I never feel like I have just wasted time viewing "eye candy." Every show has some sort of scientific lesson that we can apply to cooking, a valuable activity that most of us do every day.

It is this practical, yet entertaining, scientific approach to cooking that contrasts so sharply with those instructions on how to use a microwave that they gave us in high school home economics.

I often wonder whether more practical home ec courses would make the average person's life happier. For example, would there be less of an obesity/diabetis epidemic if people knew how to cook healthier foods, instead of eating take-out McDonald's every night of the week? Would fewer people run up large credit card debts for romantic dinners for two if they could easily cook something appetizing, and much less expensive, in their own kitchens?

Of course, I can't say for sure. But I suspect that the ability to cook adds enjoyment and creativity to one's life, and results in healthier and less expensive food than what you can generally buy in restaurants.

In the meantime, I'm going to make a jar of pickles this weekend from a recipe I saw on Mr. Brown's recent hilarious show. The recipe's called "Kinda Sorta Sours." It only takes a few minutes, and I already have the ingredients on hand.

Best Wishes,


Jennifer