Underwater Puppies

I have to admit that when I heard about this book my first reaction was awww puppies, such a good idea, he's gonna make a mint.

I'm a cynical cow.

Then I happened to be on the treadmill on the gym when one of the morning shows interviewed the photographer, Seth Casteel. I fell in love. Well, he's pretty cute, but moreso I fell in love with his message. He teaches water safety to dogs.

How healthy are you?

They say there's a chance I could die of breast cancer,
Or a melanoma
I could die from heart disease
Or even from a brain haemorrhage
Maybe in a car accident
But the fact is, the biggest cause of death for women in my age group is suicide.



I saw this commercial last night and I was shocked. I knew that suicide was a major cause of death for young men, I didn't realise how significant it was for young women too.

10 tips on getting a dog

In the 2012-2013 financial year 49189 dogs were received by the RSPCA (this is their report). Of these, 17946 were reclaimed; leaving a staggering 31233 dogs to be re-homed, of which 10355 were euthanised. If you've ever loved a dog (or a cat, the statistics for cats are even worse) this is mindblowingly tragic.

I once had to re-home two beautiful spoodles; Ernie and Maisie. My long term relationship ended, he didn't want to keep them and I (financially) had to move into a share house. It was impossible to find shared rentals in (Brisbane) Australia that would allow two indoor (one highly challenging) dogs. It took time to find them homes and they both ended up with very loving owners. But I don't know if I will ever get over it. I am tearing up writing about them and still have dreams where I am trying to save them (often from a flood!?!). When I got Ted I committed to being his forever mum. One dog is much easier to manage than two and he has been treated and trained to be suitable to live anywhere I may need to. I am not making the same mistake twice and I don't want you to ever suffer the heartbreak I did so I put together this practical little guide. I am no expert, there are plenty of guides out there from experts; this is based on my own experience, research and time working with rescue groups.

A Liebster Award and Creating Contentment.

I have been gifted a Liebster award by Sarah of Creating Contentment. Sarah writes unflinchingly honest posts about the challenges she faces and the ways she manages to find contentment in this crazy, busy, stressful world. I am a little in awe of how she manages to wrangle five kids and still find time to really look after herself. Definitely worth popping over for a read.

The Liebster award is essentially a little bloggy thing that has been going around for a while. Bloggers nominate others that write good blog and pass forward the goodwill and attention that bloggers crave. While I started this to write for myself, I delight in writing for you lot and am thrilled that my readers are constantly growing. I also love being part of this little community. It may not quite be the communities of old but people who are passionate about writing and talking and helping each other is something that should be fostered, IRL or URL.

A dingo stole my... heart

I would like you to meet Tangle

Is he not one of the most gorgeous, intelligent creatures you have ever seen?

Seeking's Adventures in Wine-derland

I remember my first wine tasting very well.

I was terrified.

I can't remember how we decided on the first cellar door, possibly someone had suggested they had good wines, it may have been on a tourist brochure; I don't know, but within minutes I knew I wanted to leave and never taste wine again.

You see up until that point I knew I really liked wine but I didn't know anything about it. I was brave though- my selections were based on the label, it had to be a 'cool bottle' and usually my budget was anywhere up to $20, but outside of these criteria I did not discriminate. While most of my mates were drinking premixes, I had found wine and I bloody well liked it. I drank sparkling in abundance. Red wine, especially shiraz, was tasty-good (and it looked grown-up and classy). I also stumbled my way through a bunch of cheap and nasty whites but every so often a colourful label choice would turn out to be drinkable, so I didn't write them off entirely.

Qi Change

Has everyone has heard of a sea-change? 

From Wikipedia: 'An Australian term, ultimately adopted from a term found in Shakespeare's The Tempest which describes a form of human migration that involves individuals abandoning city living in favour of a perceived 'easier life' in rural coastal communities.' 

There are entire communities on Australia's Gold Coast devoted to the 'cause'. The term 'tree change' has also popped up for those who want the relaxed vibe with less sand. 

I would like to introduce you to a new idea- the Qi Change. At its simplest, qi means energy; although there is nothing simple about the Chinese understanding of qi but I won't go into that here. My idea of a Qi change is when people choose to change the way they live, their priorities and therefore where their focus and energy sits, without the migration. It is about people choosing a way of life that is truer to self.

Phillip & Peaches

I wrote this three months ago upon hearing about the death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman:

Early Sunday morning Phillip Seymour Hoffman died with a syringe in his arm and empty packs of heroin nearby. Did he mean to overdose? Was it an accident? Was he aware of the possibility he would die and just didn't care? Was he depressed or was he celebrating? We will probably never know. A coroner will perform an autopsy and make conclusions that the media will dissect and people will chat about over Friday night drinks in between admiring haircuts and chastising hemlines. Just another name pronounced with finality.

Phillip's kids will grow up without a dad, perhaps defending him in the schoolyard because his was not an admirable death. But he did have a celebrated life. To most of us he had it all; an acting career, three beautiful children, and recognition of his talent and hard work. From a young age he also had heroin, and as it so often does, heroin won in the end.

