I haven't posted in a while but thought I'd do some food mini posts before returning to Halloween stuff. Today I made artichoke and goat cheese pizza for lunch. It was delicious. I didn't use a recipe, really. I just used a premade dough, spread some garlic, rosemary and olive oil, and browned it. Added a little pizza sauce, a Romano 3 cheese mix, cherry tomatoes from the farmers market, olives, artichoke hearts and then sprinkled herbed goat cheese on top. Only way it could have been better is if I hadn't used up all the fresh basil last night.

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Bianca

Bianca, my 8 year old German Shepherd, had to have emergency surgery a few weeks ago. We had no idea anything was wrong with her until she suddenly started acting funny that afternoon. It all happened so quickly, the night before she had gone for a long 2-3 mile walk to the park and she was acting normal that morning as well.
She was not wanting to get up and come when I called her to eat, and when I checked her gums they were pale so I rushed her to the vet. It turned out she was bleeding internally and had an enlarged spleen. She had to be transferred to the emergency vet where she had emergency surgery to remove her spleen that night. When they did the surgery they found several masses that had ruptured on her spleen, that's what caused the bleeding. She also needed a blood transfusion during surgery.

We had brought her to this emergency clinic partly because this was the clinic where Bianca had been a blood donor herself for two years (retired recently), they have a volunteer blood donor program where people sign up their pets to be donors. Luckily for us they happened to have blood donors there the day we had came in with our emergency and they were able to immediately use the blood from one of the donors for Bianca. I highly recommend the canine blood donor programs, if your dog is the right size (usually over 50 pounds) and friendly, many areas have these volunteer programs. Sometimes they have the volunteer programs for cats as well, one of my cats has also been a blood donor (they have to be 10 pounds or over and have the right temperament for it.)

Bianca went through surgery with no complications. Sadly this was not the end of things, as they had also found some small masses on her liver and took samples of those as well as of the ones from the spleen and a sample of the spleen lymph node to send for biopsy. The biopsy results came back positive for hemangiosarcoma, a type of cancer which is all too common in German Shepherds. However we were lucky in a way as many times this disease is not detected until it is too late to do anything so we were lucky that we rushed her in and caught it in time to be able to do the surgery...
 We consulted with an oncologist who recommended a metronomic chemotherapy protocol (low dose oral chemotherapy) which we are starting now.) My vet also gave us some supplements we can give that may help. Unfortunately the cost of the surgery and the chemotherapy treatment is quite expensive... I was able to get some help from family and put some things on credit cards but if anyone has a few dollars to spare, we have set up a ChipIn fundraising page for Bianca, which goes through Paypal: http://chicagocanine.chipin.com/biancas-cancer-treatment

Also BeatrizFortes has very kindly offered to donate all the profit from orders of her beautiful pawprint pendants($10 per pendant) from her etsy shop to Bianca's vet care: Tiny Paw Pendant in Sterling Silver by BeatrizFortes on Etsy







Below is a photo from last weekend, we got to visit my sister and her husband in a cottage they rented in Wisconsin.

Bioshock Party Ideas

This post is just for me to brainstorm ideas for a Bioshock themed party... If you read this and have any ideas you think would be good for this theme, please post a comment!

Food/Drinks:

-Big Daddy Cupcakes (see picture below)
-Cupcakes (or checkerboard cupcakes) with Bioshock theme decorations (checkerboard/tile pattern, ocean/blue, bunny masks, EVE hypo, etc... made from frosting, fondant, or sugar)
-Checkerboard cookies?
-Bioshock themed sugar cookies (EVE syringes, others: diving suit? art deco?)
-Creme-filled cakes
-Salty's brand potato chips (small individual bags)
-ADAM (red) and EVE (blue) glowing punch (glowing vase base under punch bowls)
-Sparkling grape juice with booze labels from Bioshock
-Champagne flutes (lighted?) and syringes to serve drinks
-Soda with "Pep Up Cola" labels (glass bottles?)
-Jello syringe "shots" (non-alcoholic)

Props/Decor:
-Plaster sculptures
-Rapture underwater window scenes
-Black out room, walls covered with bunny masks
-Underwater room, plastic bubbles hanging from ceiling
-Ocean room, netting, creepy cloth, water lighting, jute
-Underwater tunnel, blue walls
-Blue water fabric over front doorway and/or over walls/windows
-Bubble machine (outside?)
-Paint walls (stairway/upstairs)
-Rapture propaganda posters
-EL wire sign(s)?
-Luminaries or lanterns
-Gatherer's Garden machine (pantry)
-Welcome to Rapture banner
-Coverings for furniture?

Reference Pictures/vids:

Rapture window scenes (see link above for info)

Bioshock bathroom(from last Halloween)



Bubbles from ceiling

Big Daddy cupcakes (see link above for recipe)

Game Reference images:

Mutt Strut Howl-oween and Southport Block Party

We attended a fun Halloween event this weekend. Thanks to the great people from Chicago Canine Rescue, who organized the Mutt Strut's rain date (original date was in September) in connection with Lakeview Chamber of Commerce's Southport block party and Dog-a-holics. I think it was a winning combination. In addition to the Mutt Strut events like the cake-eating contest (for dogs) and silent auction, there was a pet costume contest as well as all the block party fun for the kids (games, bouncy houses, trick-or-treating at Southport businesses.)  After the costume contest there was a pet parade down Southport. Kye Martin from CLTV was there MC-ing the event and said to look for an entry about the event on her blog page. I'd post a link if I could find it. We also got to see our friends from Safe Humane Chicago at their booth as well as check out some other info and product booths at the event.
I will try to add some more photos or links to this post if/when I locate them It's too soon for anything to be online yet, but if anyone wants to check you can go to CLTV.com, chicagocaninerescue.com, and fetchportraits.com

They're not there yet as I post this but also check here for photos of the event:
http://photos.fetchportraits.com/Dogs/Event-Candids

RVAH Halloween Bash and Bark-o-ween photos

 Yesterday we attended the Roscoe Village Animal Hospital's Halloween Bash. It was a lot of fun! There were many great pet costumes (and kids), fun games, raffles and refreshments, and a photographer. The event benefited New Leash on Life Animal Rescue.
We had a lot of fun trying to wrangle two cats and a dog to photograph, but you can see below that the results were not bad (the middle two photos). I also added a few photos below from the Parker's Pets Bark-o-ween party.

Svengoolie's Blog

We were mentioned again this year on Svengoolie's blog entry about Parker's Pet's Bark-o-ween event!
http://www.wciu.com/svengoolie.php?section=blog&assetID=10003632

You can see photos from the event here:
http://photos.fetchportraits.com/Dogs/Event-Candids/Svengoolie-Parkers-Pets/14043861_md6xR#1033636468_zzxRq