Happy Birthday Paul!

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Joy of Salt

As I got ready to brave todays awesome Chicago *spring* weather (45degrees, rain, and... misery), my friendly neighborhood nbc newsman shared this little ditty with me.

View more videos at: http://www.nbcchicago.com.

LOVE salt rooms. You should too. Unless, as they mention, you live near the ocean.  Then you can probably get your fill of healthy clean healing air simply by walking your dog to the beach for an hour each morning.


But if you are in Chicago, and missing that heavenly air, sitting in a salt room will blow your mind.


I cant wait to be an eccentric bazzillionairess (vs. my current condition of eccentric poor spinster) so I can build a salt room in my home. Next to the gift wrap room. And the mikveh. And the giant movie room.  And the disco. And the Disney princess castle playspace complete with ballet studio and ballgowns. and the...


ok Ill settle for 1 bedroom and maybe (Im pushing it, I know!) a....*gasp* yard. Back in my little piece of heaven, 8blocks from the Pacific Ocean, in Santa Monica... 


In the meantime, if you are in Chicago, or nearby... do yourself a huge favor and plan a couple hours visiting Isabella at Solay Wellness 


Youll thank me.  But thank Isabella first. Because shes a really fantastic person.  (Then tell her I sent you!)

Kosher Wine; Maple Syrup; Texas Barbecue in L.A.; Momofuku

Kosher Wine; Maple Syrup; Texas Barbecue in L.A.; Momofuku

Yes, Elisheba, There IS A Farmers’ Market (In Chicago)…

Yes, Elisheba, There IS A Farmers’ Market (In Chicago)…

Grace

'Grace': PETA's Thanksgiving ad

Just throw it in the garbage

When I returned to Chicago from California, I also returned to volunteering at PAWS. There was a young labrador who'd just had puppies and needed some "me time" away from her demanding brood. I took her for a long quiet walk and fell in love.

She's recently been adopted by the police department. However, while the department decides who her human partner will be, she continues to live at PAWS.

Since she's no longer available for adoption - and still very much in need of extra exercise because she's a young labrador - a foster home is needed for her. In the meantime, several volunteers are stepping up to take her out for long runs, playtime on the rooftop dog park, and then there's me-- taking her out on marathon walks about town while I do errands by foot.

Today we discovered OZ park together! I can't run her, but I enjoyed the thought of repeated climbs up/down this large hill in the park. So we marched up, then down, then up, then down, then up, then...

oops! an outdoor stage with marble seating built into the hill. and what's this? 2 wooden sticks. One maybe a mop handle. Another a broken-off leg from a table. Tucked together in a crevice between the earth/grass and the seats. An empty Grey Goose bottle next to them.

I have a brief chat with my heroine future-police-dog walking buddy, Wonder Woman. Debating if I'm overreacting by feeling alarm at this discovery.

There have been nightly beatings in this area. Some in this park! The sight of broken off wood sticks tucked together with alcohol in a park making headlines daily makes my Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew mystery/logic/puzzle book-trained brain work overtime.

Wonder Woman agrees we should call the non-emergency police, so I do.

"umm hello I'm out for a long walk with a dog, just returned to Chicago after a long time out of town, not sure where I am... little bit east of Halsted and Armitage in a large park on a hill behind a....school? By an outdoor stage... haha - I promise I've got a point here...."

"uh huh"

"ummm so I noticed 2 sticks. Well one is long, wooden...not sure what it is... The other looks like it was a leg to a table, but now broken off. They're laying together tucked by the seating area of this stage. Next to an empty vodka bottle. And I wondered...mmm...wondered if this was something that might interest the police..."

"mmm hmmm. Well I tell you what. If we saw something like that in a park you know what we would do? we would pick them up and THROW THEM IN THE GARBAGE"

"eh (chuckle)- ummm- well normally I would just throw them in the garbage but, well you know, with the daily reports of beatings in this area in the middle of the night...well...I just thought... you know I thought they could be weapons"

"(chuckle) well of COURSE they're weapons. Which is why you need to toss them in the garbage"

"ummm but don't you want to...ummm the beatings here...ummm I just thought...well (nervous chuckle) ok, I'll just throw them in the garbage. Sorry I took up your time sir. Thank you!"

