Social Cat Family Like Pepitas

This post is a rerun. It went down for a while because Serena didn't like pepitas. Diego, Drudge, and Dilbert like pepitas.

Pepitas are the flat, crunchy green seeds of pumpkins. As a snack they were most popular in Mexico, and, when sold in the U.S., they're usually identified by their Mexican name. What's packaged as "pumpkin seeds" are usually still in their white outer shells, for which I personally don't care. But I do like shelled pepitas, and so do the resident cats at the Cat Sanctuary.

Pepitas have a mild, nutty flavor that I find pleasing with or without salt. The cats like them without salt.

One reason why the cats may enjoy these seeds is that cats and dogs inevitably tend to pick up intestinal parasites, and eating pepitas apparently helps the animals expel these parasites. I'm not an expert, but I have seen scrawny, wormy-looking animals gain strength and weight after they developed a taste for pepitas.

Pepitas also contain vitamins, minerals, and protein, and have a lower fat content than nuts. They can be considered a healthy snack. I hesitate to mention this because I'm turned off any food or drink by any other person trying to tell me that it's "good for me" and suspect other people feel the same way, but pepitas are nutritious for humans or animals.

When I share a pot of rice with the cats, I started mixing in a few pepitas when I didn't have chicken. (Back then I often made a cheap meal of brown rice mixed with a package of ramen noodles, which were of course flavored with meat "extracts.") I learned that some cats liked pepitas and would eat plain rice, mixed with pepitas, without any meat flavoring.

Grandma Bonnie Peters uses pepitas in some of her vegan concoctions; she buys them in bulk and often sends a package of cracked or ground pepitas to the cats. Heather, Irene, and Ivy are pepita enthusiasts.

"The web site hasn't heard from you for a while," I said to GBP. "What do you want to post? What does the web site need?"

She said, "Pumpkin seeds." There's no such thing as a vegan cat, although I have known house cats who lived with Seventh-Day Adventists who ate vegan meals in the house and did their hunting out of sight of their human friends. There are Seventh-Day Adventists who seriously try to encourage cats to eat vegan meals.

"Not the cats, the web site," I said.

She said, "Maybe the web site needs pumpkin seeds too."

Well, maybe it does.

Pepitas are not necessarily a substitute for a worm treatment by a vet, but if your cat enjoys the nutty crunch pepitas add to her (or his) dinner, indulging this taste now and then just might extend the time between those pricey (and not very pleasant) treatments.

Ingredients for a Pepita Meal for Cats and Their Humans 

1/2 to 1 cup brown rice

1/4 to 1/2 cup cracked and/or crushed and/or ground pepitas

1 to 2 cups cooked spinach or other greens

Salt, pepper, garlic powder, or other seasonings (humans only)

Method for a Pepita Meal for Cats and Their Humans 

1. Cook the rice as directed.

2. Cook the greens by heating them in the water that clings to them after washing, or use a can of precooked greens.

3. Combine rice, greens, and pepitas. Divide among humans' and cats' dishes.

4. Pass seasonings for the humans.

Variations 

Although this is a nutritious, protein-rich meal all by itself, you can add meat if you want to. Or any of those wheat-and-soy "meat analogs" Seventh-Day Adventists prefer, if you eat them.

Or sunflower seeds.

Or slivered almonds.

Or garbanzos.

Pre-Obituary: Grandma Bonnie Peters Moves On

KANSAS CITY, Missouri.--Bonnie Dale Lassiter Peters, 18 January 1935 -- 9 August 2020

The nurse, teacher, patient advocate, life coach, Health & Temperance Minister, Celiactivist, cook, restaurant supplier, frozen-food entrepreneur, church youth group leader, active grandparent, model of active seniority, and less-successful writer known as Grandma Bonnie Peters has taken her next step forward.

Upon reaching a plateau in recovery from a stroke, which was where she was the last time I visited her, she had some symptoms tested and learned that she had liver cancer.

She was 85 years old. She had been the home nurse for patients whose liver cancer had reached the almost unbearably disgusting stage at which they were sent home from hospitals. She rejected chemotherapy and planned, for this summer, The Last Road Trip, during which she planned to revisit scenes of her childhood in Kansas and Oklahoma in the company of relatives in Missouri.

Though willing to continue helping her friends at the retirement project, if able, on return from The Last Road Trip, she was making no commitments and was eating only a few bites of food at each meal before the Trip. On being notified of her plan to take the Trip, I said to relatives who doubted that she had the strength to survive it, "That's the point."

