*In memory of three GREAT golden retriever patients of my practice who all chose last week to pass beyond the Rainbow Bridge.
Excessive exuberance! That would be the only way to describe Charlie, the two-year-old yellow Labrador who I, my wife, and his frazzled owner were trying to get to hold still on my exam table. Bounce, bounce, bounce; smell, smell ,smell; pant, pant, pant; wag the tail, bang, bang, bang; bounce, bounce, bounce. The whole effort was like trying to hold back the wind.
Charlie had been limping on his left front leg for almost a week. His beloved owners, logically, had done a good job of checking his paws for thorns, etc., and felt that it might have just been a strain on one of his joints. And that’s a reasonable conclusion. Just like with ourselves, sometimes a tincture of time is all that’s needed to heal. Even though he wasn’t getting any worst, he wasn’t getting any better either. So they brought him in.
In spite of his boundless and care-free behavior (Labradors DO seem to always enjoy themselves!), I did manage to get a reasonably good examination of both his front legs. With the exception of a slight swelling to his left carpal joint (ankle), I could find nothing obviously wrong. I then spent the next five minutes giving the owner a long list of what the possible problems might be that Charlie could have: 1.) Most likely it was a soft-tissue trauma (pulled tendon, partially-torn ligament, bruised or pulled muscle, etc.) 2.) It could have been one of the long lists of “growing pain†disorders that occasionally affect large breed dogs (panosteotis, HOD, OCD.) 3.) A possible hairline fracture. 4.) One of the large-breed dog birth defects (elbow or hip dysplasia.) 5.) A joint infection.
There was a last possible problem, that, because of the dog’s young age, I didn’t worry too much about. But, in order to be thorough, I gently suggested that I do an X-ray of Charlie’s swollen ankle. My reason for being gentle about suggesting the X-ray is that my doing so frequently alerts the pet’s owner that I might be thinking about something really bad.
And that turned out to be the case with Charlie’s owner. Without me even mentioning “the C-word,†I saw his loving owner’s eyes begin to redden and her tears begin to flow. “Doctor, he doesn’t have cancer, does he?â€
[We X-rayed Charlie and he was fine. Probably his limping was just some strain of his joint.]
CANCER!!! The very word strikes terror at the heart of those who hear it. Everyone who has been alive on this planet has been affected by this horrific disease. Either they’ve had it themselves, or have know someone who has had it. As a medical professional, I am very cautious on how or when I use the word. Just like in the example of young Charlie, I can give a laundry-list of common ailments that most probably are the reason for a pet’s problem, but as soon as I mention “the C-word,†everything I’ve previously said is totally forgotten.
As common as the disease is, most people have no idea of what cancer exactly is. Likewise, most people are surprised to hear that their pets (and even plants) can come down with the disease as well! I’m going to try and explain the disease, but please keep in mind that there are entire medical research libraries filled with hundreds of thousands of books on the subject, as well as professional and dedicated researchers who’ve spent their entire life studying cancer who still haven’t completely figured it out.
Keeping in mind that dictionary definitions of cancer can go on for pages, what I tell my clients is that cancer is simply just uncontrolled cellular growth. For reasons that are still unknown, a single body’s cell—or a small group of cells—begins to divide and duplicate itself uncontrollably. In the example of my three golden retriever patients that sucumbed to cancer in the past week, the first one had a bone cell in his left fore-arm that went berserk (once again, I’m using language that non-medically educated readers might relate to) and grew into a very painful bone tumor (osteosarchoma); the second golden had a group of lymph node cells start to divide out of control resulting in whole-body lymph node cancer (lymphoma); and the third, a great dog named Sonny, had a liver cell that started growing wildly, resulting in liver cancer (hepatocarcinoma). The same can be true of any other organ or part of the body: If the un-controlled growth occurs in a mammary gland, the result will be breast cancer, the spleen (hemangiosarchoma), the blood vessels (pericytomas), the brain (astrocytomas), etc., etc.
Why this outta control cellular growth begins is still not completely understood. Greater medical minds than my bumbling self still haven’t reliably figured it out for each and every type of cancer. Everything has been blamed from cosmic radiation, to the Reagan Administration; from chemical agents, to cell phones. The best answer I give my grieving clients is “that there is no answer. All we can do is enjoy our time with each other and our treasured pets the best we can.†Thanks again
.
Regular readers of my humble webpage know that I constantly rant and rave—to the point of being annoying, I’m sure—about the need for dog and cat owners to stay up to date on two things with regards to their pet’s health: their pet’s vaccinations and their pet’s parasite control. And over the years I’ve used many stories and parables to try and highlight my never ending struggle to get the word out to you dog owners with regards to an especially deadly disease of dogs called parvo virus. I think the following story of the myth of Prometheus sums up my never-ending battle perfectly.
The gods of ancient Greek mythology were really quite a bunch of rascals. And although many of them seemed obsessed with mating with various hapless human mortals, and inflicting all kinds of plague, corruption, and despair upon us, there were a few who tried their best to improve the human condition. One of the more famous of these ancient gods was Prometheus.
Prometheus, whose name in Greek means Forethought, was the son of Iapetos and Klymene. He was given the task by Zeus to form man from water and earth. After doing so, Prometheus took a great delight in his creation and, despite Zeus’s warnings against doing so, gave mankind all sorts of good stuff: brickwork, woodworking, healing drugs, numbers, the alphabet, yoked oxen, carriages, ships, and, perhaps the most precious gift of all, fire.
He stole fire from Zeus by hiding it inside the stalk of a fennel plant. When Zeus realized what Prometheus had done, he was mad—REALLY MAD. And so as a punishment for his disobedience, Zeus had Prometheus chained to Mt. Kaukasos in the Caucasus Mountain Range to hang there until his anger subsided. To make the ordeal even more difficult for Prometheus, Zeus sent a gigantic Caucasian eagle to feed on his liver. And so it went for 30,000 years. Each day, Zeus’s eagle would peck away and devour poor old Prometheus’s liver. And each night, the torn immortal flesh would mend, so that the next day, the eagle could peck away at it again.
I can hear it out there now: “This is a weird story, Doc, but what does it have to do with parvo virus?†Well, it’s like this.
In my veterinary practice, as I’m forced to stand there looking down at these sad, innocent, and dying young dogs on my exam room table, and all the while having to listen to the blah, blah, blah, endless number of feeble excuses their owners are giving me for not having had their poor beast vaccinated, I often feel like good old Prometheus. But instead of having my liver pecked out, it’s my heart being ripped out instead. And sometimes it’s tough to take.
Parvo virus is a ghastly disease that can affect all dogs, mostly puppies, that literally causes them to vomit and crap themselves to death. Most victims tend to be the offspring of mother dogs who themselves were never vaccinated. The disease is spread mostly by fecal/oral contamination. That is, an unvaccinated or poorly-vaccinated dog catches the disease by smelling/licking the diarrhea and vomit of another infected dog, or, by coming into contact with a disease infected environment, such as a dog park, kennel, or infected household. Parvo disease is HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS.
Without hospitalization at a medical center that has a quarantine facility, parvo disease is almost always fatal. It is, however, nearly 100% preventable by vaccination. In my practice, all dogs should be vaccinated at six, nine, and twelve weeks of age. They should then be vaccinated again at one year of age. From this point, a parvo virus vaccination schedule should be followed as recommended by your veterinarian.
Thank you.
Sometimes, in spite of having had a wondrous and personally-challenging veterinary education, I discover that every once in a while that I just don’t seem to have all of the answers to all of the questions my treasured clients ask me. And when it happens, I find it quite frustrating. “Doc, why did my cat urinate on my boyfriend’s brand new cowboy boots?†I don’t know, maybe your cat has better tastes in men than you do! “Doc, why does my dog pass wind when my son feeds him Coco Puffs?†I don’t know, but you shouldn’t let him give your dog Coco Puffs (and you probably shouldn’t be feeding your kid Coco Puffs either!)
