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Wine: In Search of Lower Alcohol Content

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Did you realize that wine makers, especially in the US, have been quietly upping the alcohol content in some of our favorite potables?  According to the Canadians, who screen incoming alcoholic products, the worst offenders are Chile, Argentina, and the United States, but vintners in all countries do it to some degree.

The theory is that the higher alcohol proportion makes for a heartier product, more attractive to consumers. Also, we’re told, higher sugar content created by the American habit of using riper grapes than Europeans do enhances alcohol content. But because the same Canadian review found that wine makers systematically understate alcohol levels, it’s difficult to avoid speculating that, like caffeine in soda pop and nicotine in cigarettes, this is yet another device to hook users on a product by inserting a habit-making, potentially addictive drug.

I like a glass or two of wine with dinner, often a fairly elaborate affair produced, with flair, in my own kitchen and often served up at mid-day. In recent years, what used to a tasty accompaniment to the grilled filet mignon or the Greek-style baked sea bass has taken to knocking me for a loop. A glass and a half of zinfandel, and I’m ready to fall face-forward into the dinner plate! I’ve attributed that to advancing age — as your metabolism slows, your tolerance for various drugs fades; alcohol is a drug, and so it follows that you’d become more sensitive to it as you dodder toward the grave.

No. California zinfandels rank among the very highest wines in alcohol content: upwards of 14.5 percent! I’m very fond of zins. And also of petite syrah, another in the “highest” category. Others of my faves place in the “high” range: California cabs, pinots noirs, and syrahs, Chilean merlots, Australian shiraz…holy mackerel!

How did I miss this? Apparently it’s all the rage these days to seek out low alcohol-content wines.

It came to my attention earlier this week, after I’d bought a bottle of Mâcon-Villages chardonnay. Normally I don’t care for chardonnay — it’s a boring wine — but the price was right and this was something different for me. So I grabbed it off the shelf. Served it up around 1 or 2 in the afternoon with a lovely slab of grilled mahi.

It was light and refreshing and…yes…several glasses later I realized I’d swiggled down half the bottle!

A-n-n-d…I should’ve been sh*t-faced.

But I was not. I felt quite sober. Wouldn’t have gotten into a car…but nevertheless, around the house I was fully functional. Had no trouble completing the remaining little projects on the day’s list. Wrote some copy. Graded some papers. Puttered around til 10 or 11 at night.

Normally, if I have almost half a bottle of wine, it is all I can do to crawl down the hall into the bedroom and climb into the sack, where I end up sleeping out the rest of the day in a stupor. No stupor was forthcoming.

Click! A light went on. Googled “wine alcohol content” and that’s when I learned that US manufacturers are deliberately jacking up the alcohol content in our wines, that many overseas producers are following suit, and that it’s still possible to find some decent vintages with what used to be normal levels of alcohol.

Here’s what I found out:

From The Guardian:  Wine levels systematically understated; about 1/3 of samples tested by Canada. Worst were Chile, Argentina, US, but all countries were doing it.

From NPR:

Imported whites with “low” alcohol content (around 9% to 11%)

Vinho verde (Portugal)
Txakoli or Txakolini (Spain)
Riesling (Germany)

From Wine Review Online:

Categories of wine called out as particularly high in alcohol content (14% to 16%)

California zinfandels
Most California, Washington, and Australian reds
Italian wines distributed in the US

From Real Simple, listings sorted by alcohol content:

Low (under 12.5%)

Whites:

French muscadet
French Vouvray

Moderately low (12.5% to 13.5%)

Whites:

Austrian Grüner veltliner
Australian riesling
French Alsace white
French Loire and Bordeaux whites
French white Burgundy
Italian Pinot grigio
New York riesling
New Zealand sauvignon blanc [I doubt this!]
Oregon pinot gris
South African sauvignon blanc
Spanish albariño

Reds:

French Beaujolais and Burgundy
French Bordeaux
Italian Chianti
Spanish Rioja

High (13.4 %- 14.4%)

Whites:

Australian chardonnay
California chardonnay
California pinot gris
California sauvignon blanc
California viognier
Chilean chardonnay
French Sauternes
South African chenin blanc

Reds:

Argentine malbec
Australian shiraz
California cabernet sauvignon
California pinot noir
California syrah
Chilean merlot
French Rhône red
Italian Barolo

Very high (over 14.5%)

Whites:

French Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise (fortified)
Portuguese Madeira (fortified)
Spanish sherry (fortified)

Reds:

California petite sirah
California zinfandel
Italian Amarone
Portuguese port (fortified)

Real Simple’s listings are the broadest I came across. Quite the eye-opener, eh?

