I’m writing all this because Cookie had a fall down a flight of stairs a couple of weeks ago and, much to my surprise, she broke a leg. We couldn’t figure it. It was onlya tumble but Sausage has had falls from higher heights (like the time she decided to jump out of J’s arms and timed it all wrong) and not injured herself. What went wrong with Cookie?

We rushed her to a vet who specialises in treating such injuries. “This injury is very rare,” he said. I wondered why that was because there seemed to be a huge body of papers and information on tibia fractures in dogs. (Of course I did an internet search the minute I heard the diagnosis.) The vet didn’t say much during the initial consultation, but he opened up during the second visit (the actual surgery) when we told him we’d only had Cookie two days before the injury had occurred.

We mused out loud that we thought Cookie’s muscle condition was poor for a bull terrier of five months of age. (It wasn’t for nothing that J referred to her as his “cow on chopsticks” when he first set eyes on her.) The vet agreed with our remarks and further suggested that she had not been fed very well.

“Having a bully with this kind of injury is highly unusual,” he said, “because, of all the breeds, bull terriers are the most muscular. If you and a bull terrier collide, you’ll feel it, not him! And usually, there’s enough muscle mass to cushion the dog against fractures like this. But not in this case.” He frowned down at a Cookie just coming out of anaesthetic.
“How old is she again?” he asked.
“Five months.”
“Ah. It would have been very difficult for her.”
I didn’t follow him. “Difficult?”
I couldn’t understand this. We had pedigree papers for her. She had champions in her bloodline. What could possibly be difficult?
“Well, for a start, she has white socks. Do you know what white means to a Chinese? Mourning. Chinese don’t like buying dogs with white socks.” (Fyi, the vet was Chinese.)
“They’ll have problems buying any bull terrier in that case,” J remarked dryly, “as all bullies have white socks.”
“And she’s old.”
“She’s five months old,” I repeated.
“And getting to the end of being a saleable puppy,” he added. “Do you know what breeders do with the puppies they can’t sell? They stop feeding them.”
“They starve them to death?!”
The doctor nodded. “This dog was very lucky to find an owner so late in life.”
“They just starve the puppy?” I repeated. My mind just didn’t want to take in that picture.
He nodded. “Of course.” He shrugged. “That’s what they do.”

That reminds me of Hieronymous, a beautifully natured Birman kitten that I was thinking of buying last year. (You could tell I wanted to buy him because I’d already named him in the pet shop!) Hieronymous was also getting a bit long in the tooth, and a polydactyl at that. I think that’s why nobody bought him. His extra toes. The things people are superstitious about here will astound you. The problem was that I wanted a discount on him because he was not up to date with his vaccinations, not microchipped and also not desexed. The deal fell through because the owner refused to drop the price. Absolutely refused … except by $10. By this time, it became a matter of principle. A $10 discount???? I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be insulted. So I walked away.

I always wondered what happened to Hieronymous after that failed transaction. Unfortunately now I think I know. As J says, the breeders/owners here are so greedy that they’d rather kill the animals in a terrible fashion rather than discount the price or even give away the pet once they become “unsaleable”. There’s also no sense of responsibility. If the breeders incorporated desexing as a condition of sale, it would stop a lot of the stray problems that plague this country. But that, of course, costs money and spending money, it appears, is not the responsibility of such breeders. They only seem to like receiving it.

So, even though we paid money for Cookie, J and I realised that what we had on our hands was a badly-fed, almost completely caged “rescue”. A puppy that had never had an opportunity to roam, that was resigned to being crated twenty-three hours a day, and was terribly under-socialised. She didn’t even know how to chew when we first got her. It still makes me angry thinking about it.

Stay tuned on Monday for conclusions.

Because keeping a dog in your house or allowing them to touch you is haram (essentially, forbidden) in Islam, Malays don’t have dogs as pets. The potential for slipping into sin is too great. But they do keep cats. Malays love cats. Malays love cats so much they refuse to desex them. They want the whole world to be full of cats. They let their precious Persians wander around freely, getting knocked up by every available tom in the neighbourhood, but that’s understandable because it’s God’s will, right? Who are we to interfere with Nature?