In today’s article, I’m going to jump into the abyss of controversy—AGAIN!!!—and try to answer a question that I’m asked nearly every day. And what it is that boggles my mind the most when I’m asked this question is that nearly all of the people who ask the question already know what the right answer is. They know the answer already because nearly all of them are already doing it. What these loving cat owners are looking for is just for my permission to do it.
The question on everyone’s lips is: “Doc, is it OK to feed my cat milk?â€
I’ll begin by answering this question with another question: How many of you gentle readers out there have ever heard of a cat actually dropping dead from drinking milk? Hum? In my short and sweet eighteen years here in this business of saving cats and dogs—as well as the occasional rabbit or cow—I’ve never ever seen or have heard of a cat dying from drinking milk.
I then tell the story of how, way back in the olden days when I still tended to sick dairy cows, nearly every farm I went to had a bunch of old car hub-caps or cereal bowls lying around in the center of their barn floors. During milking time, when the farmer pulled the milking machine off of her first cow, the first thing she would do is fill these hubcaps and bowls up to the brim with fresh, warm, milk. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, would come billions and billions of barn cats to slurp up this milk. And I don’t recall seeing a single one of these cats dropping dead.
Likewise, in my pre-veterinarian days when my wife and I were dairy farmers, we, also, were guilty of giving our barn cats milk; we just went on and on in ignorant bliss, and innocently filled those hub-caps to over-flowing at every milking. In humble first book, Sometimes It Breaks Your Heart, I tell the story of how I gave our cat Suzie (who lived nineteen wonderful years) milk every morning. Likewise, on this very morning as I’m writing this story, when I poured my first cup of coffee, I also gave a big dollop of milk to our cats, Bugsy and Screwball.
With regards to an actual medical reason for not drinking milk, I’ve never been able to get a straight answer from any of my colleagues in the world of academia. It seems to be one of those urban myths that have been passed on from generation to generation of veterinary students. If I had to make a guess, the most likely answer to the mystery would probably go something like this: About fifty years ago, some poor old professor’s cat got run over by a milk truck, just as the driver of this milk truck was running off with the professor’s wife. Then, after the telling and retelling of the story, only the keywords, milk and cat and death, got forwarded on.
In all fairness to these great veterinary minds, however, I have gotten some answers. They tell of possible lactose intolerance in some cats, possible bladder stone formation, and even the possibility of causing malnutrition. But these reasons are all kind of wimpy and none have been objectively documented, at least in my researches. One beloved professor frankly told me that the only reason she said no to feeding milk, was because she worried that some cat owners would then feed only milk—and nothing else but milk—to their cats. In short, the advice to not feed cats milk seems to be one of those folk wisdom tales whose logic seems to defy people’s real world experiences, as well as all common sense.
My final thoughts are as follows: If you’re not comfortable about the concept of feeding your kittycats milk, don’t do it!!! No real rocket science there. However, keep in mind that milk is one of nature’s most perfect foods. It contains lots of nutrition, calcium, and proteins. It’s a good laxative, which is an important thing as well for older cats. If you’re already feeding your cat a treat of milk, and everything is OK, then I know of no logical reason to stop. But please keep in mind that moderation is the key. Don’t over do it, and don’t feed only milk; make sure he/she eats cat food as well.
If you want to start giving a treat of milk to your cat, try giving him or her a small amount at first. If they don’t vomit or get diarrhea, then it’ll probably do no harm. If they get the screammy-meemie poops, then they’re likely to be lactose intolerant and you should then stop.
Pathogen in some Sanlu formulas can cause meningitis or gut infections
Reuters, Associated Press
In another blow to China’s food safety record, the Gansu authorities revealed that a pathogenic bacteria has been found in Sanlu’s milk powder that was also contaminated with melamine, the Lanzhou Morning Post reported.
This latest revelation came as China said yesterday that the melamine-tainted milk scandal had been brought under control and recently tested liquid milk samples showed no traces of the toxic chemical.
The Gansu Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision in north-western China issued an emergency notice on Sunday saying that Sanlu’s formulas for older babies contained enterobacter sakazakii as well as the toxic chemical melamine, the newspaper said.
The bacteria, enterobacter sakazakii, can cause meningitis or severe gut infections. It is a new species defined in recent years and recognised by the World Health Organisation as one key pathogen that leads to infant mortality.
This is not the first time that the bacteria is found in powdered infant formula. In September 2002, the Hong Kong Food and Environmental Hygiene Department found enterobacter Sakazakii in a German infant formula Special Batch Milupa HN25.
It is not yet known when, and how the bacteria entered the Sanlu formula, the Lanzhou Morning Post said.
The Gansu authorities have sent the test results to the national-level food quality and safety inspection centre for further action.
Besides affecting premature babies, the bacteria is also harmful to people of all ages, particularly those with weakened immune systems.
So far, there have been no reports of sickness or deaths triggered by enterobacter sakazakii infection involving Sanlu’s products, according to the Post.
In a bid to assure the world that Chinese products are safe, China’s national quality watchdog chief inspection official Xiang Yuzhang told reporters in Beijing: †There is no problem.â€
†It has been brought under control, more or less. There are no more problems in the market. As far as I know, there will be no more bad news.â€
China’s quality control agency said on it’s website ( http://www.aqsiq.gov.cn ) that 235 samples of carton milk and drinking yogurts produced since last Sunday and sold across the country had shown no signs of melamine.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told an audience in New York that China would strive to bring its food safety standards up to international levels, describing as a painful lesson the more than 50,000 children sick from drinking chemical-laced milk, which also left four dead.
Speaking to China, where United States and European officials were attending seminars on product safety, Ms Nancy Nord, acting head of the US Consumer Products Safety Commission, said: †The melamine situation just underscores the message that we are trying to deliver, and that is you have to know what’s coming into your factory and what’s going out of your factory.â€
Yesterday, Mr Li Weiyi, a spokesman for the Cabinet-level Taiwan Affairs Officers, issued a public apology to consumers in Taiwan as the authorities there ordered China-made milk products and vegetables-based proteins off store shelves.
Taiwanese officials say at least seven Taiwanese companies have imported contaminated proteins from China. They say the proteins are made from corn or other vegetables but may be mixed with tainted milk products to improve their favour.
Global consumer goods giant Unilever also said it had removed its Lipton green milk tea product from store shelves in Taiwan as it might have used tainted milk from Chinese companies.
Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou yesterday called for the creation of a food safety hot-line with China.
Further away, British supermarket chain Tesco removed White Rabbit Creamy Candies from its shelves after tests elsewhere found traces of melamine in the Chinese-made sweets.
From Ivory Coast in West Africa to Tanzania in the east, governments have also joined the list of countries blocking Chinese milk imports over concerns that they could be contaminated.
Sanlu Group, the Hebei-based dairy at the centre of the scandal, will not recover from the damage it has suffered, its New Zealand partner said yesterday.
The Chinese government has now taken control of Sanlu –43 per cent owned by New Zealand’s Fonterra Cooperative –and shut down its operations, Fonterra Chief Executive Andrew Ferrier said at a briefing.
According to the Cabinet probe, Sanlu had received complaints about its infant formula as early as December last year. It discovered melamine in its milk powder in June but did not alert the government officials until Aug 2.
Nitrogen-rich melamine has been added to substandard or watered-down milk to fool quality checks, which often use nitrogen levels to measure the amount of protein in milk.
Nearly 40 000 cases of kidney stones in infants with three deaths (and one unconfirmed) related to the consumption of melamine-contaminated powdered infant formula have been reported from across China as of 21 September 2008. Almost 12 900 are currently hospitalized. Kidney stones in infants are very rare.
While the exact onset date of illness resulting from contamination and the beginning of the contamination itself remain unknown, a manufacturer (Sanlu) received a complaint of illness in March 2008.
Chinese media reported at the beginning of September that Sanlu brand infant formula produced by Hebei-based Sanlu Group was contaminated with melamine. Sanlu’s powdered infant formula is widely consumed by infants across China because the product is relatively affordable compared to others.
Following inspections conducted by China’s national inspection agency, at least 22 dairy manufacturers across the country were found to have melamine in some of their products.
Two companies, Guangdong Yashili and Qingdao Suokang, exported their products to Bangladesh, Burundi, Myanmar, Gabon and Yemen. While contamination in those exported products remains unconfirmed, a recall has been ordered from China.
Other countries, however, have also reported finding melamine in dairy products manufactured in China.
So far, contamination has also been found in liquid milk, frozen yogurt dessert and in coffee drink. All these products were most probably manufactured using ingredients made from melamine contaminated milk.
In 2007, melamine was found in pet feed manufactured in China and exported to the United States of America, and caused the death of a large number of dogs and cats due to kidney failure.
Melamine contamination
Presentation of melamine
Melamine is a chemical compound that has a number of industrial uses, including the production of laminates, glues, dinnerware, adhesives, molding compounds, coatings and flame retardants. Melamine is a name used both for the chemical and for the plastic made from it. In this event, all references are to the chemical. There are no approved direct food uses for melamine, nor are there any recommendations in the Codex Alimentarius. Melamine is illegally added to inflate the apparent protein content of food products. Because it is high in nitrogen, the addition of melamine to a food artificially increases the apparent protein content as measured with standard tests.
Source of the contamination
In this event, contamination appears to have happened as fraudulent contamination in primary production. Chinese government officials have pinpointed milk collecting stations as the sites where the melamine was added. According to Sanlu, contaminated milk was used in the manufacture of powdered infant formula processed before 6 August 2008 and the tainted milk powder has also been used in the manufacture of a number of other products.
Contamination levels
There are a total of 175 infant formula manufacturers across China, of which 66 have halted production and the remaining 109 manufacturers have undergone inspection due to the current events of melamine contamination. The inspections’ results presented by the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) show evidence of the presence of melamine. Out of 491 batches tested, 69 of them, produced by 22 companies, tested positive for Melamine.
According to the State Council of China, the levels found in the batches ranged between 0.09 mg/kg and 619 mg/kg. Batches from the company Shijiangzhuang Sanlu Co. contained the highest levels, up to 2563 mg/kg.
Toxicology of melamine
Based on the previous incidents of melamine contaminated pet food and the development of kidney stones and subsequent acute kidney failure in cats and dogs, it appears that melamine and its structural analogues, such as cyanuric acid, may act together to form crystals. This crystal formation occurs at very high-dose levels and is a threshold and concentration dependent phenomenon, which would not be relevant at low levels of exposure (US FDA/CFSAN Interim Melamine and Analogues safety/risk assessment http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/melamra.html).
Exposure
Consumer exposure to melamine is considered to be low, but may occur through the extraction of melamine from compression moulds by acidic foods, such as lemon or orange juice or curdled milk, at high temperature. Taking into account these sources the estimated oral uptake of melamine is around 0.007 mg melamine/kg/day (OECD 1998).
Toxicity of melamine
Melamine is not metabolized and is rapidly eliminated in the urine. No human data could be found on the oral toxicity of melamine but there are data from animal studies. These show the compound to have a low acute toxicity, with an oral LD50 in the rat of 3161 mg/kg body weight. In animal feeding studies, high doses of melamine have an effect on the urinary bladder, in particular causing inflammation, the formation of bladder stones and crystals in the urine. Analysis of the bladder stones has shown that these are a mixture of melamine, protein, uric acid and phosphate. Animal studies have generally not shown any renal toxicity or the formation of kidney stones.
Carcinogenicity
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has concluded that there is sufficient evidence in experimental animals for the carcinogenicity of melamine under conditions in which it produces bladder stones. There is inadequate evidence for carcinogenicity in humans.
Role of melamine in the formation of kidney stones
Animal data have not shown that melamine alone causes renal failure or the formation of kidney stones. Evidence from an earlier outbreak of acute renal failure in cats and dogs associated with contaminated pet food suggests that a combination of melamine and cyanuric acid does cause renal toxicity. Both of these compounds were found in the pet food together with other triazine compounds. Subsequent experimental studies in animals have shown that when they are fed a mixture of melamine and cyanuric acid this causes the formation of crystals in the tubules of the kidneys, eventually blocking them and causing renal damage and renal failure. The source of the cyanuric acid in the pet food was unknown but it may have been present as a contaminant of the melamine that had been illegally added to wheat gluten used in formulating the petfood. In the current event in China, the presence of cyanuric acid has not yet been confirmed.
Health-based Guidance Values
Following the petfood incident in 2007 described above, several authorities have preformed preliminary risk assessments.
The US FDA has published an interim safety/risk assessment on melamine and structural analogues and has established for melamine a tolerable daily intake TDI of 0.63 mg per kg of body weight per day.
The European Food Safety Authority has published a provisional statement and recommended to apply a TDI of 0.5 mg per kg of body weight per day as tolerable intake value for melamine.
Epidemiology and treatment
Suggested surveillance case definition
Identification of possible cases related to the consumption of melamine-contaminated products from China
Member States should be aware of the possible distribution of the contaminated products either through formal or informal channels, because of the large quantities involved and the seriousness of the public health consequences of this event. The period of production of contaminated product is uncertain and the incriminated raw material and products may have been exported as infant formula or other milk containing products to other Member States. Therefore WHO is suggesting this surveillance case definition to Member States to increase their awareness of signs that their population may be affected.
Clinical description
The following symptoms have been observed in infants affected by the melamine-contaminated infant formula in China:
Unexplained crying in infants, especially when urinating, possible vomiting
Macroscopic or microscopic haematuria
Acute obstructive renal failure: oliguria or anuria
Stones discharged while passing urine. For example, a baby boy with urethral obstruction with stones normally has dysuria
High blood pressure, edema, painful when knocked on kidney area
WHO experts believe an additional symptom may be unexplained fever arising from urinary tract infections/bacteraemia secondary to urine stasis resulting from obstruction.
Surveillance case definition
A case is defined as an infant with kidney stones or other kidney problems (e.g. anuria, renal failure) having consumed powdered infant formula produced in China before 6 August 2008, and where other potential causes of kidney stones have been excluded by differential diagnosis.
Treatment
The World Health Organization has agreed to circulate the information contained herein regarding the treatment plan that is being implemented in China by the Ministry of Health. The information below does not reflect the rules, regulations, policies and guidelines of the World Health Organization.
The following regimen has been issued by the Ministry of Health, China.
Clinical manifestations
Unexplained crying, especially when urinating, possible vomiting
Macroscopic or microscopic haematuria
Acute obstructive renal failure: oliguria or anuria
Stones discharged while passing urine. For example, a baby boy with urethral obstruction with stones normally has dysuria
High blood pressure, edema, painful when knocked on kidney area
Key diagnostic criteria
Been fed with melamine-contaminated infant milk formula
Having one or more of the above clinical manifestations
Laboratory test results: routine urine tests with macroscopic or microscopic haematuria; blood biochemistry; liver and kidney function tests; urine calcium/creatinine ratio (usually normal); urinary red blood cell morphology shows normal morphology of red blood cells (not glomerular haematuria); parathyroid hormone test (usually normal).
Imaging examination: preferably ultrasound B exam of urinary system. If necessary, abdominal CT scan and intravenous urography (not to be used in case of anuria or renal failure). Kidney radionuclide scans can be used where available to evaluate renal function.
Ultrasound examination features:
General features: bilateral renal enlargement; increased echo on solid tissue; normal parenchyma thickness; slight pyelectasia and calicectasis; blunt renal calyx. If the obstruction locates in the ureter, then the ureter above the obstruction point dilates. Some cases have edema with perinephric fat and soft tissue around the ureter. As the disease develops, the renal pelvis and ureter wall may have secondary edema. A few cases have ascites.
Stone features: most stones affect the collecting system and ureters on both sides. Ureteral stones are mostly at pelviureteral junction, the part where the ureter passes across iliac artery, and ureter-bladder junction. Stones stay collectively, covering massive areas. Lighter echo in the background. Most stones are different from the calcium oxalate stones. Urinary tract is mostly completely obstructed by the stones.
Differential diagnosis
Haematuria differentiation: need to rule out glomerular haematuria.
Stone differentiation: the stones are normally radiolucent and have a negative image on urinary tract x-ray. This feature differentiates the stones from those of radiopaque stones of calcium oxalate and calcium phosphate.
Differentiation of acute renal failure: need to rule out pre-renal and renal failure.
Clinical treatment
Immediately stop using melamine-contaminated infant formula milk powder.
Medical treatment: use infusion and urine alkalinization to dispel the stones. Correct the water, electrolyte and acid-base imbalance. Closely monitor routine urine tests, blood biochemistry, renal functions, ultrasound findings (with particular attention to the renal pelvis, ureter expansion, and the change of the stones in shape and location). If the stones are loose and sand-like, they are very likely to be passed out with urine.
Treatment of complicated acute renal failure: priority should be given to the treatment of life-threatening complications such as hyperkalemia. Measures include the administration of sodium bicarbonate and insulin. If possible, blood dialysis and peritoneal dialysis can be used early. Surgical measures can be taken to remove the obstruction if necessary.
Surgical treatment: if medical treatment is not effective, and hydrocele and kidney damage present, or blood dialysis and peritoneal dialysis are not available in case of renal failure, surgical methods can be considered to remove the obstruction. Stones can be removed by different methods including cystoscope retrograde intubation into the ureter, percutaneous kidney drainage, surgical removal and percutaneous kidney stone removal. Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripter (ESWL) is greatly limited in its application, because the stones are loose and mainly composed of urate, and the patients are infants.
Follow-up
Once the urinary obstruction is relieved, and the general condition and renal function and urination are back to normal, the children can be discharged.
Key issues to follow-up
Urine routine tests; ultrasound of urinary system; renal function tests; IVP (intravenous pyelogram) if necessary.
Actions taken by INFOSAN
INFOSAN is working directly with Ministry of Health (MoH), China in collaboration with the WHO Country Office in China. Through the INFOSAN Emergency surveillance system, WHO has learned of the contamination of infant formula with melamine and requested further information about the event on the 11 September 2008. MoH confirmed on 12 September 2008 that incriminated products from the Sanlu Company had not been exported and provided WHO with a description of the development of the event. Through further interaction between INFOSAN and MoH the issue of potential other use of the contaminated milk powder as well as parallel (illegal) distribution of contaminated milk powder was raised. An INFOSAN alert was subsequently distributed to the entire network on the 16 September 2008 alerting members of the event and of the possibility of contaminated products finding their way to other markets.
INFOSAN has several times during the past week, kept the entire network informed of developments in relation to this event as well as additional information on other products being found contaminated, information about the toxicity of the melamine and other information to help Member States better understand and assess the potential risks associated with melamine contaminated products.
The Chinese authorities, in their on-going investigation, discovered that 2 producers found to have products contaminated with melamine had exports going to five countries, INFOSAN informed these five countries of the situation.
So it is officially four years since I did a holiday letter. I used to be famous for them.  Or maybe it was infamous. Don’t remember for sure.
Once again, my big ideas and oversized ambition got the better of me. Three years ago I decided to make a holiday video instead of a letter. So I did. Well, I shot and then edited a bunch of footage, put it to music, and only had the narration left. Still need to do that narration. Guess there were just one too many steps in the project.
So, as our friend Patrick used to say, we’ve got a lot of catch uppin’ to do. But you do realize that my memory ain’t what it used to be, so there’s no way I can reconstruct three years of activities at this point. So what you’re gonna see here is what you call a quick rundown and overview…
I’ll take it family member by family member, beginning with the doggies. Did I mention they were Doggies of the Month at D’tails in the Pearl grooming salon?
Pippi! Â
Okay, so much for Bichons being insanely healthy dogs. Since we last talked, Pippi has had a few challenges: surgery for an infected anal gland (sorry, TMI), surgery for bladder stones, then she was in the ICU for more than a week with pancreatitis (we almost lost her), and then another bladder stone surgery (turns out the special diet she was put on after the pancreatitis caused bladder stones?!?) (As I always say, why stop at having human family members with a disability, let’s get goddammed dogs with disabilities!! Hell yeah!!)
So now we make their food, using only organic ingredients.  Every month Ric sets up a production line in the kitchen and whips up a bulk recipe, using 5 lbs. of boneless skinless chicken breast, two number 10 each of cans of yams and carrots, brown rice, whole oats… He freezes them in individual scoops and give the dogs 1-1/2 scoops each every morning and night.
When she’s not suffering from an ailment, Pippi is a very happy little pup who continues to welcome every human visitor with her tongue up their nostrils, immediately after closely sniffing the butts of every canine visitor.Â
She just turned 7, and so far has only cost us about her age in years times 1,000 in medical bills! We love her very much, and she thinks she is Ric’s wife.
Poppi!
Unlike Pippi, Poppi has always been our healthy dog. There was only one exception, but it was a really really big one: last year she had a herniated disk, requiring neurosurgery and an extended stay in the ICU as well. She just turned 6-1/2 and yes, that’s about how many large she’s cost us in surgical bills.
Not only that, since she’s not supposed to jump anymore, look what Ric built her so she could still sleep with the humans:
It’s an unfortunate fact that a Ukranian refugee family partly depends on watching us to understand Americans. Upon seeing the dog ramp, Domke asked what it was, and when I explained it to her, her eyes widened and then she asked, “You use too?â€
We love our Poppi, she has the sweetest and most adorable disposition, probably partly from being constantly kept in check by Pippi, who considers Poppi her bitch. Poppi may think I am her wife.Â
Blaine!
In June, Blaine celebrated five years of service to Free Geek, his home away from home. There’s a lot more about this in a recent blog post I wrote. He is a true and utter geek and contributes a lot to the place.
He’s still into chess, but hasn’t played in a RL (real life) tournament in a while. He plays on the Internet and kicks chess geek ass at Free Geek once in a while.
Blaine has the gambling gene. As he explains it, it’s one of the few ways he can really take risks, which apparently is something men like to do. Go figure. He and Ric go to the casino a few times a year. I’m so grateful they don’t make me go along, I get to stay home and snuggle with the dogs (and visit them in the hospital).
Blaine is a pureblood Blazer fan.  As far as I can tell, he is in charge of all sports forums on the interwebs. He’s VERY active in all sorts of discussions, both on and off topic. For example, here’s an interesting and revealing recent discussion you might enjoy reading.
He and Ric have purchased half-season Blazer tickets for the past two years and have a blast attending the games, especially now that the Blazers actually win and no members are doing time (that would be a jail reference).Â
Blaine’s health has been good (knock wood!) and we’ve had a REALLY ginormous development along those lines in the past few months. A wonderful woman named Francesca has been helping him with his personal care! And it’s been a completely liberating experience for both Blaine and me! We feel so much gratitude to her, I can’t even begin to tell you…
Blaine’s resolution for 2009: to get a resolution.
Ric!
Ric loves the Blazers almost as much as Blaine does, and he loves to get in on the gambling action too. He claims he’s going to the casino to give Blaine a ride, but I know better.
A couple of years ago, he started a handyman business, which is going gangbusters. He only advertises on Angie’s List and by word of mouth, but he’s always booked about a month ahead. So many people need the kind of help he can provide, and he has the tools and the chops to be very versatile. In fact, he has SO many tools he had to switch out his van for a bigger truck. And boy is it ever bigger (a Sprinter)!  He even wrote a love song for it (which will be on his new CD).
Yes, he’s putting out a new CD in the next month or so. And trust me, it’s really good! I think one of the songs on it (“Hear Meâ€) is his best ever! The new CD is called “A Thousand Songs.†He’ll let you know when it’s available, it will be on iTunes, of course. Ric has been especially productive musically this year, with topics ranging from new trucks to lost and found love to colonoscopies. Okay, never mind…
Ric’s health has been good too (knock wood again please) and he stays very active! That’s my Ric! (Although he hasn’t made many entries since he got busy handymanning, his blog remains a rich archive of some of our activities from earlier years.
We only got to take our Airstream Toaster Moon out once this year, but now that Fran is in the picture, we plan to do so more often next year. We can’t wait!
Ric’s had four birthdays since we last talked, and the most recent one was number 60! Wow! He’s a sexagenarian!! And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
Ric wishes he could visit daughters Stacey & Tim and Amy & Gary and grandchildren Joe, Colin, Owen, Calla, Caitlyn and Ellery more often, but we love it when they come down! They visited for Christmas last week just before the big snow storm hit, thank goodness they didn’t wait til this Snowpocalypse weekend! We went to a performance at Do Jump! theater together and Caitlyn got to dance with a cast member on stage! They are growing up so fast, and we are so very proud of all of them. They are the best grandkids evah! Which can only mean they have the best parents!
Ric’s resolution for 2009: to learn how to use a router.
Marie!
Marie continues to work as director of communication and learning at Meyer Memorial Trust. Her biggest project over the past three years was connec+ipedia, a shared learning tool for the nonprofit community that is a wiki with database capabilities. She’ll be working on a major redesign of the MMT website over the next few months.
Marie also serves on the board of directors of Free Geek, partly as a way to support the organization that means so much to Blaine, and partly because it’s the most amazing nonprofit she’s ever met.
She’s been trying to fit in more quilting, having now finished six quilt tops that she is beginning to actually get quilted. She and her mom spend a week or two quilting together every summer, something we both enjoy so much! Her mom is a quilting wonder woman, and Marie wishes she could inherit just 10% of her talent and patience.  Marie also took a rug making class and just finished her first ever rug, likely the smallest rug in the history of the world, but it’s for the bathroom floor in Toaster Moon, which itself is the size of two size 10 feet.
Speaking of small, Marie loves being in the World’s Smallest Book Group with Joyce and Reba and Darcy. We’ve been meeting monthly since September 1990! That’s a lot of book discussing, and a boatload of conversations about every possible thing under the sun. Decades-long friendships with women FTW!
Marie wants to make more movies, but finds it hard to fit in. Maybe someday she can retire and do that! She certainly is way full of a lot of documentary ideas! But Marie did finally start making semi-regular posts in her personal blog (after many many many false starts), where you can keep up with her randumthots in the future. She also frequently tweets on twitter.
Oh yeah, one more thing: Marie is now a member of the clergy. Whisky Tango Foxtrot?!? I shit you not! And she has married people even! And did you notice her clergy outfit! Â
Marie’s resolution for 2009: to turn 60, get her fitness back (no more excuses, just get off butt!), to reconnect with long lost friends she’s neglected in her correspondence (like you maybe?), to finish all the quilts she’s started, to finish at least one documentary, to walk the dogs more, to spend more quality time with Ric and Blaine, to not watch any more reality tv except Project Runway and Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, to never forget another birthday, anniversary, graduation, etc. for the rest of her life, and to become the kind of person who doesn’t set ridiculous unattainable goals.
—-
Okay, so now we’re cool, right? Starting with a clean slate next time? Good. You have no idea how relieved I am right now. The holiday letter thing has been on my to-do list for the past four years, and I feel like such a failure when I can’t ever cross it off and I start the new year with a hangover from the prior year.
My mom and Sarah, Dave & Jeff and Curt & Velvet and Denny, Tammy & James are supposed to come for Christmas dinner, if the weather cooperates. That will be a lot of fun, and I can finally give James the present I got for his graduation from high school last June and his November birthday. See what I mean?
The three of us are counting down the days and hours until Jan. 20, 2009, if you catch our drift.  And speaking of drifts, please let us know if you need any snow… we had another six inches last night on top of the foot from yesterday, and it’s still snowing.
So here’s to you and yours. Have the holiday season you dream of…
Love,
Marie, Ric, Blaine, Pippi, Poppi
Made a little video of what the snow looks like at our house, with special attention to what it’s done to some of our plants…
I love the weather apps for the iPhone, especially the ones that let you select a place in the world and let you see what the weather conditions are like there right at that moment.
As we’ve had some extra-cold-for-Portland winter weather over the past week or so, I’ve frequently sought comfort by looking at my iPhone to see what the current temperature is in Yakutsk.
Why Yakutsk? Well, let me take you back…
One of my favorite geography classes in college was Geography of the Soviet Union, taught by Professor Chauncy Harris. I took it in Spring of 1971, my last quarter of college before graduating.  Professor Harris – Samuel N. Harper distinguished service professor of geography at the University of Chicago – was an amazing teacher.  He died in 2003 after teaching at U of C for 44 years. I swear I remember more from that class than any other class I took in college. He taught principles and big picture ideas, and provided the kind of deep understanding that comes from learning something from someone who really groks what he is teaching. He was also an amazingly kind and personable human being.  I feel so lucky to have taken his class.
One of the things he taught was a great understanding of the geographic challenges the Soviet Union faced, largely through its northern latitudinal location and its great continental expanse.  It makes for very cold winters in the eastern part.  I remember some of his stories of Yakutsk, a city in Siberia that got so cold in the winter machinery had to be left running all the time in order to not freeze. Some call it “the coldest city on earth.â€
The winters in Chicago were astonishing enough for me. I remember walking outside in cold winds so icy and fierce they literally took the breath out of one’s lungs.  One particular night I walked home when it was -20 degrees because the buses couldn’t run.  So a place that was 30 degrees below a Chicago weather extreme every single day for months on end was more than I could imagine.  But that’s Yakutsk.  And more than 200,000 people live there!!
Oyuunsky Square in Yakutsk. Check out how bundled up the people are! Image courtesy wikipedia.
And here’s a video taken in 2003 when it was -44 degrees (a heat wave?):
Right now in Yakutsk it is -56 degrees. It’s not been above -50 for days on end. Can you imagine?  Actually, the winter months are some of the best months in Yakutsk, from a practical standpoint.  That’s because one can safely and reliably reach Yakutsk when the Lena River is frozen solid.  There is no bridge across the Lena in this area, because one really can’t be built there. (Something else I learned from Prof. Harris is that because most rivers in Russia flow from south to north, and freeze in winter, the start to thaw in the south and progress north, which causes no end of problems because the meltwater and floating ice has nowhere to drain, because downstream it’s still frozen. A ginormous flooding mess results and bridges can’t survive! Apparently they are working on building a bridge now that’s scheduled to be finished by 2013. Good luck with that!)
In summer months the temperatures can rise into the 90s, making Yakutsk home to some of the greatest temperature fluctuations on the planet.
According to wikipedia, Yakutsk is home to the Institute of Cosmophysical Research, which runs the Yakutsk Extensive Air Shower installation (one of the largest cosmic-ray detector arrays in the world), and the Permafrost Research Institute developed with the aim of solving the serious and costly problems associated with construction of buildings on frozen soil. Good place for it! Please note that they recommend wearing warm clothes for a tour of the Permafrost Museum, which naturally is underground!
I found a very cool article about Yakutsk published earlier this year in The Independent from the viewpoint of an outsider visiting and marveling at the place!  And of course you can buy stuff from Yakutsk on the interwebs!
I’m so happy to be able to share my deep fascination with Yakutsk with you! It’s encouraging me to try to go deeper.  I just found an email address on the Yakutsk website, so I’m going to write them and see if I can get some dialogue going.  I’ll keep you posted here!
Snowpocalypse… Whatever name it will be known by, and given the fact that it just started snowing again, I thought I would show you the view from inner SE PDX, which will explain why we are homebound.
What the first snow looked like at our house, about 2.5 inches by noon, Dec. 14.
Then it got really really cold. Â The plants have been suffering mightily.
The Bear’s Breeches might just be toast.
And I swear I can see this Michaelea shiver!
Zonal denial may be catching up with me. Â This may be the year the banana belt does not come back to life.
Will the banana forest spring back to life? Or will ’09 be the year of Banana Stumptown?
The backyard pond is freezing over, and despite running it 24-hours-a-day, the waterfall is turning to ice.
Hope the koi are okay!
 Here’s why we can’t get out of the house safely.The ramp is a sheet of snow and ice.
And the street is a sheet of snow and ice.
The neighborhood animal population is hurting too.
The squirrels are starting to watch us eat.
And eating from the bird feeder if necessary.
But all is toasty and snug in the greenhouse.
We can’t wait to see the electric bill for this one!
The best part about this weather event is the fact that our electric power is still up and running.  That’s what makes a snow/ice storm unbearable: losing electricity.  But so far so good!  Knock wood please.
And even when it’s frightfully cold and the forecast is for more and worse, there are always little signs of hope.  Like this:
Big wheel keep on turning, flower keep on blooming.
So I signed on to participate in the Great Portland Interview Experiment, the very cool brainchild of Portland network engineer Chris O’Rourke.  Here’s how it works: you sign up for it, you get interviewed by the person who signed up right before you and then you interview the person who signs up right after you. So it’s very random.  More than likely you interview someone you don’t know… well, you prolly follow them on twitter, but you may not know them in real life yet. RL, I mean.
So I got to interview Ramona White.  Didn’t know her, but now feel I do.  Here are my questions and her answers:
I see from your blog you write poetry. How long have you been up to that? Are you planning to respond to my interview questions poetically?
I’ve been writing poetry on and off since I was about eight-years-old. I’m also a sometime singer and songwriter and I made my debut last Februrary at Artichoke Music in Portland as part of a group called “Decent Folkâ€. I haven’t had time to perform or even practice since April but I have written a few more songs. I’m using the blog to nudge myself to focus on poetry and to produce more poems. So far I’ve been able to post poems I’ve written some time ago but that won’t last long. @DrPFenderson and I are plotting #CampfireReads a storytelling/poetry meet-up that we hope will get more people composing and sharing.
I don’t plan to answer all of your questions poetically; I do plan to answer them honestly, probably preventing me from ever holding public office.Â
How do you spend your days? Nights?
My parents moved into a “gracious retirement living†facility and I moved out of my apartment and into their house. It’s the house I grew up in and they had lived there for forty years. Never let anyone tell you there’s no God or that God lacks a sense of humor. Why else would a housework-impaired person who was barely functioning in a one bedroom apartment wind up caring for a three-bedroom house? The part of the day not spent doing homework or on Twitter is devoted to sorting out my stuff and sorting and rehousing or recycling or throwing out forty years accumulation of you-name-it.
My nights are spent in class, playing the Sims 2, helping my kid with her homework or trying to get her to talk to me. Occasionally I drive out and play pool with my dad. We’re both horrible players so we walk around the table for an hour or two and that’s at least good exercise.
What is your present state of mind?
Generally happy but also confused. I’m confused because I’m supposed to be graduating in June if not before and I still don’t know what kind of job I’m going to be looking for, where to look, or even what might be available in this economy. I’m generally happy because I have an awesome supportive family, lots of coffee, and I’ve met some very cool people online and had an opportunity to interact with them offline as well. When my daughter and I went to CyborgCamp she told me I was “radiating happinessâ€. Yeah.
Please tell us about your particular path to geekdom?
As a kid I watched “Star Trek†and I was very impressed with Mr. Scott. Not just the accent but he was obviously the go-to person when things really hit the fan. Unfortunately this was the Dark Ages- late 1970s- and the only computer I saw was the one in the counseling center. It was a dumb terminal that enabled you to figure out occupation was right for you. (Spending hours playing with this program should have been a clue to the counselors that you didn’t need the program.) At college, my roommate was on the custodial staff. I had arrived between terms and had nothing to do and when she got tired of me following her around she parked me in front of a computer and introduced me to “Adventure†and another game I don’t know the name of in which your weapon was a rat-tailed comb. Somehow I was convinced to enroll in a BASIC class and, since I was hanging out in the computer lab, I encountered Dungeons and Dragons. This led to the wasting of many hours over following years and the overconsumption of Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew and Cheetos. Time passed, I held a variety of jobs, I took the occupational assessment at the Employment Office and they said I should become a MicroComputer Support Specialist. I enrolled at Clark College in Winter of 2008 and here I am. I haven’t played D&D in years but I regularly beta-test interactive fiction games and look forward to IFComp every year when I get a lot of them to play.
And you are one of the geekmoms. Tell us about your child.
She’s sixteen, beautiful and brilliant. She does her Advanced Algebra homework last because she likes it the best and that way it’s motivation. She’s had access to a computer and the Internet since she was about five so it’s old hat; She played with Photoshop 5.5 when other kids were using paper and crayons. She’s aced all her technology classes but doesn’t consider herself a geek because she prefers a GUI and refuses to learn to program. She’s outspoken but rather shy and that means she gets easily embarrassed like the time it was pajama day at work and I didn’t change before the parent-teacher conference. (In my defence, I did remind her and she said, “Whatever. Just get there on time.â€)
Where were you on this day 10 years ago and what were you doing?
I was in Clatskanie, Oregon in Columbia County. I was beginning the fundraising for the Reading is Fundamental program I started at my daughter’s elementary school. I was also following the whole Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.
Where do you think you will be on this day 10 years from now and what will you be doing?
Ten years from now- unless I’ve been there already- I will be packing for a trip to Tokyo. Years ago I listened to Thomas Friedman’s book “The Lexus and the Olive Tree†and he described being in a hotel in Japan on New Year’s Eve, ordering some oranges and having trouble getting what he wanted. That’s a long way to go for oranges but that idea of being there on New Year’s Eve has stuck with me. My parents aren’t in the best of health and they’ll likely be gone by then. My daughter will be off having her own life. She’s invited along but if she doesn’t want to go it will be a fun place for a nearly sixty-year-old woman to start the new year. I imagine I’ll still be wearing sneakers then- I love Converse- so maybe I’ll be there on business having to do with either sneakers or some kind of technology. I don’t think I’ll be the Foreign Affairs correspondent for the New York Times but it’s possible.
What are your favorite books of all time? Why?
One of my all-time favorite books is “The Closing of the American Mind†by Alan Bloom. The first half of the book discusses the sad state of the American education system. The second half traces the history of Western Philosophy. I learned so much from that book because Bloom would say “Bertrand Russell says thus and so†and I’d think “Well, who did Russell learn that from?†I’d have to go look it up. Maybe he learned it from Descartes and Descartes learned it from someone else and I had to keep looking things up and learning and it took quite a while but it was like an idea scavenger hunt so I was having fun and didn’t mind.
Now I have to cheat and say that my other favorite books were the Harry Potter series. It’s cheating because there were seven of them rather than one and because what made them my favorite wasn’t the writing. What made them special was the anticipation and the community. I remember being at the Barnes and Noble at Jantzen Beach the night “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire†came out and there was a magician and a costume contest and babies with lightning bolts drawn on their foreheads and there’s just as much craziness online to this day. Because of the Harry Potter books I’ve met wonderful people like @pennygersh who helped me so much after my mom had her stroke. And my daughter and I could discuss the books when both of us were in pissy moods and wouldn’t talk about anything else.
Who is your Blazer boyfriend and why?
I’ve been told that a good Blazer boyfriend for me would be Rudy Fernandez because he’s 23, he’s a millionaire, he’s good at basketball and he’s smoking hot. Also he’s often the one who puts the Blazers over the one-hundred point mark and the crowd all gets chalupas. I love chalupas.Â
If you’d made it my Mariners boyfriend that would have been an easy choice. I’m J.J’s girl all the way. He goes out and does a good job. He’s the closer so he has to work well under pressure but if things don’t go well he puts it behind him and starts over the next day. I’ve had relationships with people who even after they say they forgive you and it’s all over it still isn’t over so J.J. would be a refreshing change.
Do you think our best days are behind us or ahead of us? Discuss.
I think that for us living as adults the best days are still ahead of us. I think that for kids the best days are probably behind. When I was a kid it was fairly likely that you might be molested by some family member or friend of the family. A lot of kids were and, in fact, that happened to me. But it was extremely unlikely that some psychopath would snatch you up on your way to the park and molest you or kidnap you or who knows what other awful thing. We played outside at the park or in the yard and our mothers didn’t have to have GPS locators on us. We clothespinned towels around our necks and pretended to be Batman or Batgirl or some invented superhero and got fresh air and occasionally fell down and sprained or broke something. Now kids don’t really have those options.
I think our best days as adults are still ahead because there is technology and knowledge allowing us to live longer and healthier lives. (They’re not talking me out of bacon though.) We also benefit because we can connect with other people via the Internet and find jobs or share recipes or patterns or experiences or just have someone say “There there. Have a sip of coffee. Breathe in and out.†Those things are especially important for older people who aren’t communicating with their family for one reason or another or they can connect with someone who’s actually interested in their stories and experiences.
Please tell us about dating the guys who are probably dying.
I lived in my apartment building for four years. For the middle two of those years, a man lived across the hall from me. The first year we’d see each other on the way to the garbage chute or in the stairwell and say “Hi†or something else noncommittal. It turned out he was a Mets fan and neither the Mets nor the Mariners were having a very good season so we’d chat about that. Then a friend of mine sent me a belated Christmas present of a lot of chocolate and coffee and I thought, “Oh, who am I going to share all this with?†I remembered that my neighbor drank coffee and I figured everyone likes chocolate so I knocked on his door. He was very happy to see the chocolate and coffee and by extension me. A few days later he returned my coffee mug and we talked about Valentine’s Day coming up and I said I was going to an open mic poetry reading and try out some of my stuff. He asked if I wanted to have dinner before or after and then laughed and said “But, of course, you’ll be with your date†and I said that I didn’t date because no one ever asked and I’d had one disastrous date involving a jack-in-the-box and he asked me to brunch for the following Sunday. We had a great time and he was a good sport even when he came back from the bathroom and caught me taking notes to be used in later e-mails. He kissed me “Good-bye†at my door and the following Friday night invited me over to watch “Monk†and everything went fine until Valentine’s Day. That morning I was leaving for work and I was locking my front door and he said, “Good morning†and I turned around and he was getting his newspaper and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. This next part sounds very silly because God help us all I was 45 but he met me in the middle of the hallway and we kissed and I turned pink all the way to the tips of my ears. I giggled all the way to work and when I got there I told the other ladies who were very similar to me in age and they all giggled too. There we were ho-hoing and tee-heeing about my having seen this guy without a shirt and having kissed him. I ended up having to work overtime that day and we never made it to the poetry reading but he fixed me a nice pasta dinner with sauce from scratch and we watched “The Departed†and it was very nice. After the movie ended and we were just sitting on the couch he said something like, “Remember how I told you before about my heart attack?†and I said, “Yeah.†And he said, “Well, my heart still isn’t very strong†and I said, “Yeah.†And he said, “Until it hits†I forget what the exact number was now “percent we can’t have sex.†And I said, “That’s fine. Geez, this isn’t even our third date. I can wait. It’ll give us time to save up money for a room at the Hilton so we don’t scandalize the neighbors.†The thing is though the relationship pretty much went downhill from there. Before that he’d call and leave me messages and I loved to hear him talk because he was from New Jersey and it was like being in an old movie but after that I never really saw him in the halls and he only called me when he was out walking to strengthen his heart. He really pulled away from me and it was totally his choice. I was absolutely willing to wait. Wait to have sex with a guy who could cook like that and kiss like that? Are you kidding me? His having had a heart attack didn’t scare me that much because he was 51 and like I said I was 45 and I figure by the time you get to be our age body parts start falling apart- everybody’s got some kind of baggage and it’s all about how you carry it. He thought I was funny and I thought he was funny and we could talk for hours or just sit and be in the same place and he seemed like a great guy. I guess he was too busy trying to keep from dying to have time to live.
What do people need to know about you to truly grok you?Â
I understand that I need money in order to pay bills and buy food and keep myself in Flash drives and Converse sneakers but I don’t entirely get how the money thing works. I have a vague idea how much is in my bank account because I check online but I never even attempt to balance my checkbook. And if I didn’t have to have money for those things I listed earlier I would just do whatever people needed or wanted to be done and not charge them for it. I have spent hours on the phone helping my parents’ friends’ fix their computers or classmates do their homework. I have spent many many hours knitting hats and scarves for homeless people or cancer survivors or friends while I was watching Mariners games on TV or listened on the radio. My ex-husband wisely said that if I ever won the lottery I’d have no money left after a year but there wouldn’t be a kid in the Portland Metro area without braces, fillings, sturdy shoes, and a warm coat. Oh and lots of books. It’s not a self-esteem issue. It’s not like I feel I have to do these things so people will like me or that I feel what I do has no value. It’s more like if I have these skills then I must have them to make the world a better place and who am I to let money get in the way of that.Â
Please confess your guilty pleasures.
I love to watch “Perry Masonâ€. I’ve loved it ever since I was a kid. It’s on at noon on channel 12 just as it’s been for probably forty years. I’m sure I’ve seen all the shows by now and I usually know who did it but it’s kind of comforting to sit down and spend an hour with these people I grew up with.
And I majorly heart Alan Rickman. I don’t know why. It isn’t just his voice although I did sit through all of “Return of the Native†just because he read it. (After hearing him read one of the love scenes I arrived at work blushing to the ears again and had a rough time convincing people I’d just been listening to an audio-book.) It can’t be his acting because I’ve seen so many movies in which he was just bad like “Rasputin†and “Truly Madly Deeply†where he was a ghost and had that cheesy moustache. I tell myself he’s too old for me and he’s happily living in England with an avowed Socialist and then I’ll find myself watching “An Awfully Big Adventure†or as my friends call it “The Many Moods of Alan Rickman†and none of that matters.
What question do you wish you had been asked? And what is the answer?Â
What would the perfect afternoon/evening look like? The perfect afternoon/evening would involve caffeinated drinks, Crazy Eights and Egyptian Rat Screw, wireless Internet, Buffalo wings, ideas zipping through the air, whiteboards, an assortment of music from The Ramones, Vanilla Ice, Kraftwerk, whatever other 70′s and 80′s bands we could think of and a handful of really great people to share it with.
To be honest, World’s Smallest Book Group didn’t actually discuss the book we read all that much at our December meeting. Why talk about travel writing when most of our members had been travelling: Reba to Switzerland: Darcy to Switzerland, London, Italy, Greece, Slovenia, etc.: Joyce to Argentina.  Lots of wonderful travel talk.  Didn’t leave much time for the book.
Joyce liked it best because she had actually been to many of the places along the Silk Road described in the book. (She’s easily our most exotic traveller and all my distant travels have been with her!) The book is well written and has fascinating information, especially since he takes the “hard seat†approach to travel in Asia. Interesting juxapositions of yesterday and today in his encounters. But somehow it didn’t really grab us.Â
Perhaps there’s been too much going on in the world of late for us to let ourselves be swept away this time.Â
One personal note:  this is the first book group book I’ve read on my Kindle. Boy did I miss easy access to a good map. Found myself going to Google Earth to follow along.  Plea to Kindle designers/makers: please incorporate awesome map technology asap so I don’t have to read it at a computer.  Thanks.
I really really heart my friends! They are really putting out for Free Geek!
Thank you so much Reba Sundberg, Charles Rooks, and Beth Kanter. (That I know about!)
That wonderful Amy Sample Ward has made Free Geek her birthday cause! She’s turning 26 on Dec. 27th and is asking folks to donate $ 26 to Free Geek. Look at her site to see how much she’s raised so far!
And famous artist and author (of book and blog) Alicia Paulson is donating proceeds from the sale of one of her beloved dolls to Free Geek.  Fiona Flannery  is an Irish dancer (and also plays the bodhran semi-professionally), frequently attending ceilis around county Antrim. She’s single, but fine with that.
 This eBay auction is a quick one, better act fast if you want to get in on the action, ends at 6:49 a.m. on Dec. 18.
Much thanks also to Rick Turoczy of Silicon Florist for including in his blog and to Oregon Startup Blogs for reposting. Â
You all know how much I love Free Geek. I’ve seen quite a lot of nonprofits, and I have to say it’s the most amazing one I’ve ever encountered. Why? Well, here are a few of the reasons…
Free Geek is one of the few organizations in the U.S. that can accurately say it recycles materials it can’t reuse in an environmentally and socially responsible way. None of its materials end up poisoning children on other continents. (Did you see the recent 60 Minutes coverage of this shameful subject?) Do you know where the ewaste you produce ends up? Watch what happens when you ask for documentation about its disposition (and watch the 60 Minutes piece!).  Free Geek has applied for BAN certification and we expect it to come shortly.
Free Geek is where the poorest people in the Portland area earn free computers and learn how to use them, gaining valuable job skills that can change their lives.
Free Geek is where you find immigrants and refugees building their own computers and taking classes in free software, helping them find a way in their new land.
Free Geek is a place where brilliant young geeks get recognized and encouraged. I just met a 13-year-old boy there who already can program as well as any of the veterans in this magnet for brilliant geeks. Free Geek is nurturing his talent in a way that wouldn’t happen otherwise.
Free Geek is where a man in his mid-80s finds a community that appreciates his talents and where he stays in touch with people. He’s built more than 500 computers to help the needy get nerdy.  A very smart 5-year-old is now building computers there with his mom!
Free Geek truly means what it pays. Â Staff members who are paid all get the same hourly rate. Yes, from the person answering the phone to the person dealing with big picture policy.
It’s the most grassroots and hands-on organization I’ve ever seen, helping the neediest people in our community.
I’ve never met a kinder or more giving group of people in my life.
It serves the most diverse group of people of any organization I’ve ever seen, in nearly every measurement: age, gender, background, abilities, disabilities, ethnic & racial, world views, etc. etc.
And of course last but not least there’s the meaning it has in my son Blaine’s life. As many of you know, Blaine was born with spina bifida and is paralyzed and lacks sensation below his armpits.  This past summer, Blaine received an award for “Volunteer Extraordinaire†at Free Geek in recognition that for the past five years, every day Free Geek is open and he is not really really sick, Blaine has been getting himself up and ready to go in and help that amazing nonprofit organization. I get to see what it takes for Blaine to make his important contribution. What can I say? He’s my hero.
I’ve always know what Free Geek does for Blaine, but I was stunned to hear what he means to Free Geek. Recently some of his co-workers there shared some thoughts about what Blaine provides Free Geek.  When I heard these things, my heart soared like a hawk.  I wish every mother had the opportunity to hear people appreciate their son or daughter like this:
“Recently my niece signed up to volunteer at Free Geek, opting to work her way through the Computer Build program to earn a free computer. My advice to her was, ‘Prepare to work independently, overcome great frustration, and when in doubt, stay close to Blaine.’â€
“Blaine’s tutelage was instrumental in my making it through the Build program at Free Geek (launching me into other areas of contribution), and I know he has provided similar assistance to hundreds, if not thousands of other volunteers there.â€
“Blaine is an amazingly knowledgable and patient instructor and coordinator of other volunteers. Despite his limited mobility, Blaine is able to help direct and answer questions of our volunteers, which in turn keep our organization running.â€
“Blaine is among the most valued members of the Free Geek community and of its volunteer labor force.â€Â Â
“Blaine helps teach others good work skills and reinforces the importance of showing up on time and doing your job with all you have, and he is always willing to learn more from others to share with his students.â€
“I have been very impressed with Blaine’s patient and consistently upbeat contributions as a volunteer with the Free Geek build program. He was extremely supportive and helpful to a young man from a Haitian refugee family who learned a lot from a series of afternoons with Blaine: about computers, people, tolerance and empathy from his supportive manner and patient instruction.â€
“He is a beloved member of our community. It’s impossible to work with Blaine without appreciating his cheer and warmth. I’ve never seen him get irritated, even in the most difficult times; His equanimity helps us all to maintain our own sanity. He’s an inspiring presence.â€
What You Can Do to Support Free Geek
Unfortunately, because the bottom has fallen out of the commodities market, greatly affecting the value of recycled materials, Free Geek is hurting right now. And like many social service agencies, demand is higher than ever as people lose their jobs and experience great financial hardship.Â
So I’m pleading for your help. Here are several things you can do: Take your no-longer-needed computer and other electronic items to Free Geek at 1731 SE 10th Ave. in Portland, just a couple blocks south of Hawthorne. Make a charitable donation to this wonderful organization (tax deductible of course!). You can give through PayPal directly on the Free Geek site or through the Willamette Week Give Guide (and get some schwag for your trouble!). Or of course you can mail or deliver a check to Free Geek, 1731 SE 10th Ave., Portland OR 97214. (Tell them Marie sent you.)
As many of you know, I’ve been so inspired by this organization and what it means that I made (with my beloved Rev Phil) a movie showing how wonderful it is. Â
You can see on YouTube at:
The Short Version about 5 minutes long (viewed more than 50,000 times so far!):
I’ll take it family member by family member, beginning with the doggies. Did I mention they were 
Every month Ric sets up a production line in the kitchen and whips up a bulk recipe, using 5 lbs. of boneless skinless chicken breast, two number 10 each of cans of yams and carrots, brown rice, whole oats… He freezes them in individual scoops and give the dogs 1-1/2 scoops each every morning and night.
As far as I can tell, he is in charge of all sports forums on the interwebs. He’s VERY active in all sorts of discussions, both on and off topic. For example, here’s an interesting and 
has been helping him with his personal care! And it’s been a completely liberating experience for both Blaine and me! We feel so much gratitude to her, I can’t even begin to tell you…
 He even wrote a love song for it (which will be on his new CD).
Marie also took a rug making class and just finished her first ever rug, likely the smallest rug in the history of the world, but it’s for the bathroom floor in Toaster Moon, which itself is the size of two size 10 feet.
To be honest, World’s Smallest Book Group didn’t actually discuss the book we read all that much at our December meeting. Why talk about travel writing when most of our members had been travelling: Reba to Switzerland: Darcy to Switzerland, London, Italy, Greece, Slovenia, etc.: Joyce to Argentina.  Lots of wonderful travel talk.  Didn’t leave much time for the book.
That wonderful 
And famous artist and author (of 