Just lookit that: California zinfandel and petite syrah fall into the same category as fortified wines like port and Madeira. Ugh! No wonder I’ve felt blotzed after just a glass or two!

Dunno about you, but I’ll be cultivating a renewed appreciation for white wines, despite a strong preference for reds. And after this, I won’t buy any more California wines. We’ll be learning a lot more about French wines!

But as a caveat, do bear in mind that the Canadians discovered manufacturers are deliberately understating alcohol content. I would be very surprised if the Marlborough Sauvignon blanc from New Zealand, available in vast quantities at Costco, were “moderately low” in alcohol. Two glasses of that will have me falling face-first into the sack, just as fast as two glasses of California Zinfandel will. It looks like the only way to know will be to taste-test, consider how you actually feel after one glass, and keep a record.

And since you may be getting a lot more alcohol than you think, don’t ever drive after imbibing even one glass of wine.

High Inefficiency: Washers and Rx Plans!

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So this morning I take it into my pretty little head to do the laundry in my fancy new(ish) Samsung high-efficiency top-loading washer with the fun clear lid that lets you watch the clothes sloshing around, just in case you’re feeling unusually bored.

To do that I have to…

• Sort clothes (colored, white…said not to be necessary, but watch this space…)
• Sew up the mesh bag that split apart the last time I washed a few items
• Put jeans into mesh bags, one bag per pair
• Sneak one pair of cut-offs into a mesh bag holding a pair of jeans
• Put socks, panties, and camis into several more mesh bags
• Haul bagged laundry out to the garage, whereinat the fancy washer resides
• Load washer
• Measure portion of  radically expensive “high-efficiency” laundry detergent into stupid little cup from which the machine dispenses it
• Clean the mess created by laundry detergent dribs of radically expensive “high-efficiency” laundry detergent that splashed from stupid little cup onto machine’s lid and tub rim
• Set machine to “bedding,” the only cycle that dispenses enough water to get a load of jeans and T-shirts clean…in AN HOUR AND TEN MINUTES!
• Go away for an hour and ten minutes but don’t leave the house because no one in her right mind would leave an appliance full of water sloshing around unguarded for a hour and ten minutes or for any length of time unless what she most loves to do is mop up gigantic messes

An hour and ten minutes. Figure there’s got to be a better way. Now I drag the whites into the bathroom, wash them in the vanity sink, rinse them in the bathtub half-filled with cold water, traipse them out to the garage, and hang them up.

By the time I finish this job, the washer has ALMOST filled with water and started to slosh its FIRST laundry cycle.

Got that? I washed an entire load of laundry by hand, in the bathroom goddamn sink, in less time than it took the wondrous high-efficiency washer to even START to wash the load I stuffed into it.

Okayyyy…. Now we understand why these amazing machines so “efficiently” save water and power: when you don’t use the thing, you don’t use water and power.

Wash four crocheted shirts by hand and lay them out on the tile floor to reblock and dry.

These items could also have been laundered in the wondrous high-efficiency washer. But I wanted to get them clean sometime during my foreseeable lifespan.

The khaki dye and the orange dye from two of these Nordstromsy made-in-Asia shirts leak into the sink water. Therein lies the reason we STILL separate the whites from the colored clothes, even though we are assured that it’s ever-so-much more highly efficient to launder all the clothes together. No doubt it is, if you enjoy wearing grunge-grey “whites.”

Moving on…

Now I decide I should go online and sign up for a new Medicare Part D (prescription drug) plan, since my outfit, Wellcare, is doubling its premiums. I decide to select Humana’s Walmart plan, whose premium is about what I’m paying now and whose copay is significantly (as in HUGELY) lower and which has four- and five-star ratings across the board as compared to my present plan’s three-star complaints ratings. You can sign up for these plans on Medicare.gov, in the same app that allows you to call up and compare plans. However, what you can’t do is figure out whether signing up for the new plan automatically unenrolls you from your present plan, or whether you have to jump through 15 to 30 minutes of phone-tree hoops to get disconnected from the folks who have been ripping you off for the past year.

Navigated to Arizona’s version of SHIP, a bureaucratic fragment that usually employs some uninformed volunteers to answer your questions. Checked the FAQs; this particular (very obvious, IMHO) question was not answered. Called the phone number. Got an obnoxious robotic answering machine, saying if I would leave a message maybe someday they would get around to calling me back (fat chance!) and maybe then I could ask the question whose answer I need now, not sometime in the remote future.