The female cat will bear perhaps four litters a year, bringing all those adorable kittens into the world. The owner might try to give as many away to friends as possible, but how can she do that with all of them? Ah, it’s God’s will. Of course, the mother cat will suffer from exhaustion from the constant breeding. And uncontrolled breeding can lead to a host of serious diseases, including feline AIDS and several cancers but, if that happens, it’s just God’s will, isn’t it? But how the Malays love cats, have I told you that?

Isn’t it strange how God’s will is so often the cheapest way out of a problem? And even if a cat dies, well with all those by-blows getting traded around like sampler containers of moisturiser, another adorable one will come by soon. It’s all up to God’s will and practising any kind of responsible pet ownership is both an affront to God and to Nature…not to mention costing some money, know what I mean? Bugger that.

But, in the meantime, everyone should know that I’m bowing to God’s will by allowing my un-neutered cats to wander freely, spreading their seed as God intended. I’m so spiritual and religious I could almost canonise myself.

Wondering what prompted me to write this little series on pets? Tune in Friday.

ASIDE: You’re probably wondering why keeping dogs inside the house is haram? It’s because it stops the recording angels from entering. If a recording angel (as opposed to an angel of mercy or an angel of death) enters the house, the dog will alert the members of the family and it seems that rec. angels are a bit like the CIA in that regard … they don’t like other people knowing what they’re doing. So, if a rec. angel sees that a house contains a dog, he will tend not to enter and thereby announce their presence. Why is this such a big deal? Well, it appears that recording angels are the clerks of God and take down all the deeds of the family members for later judgement. As with Roman Catholicism from what I can remember, Muslim angels are all male too. Not a female amongst them. Natch.

It’s been a flurry of visits to the vet recently so I’ve had a chance to sit back and observe how pet owners behave towards their animals. Now remember that the very fact that a human is at the vet’s with her animal means that that human is more animal-aware than the average Asian. You’d think that’s a good thing…until you actually start watching.

First off are the owners who bring their dogs in without a leash or collar. Oh no, getting into arguments in the waiting room with another dog, risking the anxious animal running off, securing them so they don’t disturb the other pet owners …. none of this is their problem. It’s up to everybody else to break up the fight, catch the dog or move to another seat, where you could be out of luck if the waiting room’s full. The owner will just sit there and watch you, or call someone on the phone and chat while all this is going on. It’s the servants who show the most care, probably because they’re afraid they’ll get beaten to within an inch of their lives if anything happens to the Shih Tzu while on its annual vaccination visit.

Then there are the owners who behave inappropriately. A small toy poodle is in the waiting room. A German Shepherd comes in, pulling his owner behind him. The poodle is obviously dismayed and starts yelping. What’s the proper reaction? (Of course the poodle isn’t on a leash, take that as a given.) Yes, of course. Hit the poodle. Did you guess that one right? I’ve seen it done with such smoothness, it’s almost art. One fluid move, reaching down to slip off a shoe and then whacking the anxious dog across the nose with it. The last time I saw such grace was watching some old man fiddle with his katana.

What about the breeders who come in with their puppies for vaccinations? Oh I saw a beauty last week. A wiry Chinese man came in with a dirty, torn plastic laundry hamper, the top secured by a large piece of cardboard and two bungee cords. At first, I thought that he’d found an animal on the road and this was the only container he had spare. Oh, how naive am I??? This man was a breeder, bringing in two Staffordshire pups for their shots. Each animal has to be weighed upon check-in, and this man delved down and brought up a puppy the way you’d bring a crab-pot out of the water. One hand in to grab the scruff of the neck and pull up. No holding of the puppy’s rump. Oh no, that’s for wimps! Just dig out the puppy and dump it on the scale. Get the weight and dump the puppy back into the basket again. Doesn’t matter if it hits the side. Doesn’t matter if it catches a hind leg as it goes in and yelps. Just flick that offending limb out of the way and get the other puppy. This man’s obviously important and has better things to do than actually — ha! ha! — coddle an animal. After all, aren’t they costing him money?