I stopped writing because I didn't have the words to express the profound disappointment at another senseless death. Of course I did not know Phillip but his performances were so fiercely intelligent, truthful and raw that I felt like I knew him. I started to write this as an appeal to educate people about the dangers of drugs and express my concern that drug education is not being used the right way.

Saturday

I need to tell you about my Saturday. I hope that in 5 years time I may be able to look back on this post and laugh. Hopefully it makes you feel better about your Saturday in the meantime.

A 9.5 hour shift, alone, in the Wine Shop With No Wine is predictably long, tedious and reasonably depressing. But it has advantages: plenty of time to read Gourmet Traveller or whatever wine text I am browsing at the time, time to chat to some of the nicer customers, even just the opportunity to do not terribly much for a while. Just in case my manager is reading- This is after I have made sure the shelves are stocked etc (which doesn't take long enough sadly).

What is not supposed to happen is the spontaneous explosion of a bottle of beer, suicide bomber style; taking 2 of his compatriots and a bottle of shiraz with him, splattering the shop with alcohol and glass. My initial thought when I heard the pop was that it was a drive by shooting (there have been a few pizza shops targeted recently, I though the crims might be branching out). A customer less than 1 metre away from the vengeful beer was miraculously unharmed and only lightly sprayed, astonishing given the state the rest of the stock was in. I checked the customer was OK and ushered him away from the broken glass and towards his family with the poor fella repeating "It just exploded" to all within earshot.

Bachelor of 'give a damn'

I have a new subject  to add to the standard Pharmacy degree. It's called 'Defending the Profession' and it is something every budding Pharmacist needs to master.

I am always surprised by the surveys (like this one) that name Pharmacists as one of the most trusted professions. In practice it feels very different, with patients/customers becoming defensive and even aggressive when we ask them basic duty-of-care questions. I gotta tell you, it's pretty tough to deal with when I am just looking out for them. When I reveal to an acquaintance that I have a Pharmacy degree their response is usually along the lines of: "Is that really boring?" and "Do you have to go to uni to be a Pharmacist?" followed closely by "Why do I have to show my license to buy pain-killers?". I guess these aren't the people surveyed. For the record, the answers to those questions are: No, not boring, stressful and busy usually but not boring; Yes, it is a four year degree plus an additional year of supervision and well, I'm going to talk about question 3.

The Booby Monster

Our earliest experiences shape so much of who we become and how we deal with things. I can't help thinking that sometimes, in trying to protect children from the horrors of the world, that we make it harder for them when something does go wrong. Just before Christmas I discovered a breast lump. In my family we do all the recommended screenings and self-checks on a regular basis because unfortunately there is a reasonable waft of cancer and heart disease floating around in the family history. In those few days between when I found the lump and was able to have an ultrasound I couldn't stop my mind from delving into the what-ifs. I became a bit of a google-addict, well I am one anyway, but my addiction is amplified when I am worried about something. I practice what I preach so I avoided Dr Google (he is the most general of all GPs and in medicine we want specifics right?) but I did read lots of stories from breast cancer survivors.

It was interesting to me, and I found it a little odd, that there were so many stories of people feeling disfigured and lacking confidence after a mastectomy.

2013

I don't mind a bit of reflection. You learn twice as much from your mistakes as long as you acknowledge them. 2013 has been a bugger of a year for me. I have worked too much and too hard for too little reward. I have not spent enough time following my dreams (heck I haven't been sleeping enough to even get into the dreaming) or even just having fun. The problem is that I say the same thing about 2012, and 2011 for that matter. It seems that I am not learning from my mistakes. I recently had a minor health scare (fortunately it was just a scare) but whilst I was in the Waiting To Find Out phase I said to the Bookworm "I haven't done anything I want to do yet". In retrospect, that is the scariest part of all. We can be taken from this world at any time by any number of causes and were that to happen to me soon, mine would have been a life half-lived. Sickening to think about. So here's to 2014 and seeking victory.

Here is a little recap of my 2013:

Drugs are not safe... but they can save your life.

I recently participated in a little vaccination debate on Facebook, triggered by some negative press about Gardisil, the 'cervical cancer' vaccine (this is worth reading if you are concerned). It quickly became a discussion about immunisation in general. One of my highly educated and very respected friends highlighted the difficulties he faced when trying to make an informed decision about what was best for his child. It seems that it is such a sensitive issue that people on both sides of the debate can quickly become overly emotional and unable to provide clear, unbiased information. I weighed in and just found myself repeating 'risk vs benefit'. For me this is what all decisions basically boil down to. I feel like this concept is not considered often enough in the prescribing and taking of drugs.

We don't call them drugs though, we call them medicines. Only the scary illegal ones are drugs right? It's all sugar-coating- a medicine is a drug, a lot of the natural things we take are technically drugs. The definition of a drug is: a medicine or other substance which has a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced into the body (Oxford Dictionary). So food is a drug too. I'm going to confine my rant to legal pharmaceutical drugs here though.

Dear Universe....

Facing a 10.5 hour shift in The Wine Shop With No Wine (and remarkably there is even less wine than usual) I came to the conclusion that I really need a new job.
Yeah I know, hardly a newsflash.
I decided to write a job wishlist- put it out to the universe...