Found a phone number for Humana at the Medicare.gov site. Dialed it, expecting another obnoxious robot.

Mirabilis!!!!!!!! Got a human being!

Yes. You do get disenrolled from the old plan when you sign up electronically for a new one. But would I like for her to sign me up, as long as we were on phone?

Sure.

It took FORTY MINUTES to get through the tape-recorded boilerplate bullshit Humana’s doughty CSR had to play into my ear. At the end of of each of three long-winded segments of boilerplate bullshit, I had to answer, clearly and unmistakably, “YES.” This, she explained, is taken to be a telephonic “signature.”

God. All. Mighty.

The washer was almost done by the time this tedious experience ended.

So now I’m signed up for a new Part D plan, though it won’t kick in until January 1. This is good, because the plan I’ve got is the biggest rip-off ever to come down the pike.

I hope the new one won’t be a rip, too. There’s some reason to believe it will be slightly better:

• User ratings show a lower tendency to deny coverage of drugs prescribed by your doctor and to try to substitute drugs your doctor specifically says you shouldn’t be taking.

• Co-pays are much lower. In fact, if you can wait for them to send your pills by snail-mail, co-pays are sometimes zero dollah. What I’ve had is so ridiculous that I’ve given up even asking — I’ve just been paying out of pocket. The last Rx the Mayo prescribed was denied because, the pharmacist said, Wellcare didn’t like the doctor!

Got that? They don’t like a surgical resident in the service of one of the most prominent, high-powered, respected oncological surgeons in the country. The same surgical resident whose last three prescriptions were honored without quarrel.

Hauled the laundry out of the washer. Hung it up to dry. Cursed the double time-suck.

The Problem with Writing Reminders to Yourself…

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…is that you have to remember to read them!

Of late I’ve missed a couple of events because I (ahem) forgot them. They were written down on the calendar, all right. I just neglected to look at the calendar that hangs on a wall in my office.

I used to have Google or iCalendar send me those pesky daily reminders. Didn’t take long for me to learn to erase those things from notice. Eventually quit posting appointments & tasks, because the nagging emails were always such a low priority in the foggy universe that is my attention span. And because they annoyed. I came to hate them.

For someone who grew up in the world of analog writing, a physical calendar with a pretty picture to decorate the wall and pretty little squares in which to scribble reminders works a lot better. It does not nag you. It sits there looking handsome and suggesting, quietly, that you take responsibility to look at the damn calendar yourself. In fact, I just bought a 2015 calendar (“Folk Art”: Costco impulse buy).

But now that I’m old, I’ve also come to understand that unless a Note to Self is taped to the kitchen door, where I’ll see it on the way out to the garage, there’s a very good chance I will. not. remember. That’s because I’ll forget to look at the pretty calendar…

On the kitchen door, eh?

So yesterday I ran by Staples and picked up one of those erasable whiteboards with a generic month painted on it. Yup. And stuck it on the door smack-dab at eye level, where I’ll be forced to LOOK AT IT as I fly out the door.

Now we’ll see how long it takes me to learn to space that, too…

Never, I hope: To avoid that, I’m only entering the most important things that are crucial to remember and unusual events that are so far off-routine that they could be easy to forget. All of the rest of the stuff goes on the paper calendar in the office.

This could be the answer to a growing problem. At a certain point, you can write yourself reminders, but it’s no joke to say you may very well forget to read the reminders. With a calendar right in my face, unavoidably, maybe I’ll notice what I’m supposed to be doing before it’s too late.

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Pays to Shop Around…

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FP_roll_with_bowlYesterday I needed to buy some new dog food for the Ruby-Doo, she suffering from allergies and now needing foods whose contents can be verified. I’d discovered that the exceptionally fancy stuff peddled at Whole Foods and PetSmart could be had for much cheaper at the Fry’s Supermarket in Richistan, and had thought after the doctor’s appointment I’d traipse up to Paradise Valley and restock that stuff.