According to her younger daughter, who was driving, GBP rented two rooms for the two of them for a week, in a suburban hotel outside Kansas City. Her plan was to go to bed early Sunday night, wake up early Monday morning, and spend the day with relatives. She never woke up.

She wanted people to remember her as someone who could still walk, talk, make plans, and manage her own affairs, and so they will. Though she never recovered the fortitude to walk back up to the Cat Sanctuary, she will be remembered as the retirement project resident who practiced walking with great regularity and determination, and encouraged others trying to recover to practice walking around the track at the project, also.

She was the one who responded to the news that friends and relatives were postponing visits, for fear of infecting project residents with last winter's flu, by saying, "I'm here in my friend's flat, helping nurse her through the flu." She wanted to die "with her boots on" and almost literally did.

A lifelong advocate of simple memorial services, GBP was minimally insured to cover the cost of only the simplest. Following an open-coffin service in Missouri, which was attended by the disappointed relatives, she will be cremated there, and the ashes will be disposed of at a simple service on the Virginia/Tennessee border next week.

She was the daughter of Everett McCoy Lassiter and Ruby Jewel Garrett Lassiter ("Texas Ruby"). She was preceded in death by her sister, Mabel Lassiter Kerby; her husband, George Albert Peters; and two sons, David Floyd Peters (1969-1982) and John Kevin Peters (who lived fewer than 24 hours in 1984). She is survived by two daughters, four grandchildren, a large extended family, and many friends, students, and patients.

Essay for a Contest I Can't Win

Hope Clark shared this information about the contest for which I'm not qualified, but some of you readers might be...

"
IRENE ADLER PRIZE
http://www.lucasaykroyd.com/scholarships
NO ENTRY FEE. Deadline April 30, 2019. Pays $1,000 to a woman pursuing a degree in journalism, creative writing, or literature at a recognized post-secondary institution in the U.S. or Canada, based on an essay competition. Submit a 500-word essay in English on one of the following three topics:

“Why are you studying journalism, creative writing, or literature?”
“Which woman inspires you to write despite not being principally known as a writer herself?”
“If you could live anywhere outside North America, where would you go and what would you do there?”
"

Since I'm not enrolled in any college, university, or trade school course I'm obviously disqualified from the scholarship contest, but these prompts appeal to me.

("Who is Hope Clark?" someone might ask. Hope Clark is the pen name of a mystery writer on whose mailing list all aspiring authors want to be. Here's an Amazon link to her new novel...this "stand-alone" detective story teams two characters who appeared separately in earlier novels.)



Out of respect for our readers overseas I'll mention, and then tactfully drop, the fact that I personally wouldn't want to leave North America. The hills of Britain and Ireland appeal to my eyes, and the fundamental weirdness of Iceland is something I might like to visit once, but as a place to live, the only alternative to these United States that I can imagine would be Canada. I like snow. I don't mind rewriting everything in a language I can read but not actually speak. I liked my temporarily Canadian husband enough that I'd have to beware of resenting the rest of the country for not being him. But it wouldn't be home, which is one particular ridge and no other in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

So let's go with the question about the inspiring woman...that'd be Grandma Bonnie Peters, who chose that screen name when she was a proud new grandmother of a child who's now old enough to vote. She warbled about wanting to write a business blog for years. She even sold a few pieces to Associated Content; she was the one who invited me to that site. She never quite got the business site going, and although she's fed me topics over the years, she's never written her own blog.

Nobody is perfect. GBP has faults. I'll mention that to avoid sounding fangirly, and move on.

GBP was an undiagnosed celiac up to the age of 45 or 50 or thereabouts. She was awarded a scholarship to go to college based on her grades in high school, but had an opportunity to go straight into business, instead, and took it. As an empty-nester she went to college and graduated near the head of the class there, too, with a degree in geriatric nursing. She had been a home nurse without the degree and continued to be one with the degree.

She has always made time for a lot of serious fun too. As a Seventh-Day Adventist she taught "Sabbath School" and led "Pathfinder" troops, which are similar to Sunday School and Scouts, in hiking, camping, and swimming. As a diagnosed celiac she taught both vegan and gluten-free cooking schools, branded "Allergy-Ease Foods," some of which were frozen, shipped, and sold around the Eastern States, and briefly sold gluten-free vegan meals in a "Test Kitchen." Decorated with informative fact sheets on the walls instead of pretty pictures, entertaining diners with instructional videos rather than music, the Test Kitchen offered the best meal deals in Tennessee. Sometimes they were even served by the child whose redrawn baby picture was part of the Allergy-Ease logo.

As a home nurse I was GBP's apprentice but, as an adult, I never worked as either a partner or a competitor with her. Her "miracle cures" (she was credited with several) were accomplished by correcting patients' diets; mine (I've been credited with a few) were accomplished by trigger-point massage and exercise. That's not to suggest that GBP didn't walk and work out with patients, too, or that I never showed people how to cook special diet foods. Both approaches will cure some conditions that people have "just had to live with, taking expensive meds that have side effects," for years until they try diet and/or exercise. GBP is generally more wary about touching patients than I am, and I'm generally more wary about recommending food.

She's also been an active grandmother, active member and recruiter for a Senior Hiking Club, farmer, gardener, interior decorator, and lead soprano in multiple church choirs--Seventh-Day Adventists are allowed to attend other churches on Sunday, and through old friendship and barter, first a Baptist church and then a Presbyterian church got GBP to sing in their choirs. She has occasionally dated, since her husband died, but says anyone she'd date "would have to be a card-carrying Adventist."

All the best recipes on this web site are GBP's. She has some good stories, too, if and when she makes a final decision to post them.

What I've written for other publishers has been my own, or theirs, or a combination of both...but this web site is officially at least half GBP's. If she's not written more of her own posts or edited or vetoed more of other people's, that's been her choice.

Confessing the ABCs

It's a meme! I was starting to think that species had gone extinct. Here, because her Q post cheered me up at an earlier, wearier time this afternoon, and because her blog is relatively simple, are my answers to the meme +Sandy KS shared at http://challengeyourwriting.blogspot.com/2015/06/i-will-confess-my-abcs.html. I want to do this one in combination with Grandma Bonnie Peters in order to help readers tell us apart:

A: Age
PK: 51
GBP: 80

B: Biggest Fear:
PK: The Apocalypse
GBP: (Didn't admit any. Changed the subject to my hair. I say it might well be...) Giving somebody a bad haircut.

C: Current time: 6:45 p.m.

D: Drink you last had
PK: Mountain Dew
GBP: Water

E: Easiest person to talk to
PK: My husband, while living
GBP: Have no trouble talking to anybody. A motor mouth.

F: Favorite song
PK: Too many to pick just one. To sing in church, "Ein' Feste Burg." To sing at a folk song gathering, "Wildwood Flower." To sing at a gospel gathering, "The Blood." To sing at a shape-note singing event, "Soar Away." Or maybe I'd really rather listen to other people's favorites anyway.
GBP: "He Lives" (gospel song)

G: Grossest memory
PK: Norovirus. (For the record, Sandy, I don't think a healthy animal birth process is gross at all. That's OK though. I'd rather not know what was gross about the one you mentioned. There are enough gross-outs in the political news!)
GBP: (She didn't want to pick one. I mentioned a skin infection about ten years ago that has left scars. She said, "That's not the grossest one." We agreed that it was the grossest one we'd discuss here.)

H: home town
PK: Gate City, Virginia
GBP: Monument, Indiana (town no longer on the map; flooded by the TVA). Some would say Fort Wayne.

I: In love with
PK: The famous Significant Other, Mr. Privacy
GBP: "We're all supposed to be in love with Jesus. What's that scripture? Leave everything and follow Me." (She actually walked over to the bookshelf, got a Bible, and looked up Luke 18:29.)

J: Jealous of
PK: Mr. Privacy of course.
GBP: (denies being either jealous or envious of anybody)

K: Killed someone?
PK: No one human. Lots of nuisance insects. A copperhead (venomous snake), once. Dying animals.
GBP: Hit a dog once...it ran out between parked cars. (She's not counting small, cold-blooded animals. I've seen her kill those.)

L: Longest relationship
PK: Married almost ten years
GBP: Married 37 years

M: Middle name
PK: No middle name
GBP: [middle name withheld by site policy]

N: Number of siblings
PK: Two living sisters, same age, different colors
GBP: One sister (would be 93 if living)

O: One wish
PK: How does it go? To see my great-grandchildren eating off golden plates?
GBP: In the Resurrection, to see Jesus

P: Person you last called
PK: A car pool
GBP: A neighbor

Q: Question you are always asked
PK: "Are you married? Going steady?" Apparently I don't look like the celibate type, but I am.
GBP: "Do you really walk to the post office?"

R: Reason to smile
PK: Thought of something cute/clever/funny to blog about
GBP: (Other than that, yes, she does walk to the post office, I said.) In good health and looking forward to the coming of the Lord!