While on a walk around a very established and salubrious suburb of JB a couple of days later (very little litter on the side of the road), I chanced across several houses with guard dogs. That’s the security deterrent of choice around here. Do you know how hot it gets in Johor? On an average day it’s 33 degrees Celsius (90+ Fahrenheit) and eighty percent humidity. If you have a dog you want to guard your house, let’s say a full-sized poodle, where would you put it? That’s right. You’d stick it on a short metal chain outside your house in full sunlight with only a square of concrete to rest on. Sitting right next to the road all day is exactly how you’d treat a shaggy-coated, highly intelligent, prone to neurosis, animal. What does such a beast need quality of life? Isn’t it enough they have their lives?

Malays are thinking they’re getting off scot-free because they don’t have anything to do with dogs. I’ll deal with them next time.

My friend Lisabet Sarai just did me the dubious honour of conferring the “Versatile Blogger” award to me. I guess what that means is that I’ll rant and rave about anything! I’m supposed to pass this along to fifteen other bloggers (fifteen??!! Yikes!). That ain’t gonna happen. Tell you seven things about myself that you didn’t know. Hmmm, not sure about that one either. And drop by my victims’ blogs to let them know they’ve been awarded. Okay, that I’m cool with.

Okay, so things you didn’t know.

1. With the exception of the four-legged members of the family, each of us (J, The Wast, Little Dinosaur and myself) has been born on a different continent.

2. J and I chose our wedding date specifically because it was United Nations Day, and we thought that that concept of universality encapsulated what our life together would be like. (From time to time, it’s also resembled a Security Council veto and a couple of resolutions of impending war, but you got to take the good with the bad, know what I mean?)

3. Because there was so much going on, in my late twenties and early thirties, I used to go one night a week without sleep.

4. I hate reality TV shows.

5. I’ve won trophies and medals for martial arts in every tournament I ever entered.

6. I used to play piano and flute.

7. I have a little fig bonsai I’m training in my office. (Sit, Ficus! Good girl!)

Okay, now who I pass this along to? How about friends old and new? Maria Zannini, Liane Spicer, Jenny “Jammy” Schwartz, Trisha Wooldridge, Ann Somerville (just to piss her off! nyuk nyuk), Ted Cross and David Boultbee.

Next week, I have a week-long series on pets and how they’re treated in Malaysia, so if you want to see me at my opinionated worst, be sure you tune in. In the meantime, thanks Lisabet (dryly) and have a good weekend everyone.

The kids and I were enjoying nasi ayam (chicken rice) at the local Medan Selera (food court) recently and I chanced upon some local TV channels while we were eating. And this … this thing appeared. There were sanitary napkins in the shape of flowers receiving blue drops of rain from the sky to a happy tune. While women smiled at me from the TV screen, I was told to “Have a Happy Period”.

WHAT???!!

First, the facts. It appears:

the campaign “Have a Happy Period” was created in 2005 by Ms Denise Fedowa who was a VP at Leo Burnett Chicago … According to a report in Adweek, research shows that consumers are telling the marketers to be transparent and frank in their communications.

Now look, you can be “transparent and frank” in your communications, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t be incredibly and utterly stupid as well.

Have a Happy Period??!!

Are they serious? While there are hormones coursing through my body telling me that decapitating yonder Perodua driver would be no great loss to the species? While there is something not usually meant to be there between my legs, rubbing against the tender flesh of my inner thighs while I walk? While — and I hate to be explicit here, but think of this and “happy” and tell me it works for you — I can feel fluids from my body being expelled on a schedule that’s sporadic and panic-inducing? While my Fallopian tubes mourn the loss of a potential life by sending aches through my bloated abdomen? While all this is going on, for DAYS at a stretch, you are telling me to Have a Happy Period, Whisper? Oh, and just for the record, it isn’t blue and it doesn’t have the consistency of spring water, m’kay?

Sure, why don’t we also have ads about a thick armoured invertebrate burrowing through a passage and pressing a button at the end and tell men to Have a Happy Prostate Exam?? Or little elves in wee little harvesters, running down fields of mangrove roots telling men to Have a Happy Shave??

This is beyond frankness into complete patronising bullshit. And what if we don’t have a Happy Period, Whisper? Then I suppose it’s All Our Fault, isn’t it? Why don’t men get patronised like this in commercials? This isn’t far above the ole Christmas gift suggestion of buying a new vacuum cleaner for The Little Woman. I had thought we’d moved beyond this, but evidently not. And, just to add insult to injury, we have a woman to thank for this priceless piece of inanity. Thanks Whisper, I’ll know what brand NOT to touch next time I’m at the supermarket.

COMPETITION UPDATE: Both winners finally got back to me! Congratulations Christy M and Ted C! Your packages will be out in the mail this week.

Hi Kaz, thanks for having me here today. I’m on a total buzz right now! My debut book releases on Monday [that's today for me and j-u-s-t today for Claire! --ksa] and I’m in total awe of what the Carina Press authors have achieved so far. I’ve done no writing this last month, every time I start another fabulous Carina Press book I promise myself it will be just this one and then I’ll get back to my own writing. And lol, no sooner have I finished reading and I’m off to the Carina Press e-store again. I blame all the launch authors!

Two Feuding Families

Amber Jardin has no taste for the bitter feud started before her father’s banishment. But now that he’s passed, she’s had to return to Scotland and his barbaric people. After her bloodthirsty uncle kidnaps one of the family’s rivals, Amber is in turn captured by Krayne Johnstone, the enemy laird. Despite their enmity, their attraction is immediate—and unfortunate, as Amber has sworn to escape.

One Lusty Temptation

Krayne is amazed at the wildcat’s repeated attempts to flee. He should steel himself against her beguiling ways—yet with time, he is driven more witless with lust. When the ransom exchange fails and Krayne is left with Amber, he finds he cannot tolerate the thought of her with another man—and she cannot tolerate the thought of returning to her uncle’s home.

Will passion and love win out over mistrust and betrayal in time to prevent an all-out war?

Betrayed ~ available from Carina Press, 5 July 2010

There’s just something about medieval warriors that gets me feeling all toasty from the toes on up. These guys are so serious about their honour and responsibilities and there’s no law on this planet that will stand in their way if they believe vengeance is called for. Scottish lairds are the best, they were such a wayward bunch of unscrupulous thugs ~ all in the name of honour!

I grew up in South Africa, so when my British husband suggested we move to the UK, I was totally up for it. At last, I’d get to explore the majestic castles of England, the tumbling down peel towers of Scotland and the grassy ruins of Ireland. We sat down to an authentic medieval banquet in a tiny peel castle in Ireland, lived a few miles from Warwick castle for the first 2 years and thoroughly toured Scotland from the lowlands all the way to the Isle of Skye. In no time at all my head was crammed with romantic tales and Betrayed was bursting to be told. My exploration is nowhere near done and never will be.

Krayne Johnstone became laird of Wamphray at the age of 12. He’s a man shaped by the harsh land. His heart is for pumping blood to his sword arm and nothing else. Before he could even start to fall in love with Amber, I had to teach the poor man what love is. But he is honourable and noble, and he has excellent reasons for distrusting scheming women.

Amber Jardin has led a pampered life in England and is totally unprepared for the barbaric realities of Scotland. But she’s not one to simper and bemoan her fate. She’s determined to shape her future and use whatever means on hand to do it. In this case, it’s her body. Amber is not perfect, far from it, but then I’ve never liked my heroines flawless. I don’t necessarily approve of everything she does, but I admire her courage and determination.

You can read an excerpt at http://www.clairerobyns.com/Betrayed.html

Well, it’s been fun and once again, thanks to Kaz for having me here.

You can connect with Claire Robyns on

Website: http://www.clairerobyns.com/

Blog: http://www.clairerobyns.blogspot.com/

Wow, were you getting sick of that Sticky post? I was and J definitely was because he had to scroll down to read anything new and he just hated that. (I’ve yet to convince him of the efficacy of using a blog reader.)

Next week I’ll be announcing the two winners of my May/June competition. Can you believe it’s July already? If you like science-fiction, hie on over to Redstone Science Fiction []. They’re a brand-new SF mag and I’m happy to support them. You’ll see an ad there for IN ENEMY HANDS all month long.