In fact, since the next surgery takes place in a week and we’re running low on dog food in general, what I really wanted to do was buy enough to carry the dogs through to surgery day and about a week beyond it, since I know very well I’m not going to feel like driving around and I’m not going to feel like cooking, grinding, and mixing real food for the dogs. But yesterday I had a lot of errands to run and work to do, and after spending close to two hours chatting with a high-powered oncologist, I really truly did NOT want to drive way to hell and gone to Paradise Valley. There’s a mid-range Fry’s and a PetSmart near the mid-town Whole Foods & Trader Joe’s I frequent, and so I figured I’d run into that Fry’s and see if it carried the coveted dog food. Failing that, I’d check the PetSmart, and failing that, I’d pick up the stuff at the Whole Foods along with the human food items I coveted.

So after bouncing to the three other places I had to go, along about 1:30 or 2:00 p.m. I surfaced in the Fry’s at 20th Street and Camelback.

No. They did not have the fancy rolls of fresh unadulterated dog food.

So I walked across the parking lot to the PetSmart.

They wanted $27.99 per five-pound roll. TWENTY-EIGHT DOLLARS for the same damn thing I’d paid $12.99 for the day before!

Out the door and across the street to the Whole Foods.

Yes, I remember correctly: Whole Foods charges $19.99 for the product. Bought one roll to tide us over, since we were about out.

So today it was out to Tatum and Shea, thereinat to run several more errands. While there, I went into the now-famous Whole Foods on Steroids, where yea verily! We find exactly the same product for $12.99.

Heh. Think of that. We’re looking at prices for the same product, same brand, same amount, that range from $13/package to $20/package to $28/package.

And Petsmart charges $8.00 more than Whole Foods (!!!!!!!) and TWICE AS MUCH as a local grocery store! A pretentious grocery store that gives itself airs and locates itself in Scottsdale, a place where men are millionaires and women think they own the roads.

Petsmart. What a freaking rip-off agency. I will never buy anything there again.

My son buys a fancy kibble for Charley the Golden Retriever. He’s taken to buying it at a tack & feed store, because he gets it for a better price there. But one day when he and I were driving back from the Mayo, we spotted a tony-looking upscale pet boutique in the depths of darkest Richistan. For some reason we decided to stop in — as I recall, there was some exotic item he hoped to find there.

What he found was his fancy kibble: for significantly less than even the tack and feed shop was charging.

So. Look around. And don’t be afraid to look in unlikely spots — the best price may not be had at the most obvious retailers.

Speaking of places that cost your whole paycheck, yesterday at Costco I got gasoline for $2.79 a gallon!!!

A fill-up cost $25 and change.

Haven’t filled up the gas tank for under forty bucks in years.

🙂

Another Day, Another Doctor…

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So this morning came the appointment with the oncologist favored by my gynecologist.

You may recall that not one but two docs — my GP and my gynecologist — so worried about my insecurities over the ongoing (painful, disruptive, miserable!!!) treatment of NOT-a-breast-cancer that they felt impelled to refer me to the medical oncologists of their choice.

Young Dr. Kildare’s choice, visited last week, was perhaps not the God’s Greatest Gift to Diseased Womankind.

Today I visited Sainted Gynecologist’s guy, and he proved to be a great deal better.

First, he could figure out the difference between DCIS and invasive cancer. That was a good sign.

Second, this guy was fully, completely, UTTERLY up to date on the current research. Having made myself almost up-to-date on said current research, I was impressed. Oh, no. I was more than impressed. I was delighted and astonished. The man actually knew what he was talking about. A God’s miracle.

Third, despite being a high-powered medical doctor, the guy possessed an underlay of common sense. This is not a man given to flying off the handle in the various hysterical ways that some doctors  are wont (I’m sure you know who they are because you have visited some of them).

Fourth: being of an age comparable to mine, he knew my (now retired) internist at the Mayo, he knew the redoubtable Dr. Packaj and was similarly awed and worshipful of her, he knew the venerable gynecologist whose practice Present Gynecologist purchased (the guy was famed as the finest OB-GYN in the city, back the the day, and all the local doctors and — equally significantly — lawyers sent their wives and daughters to him), he knew Present Gynecologist well, and he did not know Young Dr. Kildare (YDK’s defining characteristic being “young,” after all) but nevertheless did not even flinch when I expressed a certain distrust of John C. Lincoln with the words “this is Arizona, after all.” All of these are signs of a medical doctor with a brain who is savvy in the ways of a large small town that has been fed too much Monsanto-style fertilizer.

(It’s another story…ask me some day and I will tell you, my children.)

Fifth, he did not treat me like a nine-year-old.

Sixth, he answered all my questions in ways that made sense. To do so, he spent well over 70 minutes with me.

Medicare may not pay for this antic, but if I have to pay for it out of pocket, I will do so cheerfully. The guy was ever so much worth it.

To make a long story short, this is what I now think:

On the repeated excision attempts vs. the proposal to cut to the chase and just get the damn mastectomy over with:

It’s worth letting Dr. P take another shot at getting the abnormal cells out of there. Although her chances aren’t good, they’re not hopeless, either. If she succeeds, bully for her — she’ll be proven right. And bully for me — I’ll still have part of a boob left. If she fails, the world will not end: a mastectomy will guarantee no return of the Evil Entity and will mean I won’t have to have radiation therapy.

On the side effects of radiation therapy:

Knock off worrying about that. It’s not great, but it’s not especially horrible either.

On tamoxifen:

Nix. Don’t take that.

On reconstruction:

Stand in front of the mirror and practice repeating this: NNNNN OOOOOO, NNNNN OOOOOO, NNNNN OOOOOO, NNNNN OOOOOO, NNNNN OOOOOO, NNNNN OOOOOO…..

Put the two sounds together and practice that a few times: NO…NO…NO…NO…

Utter this sound to Dr. P.

Refuse to sign any papers permitting anyone to do any reconstructive surgery.

Voilà. Problem solved.

On the advisability of declining reconstructive surgery:

His patients who have had implants removed or who have refused reconstruction report that they’re happy with their decision. But if I feel I am not a complete human being without a blob of flesh or fake flesh hanging from my chest, one can have this procedure done at any time in the future.

On recovery time from simple mastectomy:

Probably three or four weeks. Maybe a little longer to get over the fatigue. No point in working yourself into a state of hysteria over that.

On finding someone in town who makes custom prostheses:

Doesn’t know of anyone and believes no such company exists in Phoenix. Find a maker in some place where you’d like to take a medical vacation.

Okay, okay, he didn’t say that last thing. But that was the implication. No one in Arizona that we know of is making light-weight, comfortable custom prostheses. To get measured for one, patients have to travel to other states.

So it goes…

Dog Food: Make It or Buy It?

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As old-timey FaM readers know, one of my strangest eccentricities is that I cook and feed real, actual FOOD to my dogs, rather than giving them the fake stuff that comes in bags and cans. This came about during the late, great melamine scare, during which we learned that virtually all dog foods, from Walmart’s cheapest to Petsmart’s fanciest, are manufactured in the same few factories in China. And, as we learned from that and a number of other flaps (remember the poison toothpaste?), quality control is not China’s strong suit.

Cooking up a week’s worth of dog food for one dog, even a relatively small one like a corgi, is a job. Fixing it for two is a real chore. Cassie eats a a little over a half-pound of food a day, but because Ruby is still a growing pup, she needs a pound and three-quarters to two pounds a day. That is a lot of artisanally home-cooked dog food!

When the present medical adventure started, I prepared and froze a ton of food for them. But I didn’t plan on two, three, now four and maybe even FIVE surgeries. Even though I made more food between procedures 2 and 3, we ran low.

So I supplemented with a product made by a company called FreshPet. The stuff comes in rolls — my son says it looks like mortadella, a delicacy that tosses his belly — and it contains exactly the same ingredients I put in my concoctions: meat, veggies, some kind of starch, and a vitamin pill. You slice off a chunk in the desired amount, mash it up, fork over the plateful to the dog, and stick the rest back in the fridge.

Okay. Very nice, but you find the stuff at places like Whole Foods and PetSmart (the Whole Paycheck of the pet industry….). Meanwhile, I was pretty fuzzy about how much it costs to make up a week’s worth of dog food in my kitchen — calculating the cost of all those ingredients and then factoring out the number of days they would supply is beyond my English-major math skills.

So, there I am thinking this expensive dog food can’t POSSIBLY cost any less than what I make, probably costs more, and besides, I really do know what goes into my dog food, whereas when I buy a prepared product I have to believe what’s on the label. Decision made: keep on cookin’.

Then, Ruby developed ear infections and runny eyes. The vet, whose experience in this issue proved correct with the now-deceased greyhound, speculated that she had a food allergy. When he learned what she’s eating, he pointed out that beef is one of the commonest allergens among dogs. He recommended taking her off beef — and while we’re at it, let’s cut out the grains, too.

🙄

Well, this presented two problems:

a) Hamburger is the only pre-ground meat that is even vaguely cost-effective. All other meats available in grocery stores — the meats you can afford, that is — have to be ground up in one’s food processor, a messy and time-sucking project.

b) Therefore, I had stocked the freezer with a lifetime supply of hamburger-based dog food. I was not about to throw it away, and with another surgery coming up, neither was I in a position to cook up MORE pounds and pounds of food.