I had fantasized a grateful voice on the other end eagerly grilling me for info on my exact location. Wonder Woman and I waiting for the squad car to arrive. Pointing out our discovery and happily sharing the news that "my" dog was actually their dog getting some exercise from a loving volunteer happy to help her city police. The officers grateful for my call, my quick thinking, and for giving so much love to a random dog who will soon be working for them full-time.

"Wonder Woman! You've cracked your first case before your first day on the job! You haven't even finishing your training yet!"

The reality was a chuckling, condescending officer explaining how I should react to litter. My canine friend helping me find a newspaper to grab our discovery without leaving MY fingerprints. Us searching for a garbage receptacle large enough to fully accept the long sticks and hide them from potential ne're do wells.

After finishing our job we walked back towards the shelter. Me stopping for a lemon Italian ice. Her stopping for some water and biscuits.

And when I got home the top story on the local news was another attack in the neighborhood. And how the police have no leads on who the culprits are. And how Guardian Angels came out from NYC to hand out information in Lincoln Park on how to keep safe and spot suspicious clues.

A man gives an interview describing the attack he survived early this (Tuesday) morning. He mentions the villains hit him with tools that looked "sort of like long wooden bully sticks".

2 blocks from Wonder Woman's discovery.

Chicago Native Helps Homeless Dogs, Victims Of The Recession

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The Huffington Post   |  Stephanie Harnett 
First Posted: 07-20-09 12:23 PM   |   Updated: 07-20-09 01:20 PM

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Read More: All For Good, Animal Shelter, Boxer, California, Chicago, Community Service, Dog, Dog Walking, Dogs, Foreclosure, Good For All, Kennel,Service, Sharpay, Unemployment, Volunteer, Volunteering, Walking Dogs, Living News

Kara Severson knows that victims of foreclosure come in all breeds. Breeds of dog, that is. Severson volunteers at a no-kill animal shelter in Chicago where she walks all types of canines who, like their owners, have suddenly found themselves without a home.

Severson's own Shar Pei, Kennedy, has stayed by her side through unemployment and a cross-country journey to move back in with her mother. But the dogs she walks haven't been so lucky.

The shelter keeps a wing for dogs that wear the tag, "I'm here temporarily while my family gets their life on track." Severson told us she began volunteering there when she was in the depths of her own financial struggle.

"To combat my self-pity, I signed up to walk dogs...at PAWS, a no-kill shelter in Chicago. I have seen more and more dogs dropped off by teary-eyed owners who can no longer afford their care. The shelter offers temporary housing to help families keep their pets while suffering economic hardship. As I walk these temporarily homeless dogs, my eyes fill with tears for the dog who's suddenly living in a cage and doesn't know what he did to be ejected from the pack, for the mom who's dropping off her child's 6-month-old puppy because they just lost their home."

Severson lost her own home in California, and she remembers thinking, "Oh my god, I'm flat broke." She did everything she could just to feed her dog.

"I'd walk around the stores because I knew they'd give my dog a treat," she admits of perusing the pooch-friendly clothing boutiques in Santa Monica. The nearby pet store was particularly helpful.

"They would hand me a giant bag [of dog food] tied up and they would say, 'Don't react, don't say thank you, just take it. Just take it,'" she said. "That's really how we got by, just by the goodness of other peoples' hearts."

But late last year, even that was no longer enough and Severson was forced to move with her dog and two kittens back to her mother's home in Chicago, where she slept on the couch, often with Kennedy beside her.

That's when she found PAWS and began volunteering to walk dogs. The story of one dog, especially, touched her heart.

"There was this woman that was in the parking lot, she was holding a Boxer puppy and kind of looking at me with a frown on her face, and usually people are smiling at me because they recognize what I'm doing," she said. Later she saw the woman again, without the dog this time, and inside she saw the dog in a kennel:

I took that Boxer for a really long walk one day, and I was crying. She was six months old then and I was thinking she was probably a Christmas present," she said. "I think of all the happiness and joy that comes with having a puppy and I just cry. And for myself I have tears of gratitude for the loving mother who took me and my dog when I could no longer pay rent... 

I was in this position, so I feel like maybe I have a bigger obligation.

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As a counterpoint to the (justifiably) gloomy tone of much reporting about the economic crisis, HuffPost is highlighting stories of service, local heroes, and acts of kindness (random and otherwise). If you read or hear about uplifting stories or good deeds in your community (or do a good deed yourself), please let us know by emailing allforgood@huffingtonpost.com.