S: Song you last sang
PK: Hard to remember. I seldom sing when the weather is humid and my sinuses clog; usually in dry weather. It's been a humid week!
GBP: "Our God Is an Awesome God" (GBP sings in the choir at the Seventh-Day Adventist church and also, by invitation, at the Presbyterian church.)

T: Time you woke up
PK: 5:50 a.m.
GBP: 6 a.m.

U: Ultimate friend
PK: My modem-free computer at home
GBP: Jesus

V: Vacation destination
PK: Home. I've outgrown the urge to travel.
GBP: Well, (relative) thinks a vacation destination ought to be Branson! (Missouri.)

W: Worst habit
PK: Staying up late when I want to get up early
GBP: Oh I've forgotten! (Chortles. I nominate preaching.)

X: X-ray
PK: Molars
GBP: Broken wrist

Y: Yummy food
PK: Sun-ripened strawberry washed under the garden hose
GBP: Stir-fried veg

Z: Zodiac sign
PK: Whatever. (Priscilla King was born into cyberspace in June 2005, "about 40," and was surprised, some years later, to find that according to the identity data set up for her on Yahoo she'd been born in January 1964. This is currently complicating one of my e-jobs as a hostess at a "seniors" web site; Priscilla King is a very junior "senior," at 51, thus eligible for the job in cyberspace, and I certainly needed the money, but the real-world body PK inhabits is still a few weeks under age 50, thus ineligible to do the job at a physical site where it might be helpful to real seniors.)
GBP: I remember it was "on the cusp."

At this point, for some reason GBP felt motivated to show me her favorite photo (snapshot of a young man who's now in high school, as an infant) and favorite greeting card (it says "You're the best Grandma on Earth," and was printed by the best Grandson called Joshua Namewithheld on Earth, too). I don't know that anybody had asked, but if youall are getting to know her, you probably should know that her grandchildren are her favorite people.

Grandma Bonnie Peters on the Place of Firearms in a Christian Home

Gentle Readers, the claim that Christians don't need firearms is so bizarre that it actually prompted Grandma Bonnie Peters to write something for this web site--write it down on paper while I was at home last night. She's been promising to share old family stories, recipes, etc., for years. I think seeing me early this morning and recovering from the broken wrist also contributed to her choice of her first written-down article, because she's anything but a "gun nut." She doesn't shoot; she doesn't even own a gun. But she's always appreciated the security we old ladies enjoy from living in a country where lots of law-abiding people own guns, many carry concealed weapons, and people who aren't law-abiding never know.

She writes:

"My mother was born in Texas. She was riding a small horse and herding cattle on the range at five. They called her “Little Sure Shot” like Annie Oakley. The neighbors would ask Mom to shoot the beef animals or pigs because one shot went exactly where she wanted it and none of the meat on the animals was lost.

Dad had his right ankle cut through by a mowing blade when he was ten years old, in 1899. He was busy trying to save a sparrow with both its feet cut off. Mowing clover with horses was quiet. The hired man carried him in with the ankle attached only by the tendon in the back of the ankle. Grandma had learned first aid in high school and applied the tourniquet. Three miles to the new doctor, who said, “I'll have to cut it off and let him wear a peg. The leg would get gangrene and have to be taken off.” Grandma said, “You sew and I'll pray.” He limped for 69 years on that foot. No running. But no gangrene.

If danger comes to our family, animals, or property, like Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Dad had a Colt .45. News of its presence was circulated.

One time I was eight years old when two guys got into our chicken house, on the farm in Indiana, with the 600 White Leghorn hens. We sold eggs. Dad heard the noise. They had two feed sacks with hens in them. Dad stood on the back porch and shot straight up with the .45. Yelled, “I aimed to miss that time. I'll count to ten. If you are still in range I'll see which one I can hit.” They were not in range. They left the door wide open, and hens scattered in all directions. We spent nearly three hours on that moonlight night getting the scared hens back into the henhouse.

In January 1965 Mom and Dad had apartment houses in Fort Wayne, Indiana. There were riots and people marching in the streets. It was 22 degrees below zero [Fahrenheit]. They threw rocks and broke windows in the apartment with the small children Mom baby-sat. Dad had arthritis but still had the .45 he took onto the front porch. Again he shot straight up in the air and aimed to miss, but said, if any more glass shattered, he would aim to hit. There was none.

I've always prayed and felt protected by the Lord and His angels. No need for a gun. I sold it. But guns do have a place, and no one needs to get hurt. "

Interview with Grandma Bonnie Peters

(Reclaimed from Bubblews.)