So I paid another visit to Whole Foods, where I found large dog-food rolls. Got a grain-free turkey concoction. Pup was beside herself with joy. And, when I had to board her with my son after the last surgical excursion rendered me too infirm to care for her, it was mighty useful to be able to hand a roll of prepared food over to him.

After about a week or ten days free of beef products, Ruby’s ears and eyes cleared right up. No steroids required, no nothin: just hold the beef.

Then I found some rawhide chews shaped like donuts, a design that makes it hard for her to reduce the thing to a size and shape she can choke on and easy for me to get it away from her before she can harm herself with it. Three or four days of chomping on beef hide: ear inflammation came back.

Obviously, this is a dog that can’t tolerate beef.

Ducky. As it were.

That locked us into the most work-intensive versions of my home-made dog food recipes: highly undesired, under the circumstances. So, it was permanently on the dog food rolls for Ruby. Cassie could consume the rest of the frozen beef concoction.

Now that I’m feeling better, my hot little mind returns to a key cheapskate’s question:

Which of these fancy concoctions — hand-make artisanal dog food from my kitchen or effete natural organic made-in-America(!!) turkey doggy salami from Whole Foods — actually costs more?

Recently, I bought five pounds of boneless chicken at Costco. Combined with a yam and a dose of mixed veggies, it produced seven pounds of home-cooked dog food. That is a shade under one week’s worth for Cassie —  about four days’ worth for Ruby. At about the same time, I’d bought five pounds of turkey roll at Whole Foods; from that I managed to extrapolate how much it would cost to feed Cassie that stuff for a week. Result:

Home-made dog food: about $22.
Fancy turkey roll dog food: about $21

Huh. We call that diference negligible.

And once Ruby is past the high-calorie puppy diet stage — which will only be another three and a half months — her rations can drop to about half of what she’s eating now.  Thus in the near future dog food costs will drop significantly, no matter which fancy cuisine they’re dining on.

Well, as it develops, Fry’s Supermarkets also allegedly carries the elegant FreshPet doggy salami. I don’t go into the Fry’s in my part of town because both of them are in dangerous neighborhoods full of panhandlers and muggers (last time I went to the Fry’s in Sunnyslop, a panhandler parked his wheelchair behind my car so I couldn’t pull out and sat there screaming at me after I told him, truthfully, that I don’t carry cash). It’s reasonable to believe that the customers of these low-rent establishments do not buy their dog food in the shape of staggeringly expensive mortadella rolls.

But the other day when I was at the Fancy-Dan Fry’s in Paradise Valley, I did find it there (why are we not surprised?). They charged $12.99 for a  hefty five-pound chicken roll.

A look at the latest Whole Foods receipt revealed a bill for $20 for a five-pound turkey roll. Other than the different birds — chicken, turkey — the ingredients were identical.

At $12.99/five pounds, I could feed Cassie (and eventually Ruby) for a week for $16.76.

That is a far cry from $22 and change!

So, I’ll be shopping at Fry’s for gourmet dawg food after this. And when Cassie runs out of the home-made stuff, she also be moving out of Alice’s Restaurant and over to the joint that serves up prepared chow.

How is Ruby doing on this food? Well. Exceptionally well.

She was beginning to look a little scrawny, so I upped her rations and added a boiled egg at mid-day. After a week of this, she’s filled out handsomely and is beginning to look like a mature dog. Here she is, on the right, almost as tall as Cassie.

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My iPhoto has decided its red-eye function no longer works…sorry about that.

Cassie weighs about 23 pounds. Last time  I put Ruby on a scale, about two weeks ago, she weighed 16 pounds. This morning she’s up to 21.3 pounds. She still  looks slender and healthy, but clearly I’ll have to keep an eye on the rations to be sure she doesn’t get fat. Corgis regard food as something that must be vacuumed up (they try to inhale the leftover molecules from each others’ dishes!). As you can imagine, they tend to overweight, a risky condition for long short-legged dogs with vulnerable spines.

For the nonce, though, she looks good. She’s actually becoming pretty: where before she looked like a scruffy waif, now she’s taking on the kind of magical doggy beauty that Corgis can affect. Her coat looks good, her eyes are no longer runny, her ears are no longer red and itchy, and she’s looking more and more like Cassie, who is truly a handsome little dog.

It seems to be working.