Dear Universe,
As a response to the miserable crap numerous challenges you have provided me with in the last 5 years or so I thought it might be time to reward me by giving me a kick-ass new job. To make this easier for you I have prepared a list of requests:

Tipping, not just a footy term

Constantly seeking some kind of victory (life satisfaction/job satisfaction/healthy body image/saving the world/saving the animals or even just a really good breakfast) has resulted in me trying a number of jobs. One of the tougher areas I have worked and I imagine will do again is hospitality.

When you are working in hospitality you can tell the people who have also worked in hospitality. They are the ones who say thank you, who make eye contact when you are speaking to them, who don't talk about things like you can't hear them. Or maybe these people haven't worked in hospitality, maybe they just have respect for other human beings.

Another sure sign of a hospo veteran is that they tip.

World Animal Day

October 4 is World Animal Day, started in 1931 as a way of highlighting the plight of endangered species. Over time it has evolved into a day that celebrates all animals and in a wonderful turn of events, this year it was celebrated in Melbourne in the middle of the CBD at Federation Square, which allowed for a whole lot more attendance and exposure than ever before. Pigs in Fed Square- oh yeah!

Edgar's Mission is the amazing not for profit rescue group behind Melbourne's World Animal Day celebration. These guys are remarkable in that they provide sanctuary for farm animals. You see, 'food' or 'production' animals lie outside of the animal protection legislation (and you already know my feelings on the state of our animal protection legislation), so these critters are basically doomed unless they somehow stumble upon Edgar's Mission. EM rehabilitate everything they can get their hands on from battery farm chickens to stray pigs. Spend some time checking out their webpage

As part of the celebrations, local rescue and animal welfare groups were invited to set up a stall to help raise awareness about the issues facing them and what people can do to help. I tagged along with the Magic Paws team and got to wear this fabulous t-shirt.

Yep, I just put a close-up of my boobies on the internet- Hi Mum.

How Much is That Doggie in the Window?

The life of a pet shop puppy:

You wake in the morning at 5:30am like all good puppies and pull yourself out from under your sister who has fallen asleep on top of you. You climb over your other siblings and the 2 cavoodles they have chucked in your box and do a quick circuit of the perimeter, this takes you about 30 seconds and having decided there is nowhere new to go you do your morning business next to the water bowl that is empty after one of the cavoodles knocked it last night. You are really hungry but the staff won't arrive for another hour or two so you flop unceremoniously back on top of your sister and go back to sleep.

The lights come on. Hooray!!! You scramble to get a pat from the pet shop lady as she opens the magic door and reaches in to scoop out the dirty shredded paper that is your floor and bedding and make sure you are ready to pounce on that food as soon as it arrives. This is the best part of the day! After breakfast you have a bit of a roll about with you brother and the 2 cavoodles and then settle down for a nap. It is hard to sleep under the fluorescent lighting but you are pretty used to that now....zzzzzzzz

TAP TAP TAP

Shit, what is that?You wake abruptly and jump up ready to fight. There is a giggling noise and you realise that the noise was just a human tapping on your box. You go over to see if they will give you a pat but the magic door doesn't open and the human just waves at you while you trace their finger movement with your nose.

The rest of the day carries on much like this. You get a quick pat when the magic door opens and one of the cavoodles is taken away but other than that the highlight is when you get dinner just before the lights go out.

Fairly crappy existence right?

My guide to wine tasting

I spend my days pouring wine for people to taste in the wine store with no wine and I have learned a lot. Mostly about what not to do when tasting wine. So I thought I would share my knowledge because I am certain that I have been guilty of many faux pas over the years.

What Gatsby?

I watched "The Great Gatsby" and I loved it.

I went by myself towards the end of the run at Palace Cinemas in a tiny little theatre. I didn't intentionally leave it this late, I just always seem to fill my days off with other things. I was expecting it to be an average movie but aesthetically and aurally beautiful. I still remember the experience of seeing Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo and Juliet'. Those stunning moments of intimate camera angles, soaring music and beautiful people that just stick in your head. Despite having been in 3 productions, playing Juliet for 7 months in one of them, when I think of R&J the first picture in my mind is of Claire Danes dressed as an angel, peeking through the fish tank at Leo. This was why I had to see Gatsby.  I hadn't read many reviews, I tried not to, but the overall impression I got was that it was not a good film, a bit over the top and not true to the book.

That probably helped. You see, 'The Great Gatsby' is the book that high school ruined for me.

Casual Philanthropy

 I did a good thing.

About a month ago Oscar's Law and The Paw Project were able to provide enough evidence to the South Australian RSPCA to warrant a raid on an Adelaide Hills puppy farm. Over one hundred dogs and cats were rescued, including pregnant animals and a callout was placed on the Oscar's Law Facebook page for donations of blankets, food, medical supplies etc to assist the foster carers of these animals. Most of the drop-off points were in the outer suburbs and being inner city and wanting to help (and having seen other requests for inner suburbs drop-off points) I offered the shop I work in as a location.

The store was listed as a drop-off location on Thursday about midday, by early Friday afternoon we had this: