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This morning, with my cup of piping hot coffee in hand, I was scanning through my feedreader when I came across an interesting article on the way in which American health scientists tend to perceive overly extracted, fabricated and altered food as a permanent part of the American diet. Rather than being a human constructed consumable, it is looked upon as an integral part of our daily diet that cannot be changed or altered. The irony is that it can, simply by committing to the slow food movement. But rather than encourage critical thinking, and good choices, health scientists seem more like pharmacists, suggesting new pills that will counter the consequences of fast food.

I feel like the message is: “Don’t help people change their attitudes or choices, just make them down a pill to counteract the consequences of their last poor choice, which will then need another pill to counteract the side-effects from the last pill, and so on and so forth”.

Sound familiar? (más…)

When we moved to Spain, we left three loving, kind and beautiful cats behind us. They were our love and joy of our life, but to pick up and move thousands of miles unaware as to where we would live or what we would do to survive in a new country, seemed ridiculous and unfair to them. Consequently, we found each of them homes with friends and family, said our farewells and hoped for the best. Easy? No, but definitely a wise decision in the end.

We moved to Madrid and lived with two other couples in a 3 bedroom flat. This wasn’t necessarily the most normal of living circumstances in Madrid, but it functioned for our needs. Married, and used to having our own space, Ryan and I knew that this was only a short time gig, and decided to wait on getting another cat until we found our own space. But after a year, I couldn’t wait any longer; and for my birthday, I begged and pleaded for a furry creature I could relate to that didn’t require me to struggle with Spanish or cultural norms. It would love me regardless if I stumbled over my verb tenses or looked like a deer in headlights as I searched for the right noun or pronoun. And on my 31st birthday, I was given a little box containing a cash brush, cat treats and an advertisement for a three month old kitten.

The advertisement didn’t pan out, but after a week of phone calls, we finally found Txarli. In Euskara, the official Basque language, the ‘tx’ is pronounced like a ‘ch’, and in castellano, the ‘i’ is pronounced like an ‘e’. So, thinking we were clever, we named him “Charlie”, our sophisticated Spanish cat. (más…)