To my Australian readers, welcome to the new tax year! Time to think of last year’s tax return. Do you know where all your deductions are?

In the meantime, have a good weekend. I’m back to my grumpy and opinionated self next week. You have been warned.

Um, I missed blogging on Friday, didn’t I? To be honest, I’m surprised I only missed one day this month. My excuse is, I thought it was Thursday.

Anyway, on Saturday, we got a new addition to the family, so I suppose I’ve got to change all my Bio details. Yep, we got another brand-new miniature bull terrier. She’s a black brindle and her name is Cookie. But, just to remind you what our original bully looks like, here’s Sausage purloining the chair I sat on for J to take my author photo:

Isn’t she adorable? Cookie? Er, not so much. Cookie is the splicing together of a head of a whippet with the body of a bull terrier. She reminds me of the Mondoshawan aliens from the movie, The Fifth Element. Voici:

You hear about how bull terriers are fierce and vicious? Well any visitor to the house is more likely to meet the fate of being licked to death at this rate. Last night, Cookie fell asleep on J’s chest while we were watching “Rear Window“, part of a 3-for-SG$10 DVD deal J picked up in Singers last week. It was rather adorable. (Cookie falling asleep, not the video deal. That was attractive rather than adorable.)

We feed our pets raw food and the first thing I noticed upon feeding Cookie is that she didn’t know how to grab food with her teeth. She tried to lick all the food into her mouth first. By the next day, she’d got the hang of it and was munching on chicken gizzards with the rest of them. J has also noticed that she doesn’t know what to do with even a rawhide bone. It’s not that she’s that young. She’s five months old. No matter, we’ll get her acting like a real dog soon. Oh, you want to see a picture. How’s this:

The cats have gone on strike and refused to eat since we’ve introduced Cookie to the household. A typical attitude is that shown by Squeak:

I think that says it all, don’t you?

I’ve been carrying on a bit of an experiment on Facebook. For a couple of weeks, I very briefly described what I was making for the kids’ lunches. And I’d get a lot of comments on how nice that sounded and could people have the recipe, please!

So, while I was mulling this over, a friend by the name of Karen E suggested that I drop romance novels and start a food blog. Well, I’m not going to stop writing (sorry Karen!) but I wondered if I had the time to devote to a food blog. Something small. Updates once a week. With the kind of food I like cooking.

I thought about it over the weekend and decided I could do it! And so Cooking with Kaz launches! You’ll find a link to it in the right sidebar of this blog or you can go here. The first recipe up is Tandoori Chicken. Please do go and have a read and see if it’s the kind of thing you enjoy reading. I’ll be updating it every Wednesday or Thursday. And thanks for all your support.

It’s inevitable that, as an author, you often get informed of book trailers for a release from one of your writing buddies or peers. I’ve watched quite a few of them and they’re well done. The problem I’m facing though is, do book trailers work for SFR?

The elements of a book trailer involve (of course) the main protagonists. There is also a variety of mood shots to set the scene, not to mention the ever-important music. It takes time, skill and a good sense of pacing to put together a good book trailer, and the authors and people who do it have my complete respect. It’s just…. I dunno…. I mean….

How do you portray the science and worlds that we’re building? Should we? If we do, are the stock images of beakers and bubbling retorts enough to give the picture, or are we being lazy in resorting to stereotype? What if the alien species we’ve created only exists in our heads and there is no photo of a Lxulzianian Swilltwik (much less one in the pose we want!) in any of the photo stock libraries we’ve perused.

I can see how you can easily immerse your watcher in an historical world — the costumes, the music. But what about an interplanetary invasion? Just to take one example, the geeks among us know that we can’t hear explosions in space, so do we keep such a scene silent and remain true to the science or do we cave in to Hollywood hype and put in sound effects? And let’s not even mention costumes or ships. Is it enough to stick in an image from Hubble to differentiate your SFR from someone else’s rom suspense? Do SFR trailers even work?

What do you think? Use them? Don’t?

ADDITIONAL: My good friend, Maria Zannini, is having a competition at her blog. Know a good blog that needs a shout-out? If you do, go here for more details.