Someone recently told me she had heard that my supposed-to-be-partner in blogging, Grandma Bonnie Peters, had died. GBP had seemed quite healthy the last time I saw her, and I thought I would have heard if anything had happened...but you never know. So after taking a snow day on Wednesday, I spent Thursday tracking GBP to her lair in Kingsport, Tennessee.

She is still healthy and well preserved, and in fact, after feeding me a vegan lunch, she made the other comments quoted here during a two-mile walk around her neighborhood. Her idea. (For those who don't know...GBP's 79th birthday is next week, and she's still working as a night nurse.)

She had no official comment about my Bubblews being dedicated to this fund: priscillaking.blogspot.com/2013/12/homeless-victims-of-welfare-state.html 

About being hard to reach: "I don't want to set up my voice mail box. It only fills up with sales messages, and then I get impatient and hit 'Erase All'." (We didn't get around to discussing the National Do Not Call List. Let's just say that we agree that "telemarketing" should be outlawed.)

About her rather brief publications list: (Short handwritten manuscripts were lying around her office.) "You know I helped Jeff Goldberg with Steps to Shalom. Ten or twelve of us [at the Messianic Jewish and Seventh-Day Adventist Fellowship in St. Petersburg, Florida] worked with him to make sure it was equally accessible to Jewish and Christian readers."

About Tamera Mowry's quinoa waffles recipe: "I received it in the e-mail. I might try it some time." (Use this link with caution, as the Mowry sisters' web site seems to have been attacked by haters: tiaand tameraofficial.co m/blog/post/fresh-easy-breakfasts-in-a-snap )

About aging, arthritis, rheumatism, and body shrinkage: "I used to have arthritis. I know not all arthritis is caused by food allergies, but what a blessing that mine was. Doctors said I'd be wheelchair-bound within five years. And even when I started to get osteoporosis, weight-bearing exercise is holding it down to what they call 'osteopinosis', which is less severe."

About walking (she was setting a reasonably good pace): "I need to walk today because there have been some days when I couldn't walk outside. I know about the mall walkers in Kingsport. I'd rather wait for a thaw than walk with them. Facing straight into this wind feels cold...walking uphill, with buildings breaking the wind, is not too bad." (The temperature was above freezing by three or four degrees Fahrenheit.)

About Tennessee law: "Another mutual acquaintance has joined the bandwagon to try to get some relief from the 'Deadbeat Dads' law here. She was unable to send child support to the father of her children, who is earning fifty thousand a year, because she was laid off from a job as a cashier. She is filling out seventeen applications for jobs a week. So far she's only found part-time work with a maid service. One cold day she borrowed a car and drove to work, and was pulled over and told her license had been suspended because she missed a payment. She went to court and got her license restored. She told them it didn't seem reasonable that she's being allowed to keep only about fifty dollars a week while sending payments to a man who's making fifty thousand a year."

While eating lunch we discussed some bills before the Virginia legislature. GBP refused to try reading bills herself but did comment on some that I was reading. At priscillaking.blogspot.com I had supported Delegate O'Quinn's proposal to mandate that Virginia schools offer quiet, private baby care areas that are "shielded from the public view." My position is that baby-friendly workplace policies could reduce the incidence of abortion. GBP is more opposed to abortion than I am, but still felt that trying to make the public schools baby-friendly might be unfair to babies. "All the germs, and mean kids...I think mothers of children less than one year old should stay home with them."

Homeschoolers' Rights: The Struggle Continues

Madeleine Morgenstern has the latest update on the Romeike homeschool "refugees":

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/19/german-homeschooling-family-will-take-their-fight-to-the-supreme-court/

Do laws against homeschooling violate people's human rights? They do if children are being psychologically abused at school--by teachers who mislabel them, refuse to educate them, penalize them for growing and learning in a different way than the majority, attack their parents' religious or philosophical views, allow them to be harassed or bullied by classmates, and so on. And, when parents and students don't have complete freedom of school choice, children will be psychologically abused at school; the opportunity to get away with abuse will attract abusers.

Ask Grandma Bonnie Peters. This web site has already discussed her past as a homeschooling activist, back when the human rights of homeschooling families weren't recognized in the United States, in the early 1980s. She and her children went underground for five months and subjected themselves to incredible socioeconomic hardships during the years when David Peters, 1969-1982, was a poster child for school choice.

We've discussed the United Nations' power grab disguised as a mandate to extend the right to education to children worldwide, too. We are all in favor of children's right to an education. We do not want that right to be compromised by any heavy-handed bit of global imperialism that would, in practice, deprive children of the right to a better than average private education.