The Super Bowl for Dog Lovers!

Okay, first let’s establish how much I DON’T know about football.  Just now, when I started typing the title up there, I couldn’t remember the term super bowl, and I had to google “biggest football game” to get the name.  Also, the day after the super bowl, after I saw Helen’s blog with her NY Giants posters, I said to my BFF, I thought the Giants were from San Francisco, I guess they got traded to New York?  And she said, “The SF Giants play baseball.”  Oh.

Anyway, on to something I DO know about!  Westminster Kennel Club is definitely the Super Bowl of dog shows!  All of the top winning dogs from all over the country are there, competing to see who is the very best dog in the country.  That’s the theory anyway.  By the nature of what it is, the judging of dog shows is somewhat subjective.  And I hate to disillusion you all, but there are also a wee bit of politics involved from time to time.

If any of you don’t know or don’t remember every detail of my life, I showed dogs for over 15 years, so I know of which I speak.  But I won’t bore you with too much doggie talk.  After all, we here in this corner of the blog world know what the Super Bowl is REALLY all about.  Yes, that’s right!  Its ALL about the food.  And as I planned the food for this annual get together with my neighbors, I realized that this was MY super bowl.  And its for TWO nights, not just one!

So, yes, with my plan, we had pizza and chips the first night.  We could have had them the second night, but I decided to try to rectify the situation just a little bit.  I was going to make this new recipe anyway, and if it turned out, I would bring it for dinner tonight.  It did, and I did.  Yumm!  I had downloaded that W.W. e-book–recipes on soups, stews, and chili, when it was free. I think Lori told us about that.  Anyway, I’d been eyeing a few of the crockpot recipes in there.  The one I chose was the Crockpot French Chicken Stew.  Full of a variety of fresh veggies and chicken, it was very flavorful, and a heck of a lot fewer calories than pizza for a second night.  Since it was Valentine’s Day, I wanted to make a special dessert.  I looked through all of my  bookmarked recipes, and then I started browsing Chocolate Covered Katie’s site, and i settled on her Hot Chocolate Cookies.  Holy yumm, these were really delicious.  Disclaimer here–Katie’s recipes are RELATIVELY healthy, but many of them are NOT without calories.  I followed the recipe for these cookies but the batter turned out thinner than described so I put it into little crocks to bake, which turned out perfect.  But like I said, quite a few calories.  Good for a one time special occasion though.

Back to the dog show.  At this show, the caliber of dogs being shown is so high, that almost any of the dogs in the final line up are worthy of winning best in show.  I am actually a closet Pekingese lover (my doggie friend says I am just attracted to all the mutant dogs–short legs of dachshunds, pushed in faces of pekes and pugs, the extreme stance of the german shepherd, the crazy haircuts of the Standard poodles, etc.)  In the best in show line-up, I liked almost all of the dogs.  My favorite was probably the Doberman Pinscher.  She was just so perfect on that night.

Man, I had a crazy day today!  I am working on the newsletter for The Bridge (Haiti project,) and I am a little intimidated by the process, but I am making progress slowly.  Once I get the first one done, I know it’ll be easier from then on.  Then, I had to make a decision about changing my health care plan.  This was really making me anxious.  But I made a call to just the right person (he is the ‘health care facilitator’ for my former employer) and evidently health care is his life!  He was so pleasant, and acted like he had all the time in the world to help me make a decision and understand what was going on.  It took all the anxiety out of the situation.  And let me just say that I KNOW how lucky I am to have good health care at a very low cost through my former employers.  VERY lucky.  But I was changing from a HMO to health insurance, and it seemed like it was going to be a lot more expensive.  Well, it is going to be more expensive if something bad happens.  But not as expensive as I thought.

Then I headed into the kitchen to do a massive cooking operation.  Made that crockpot recipe, which only had 15 different veggies, all chopped into pieces, and needed boneless  skinless chicken thighs.  And guess who bought thighs with the skin and the bone still on to save money?  NEVER AGAIN.  Plus I had a package of chicken breasts that I either needed to cook or freeze.  I decided to cook them because I really like having the pre-cooked meat for the days I am NOT in the mood to cook.  I also had some salmon, and so I  cooked that too.  Had a piece of it with a beet salad for lunch, and then headed to the gym. I KNOW.  I was a maniac today!  Got home in time to make that dessert recipe, sit and relax with my afternoon cup of coffee for a few minutes, and then took the dogs for a quick walk before heading to my neighbors for the dog show!  Whew.  I think I’ll sleep good tonight.

And tomorrow I will get up and go back to eating all my healthy choices, fitting in a few of the lower calorie ones to make up for the excesses of the past two days.

Did any of you watch the dog show?  Do you have any dog showing related questions that i can answer for you?