I frequent an online Rottweiler's Forum website. It's a community of Rottweiler owners, filled with posts categorized under different topics like Nutrition, Grooming, Behaviour and etc. There is also a category called the Rainbow Bridge. This is the explanation of what the Rainbow Bridge is.

*sniff

Just this side of Heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.

When an animal dies - one that has been especially close to someone - that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food and water, sunshine and cozy beds, and our friends are warm and comfortable.

All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing: they each miss someone very special, someone who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent; his eager body quivers. Suddenly, he breaks from the group, flying over the green grass - his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain on your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet - so long gone but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross the Rainbow Bridge together.

Author Unknown

I thankfully thought I had escaped having to do this meme. I mean, me? Doing a meme on beauty thingies?

Then Geek puppy-eyed me to do it. So ok lah. Since she puppy-eyed me.

What Five beauty products could you not live without?
Sunblock SPF 12 (any lower I'll get a heat rash, any higher will take longer tanning time)
Aloe Vera gel (helps keep the tan on longer)
Biotherm Aquafresh Moisturizer ("ah, finally a REAL beauty product", I hear Geek mutter as she rolls her eyes)
Are tweezers considered a beauty product?
Uh... what about dental floss?

What’s the worst beauty mistake you’ve made?
Not planning my tattoos properly. I want to get more tattoos on my back, but to avoid looking like a tattoo rojak, I now have to consider carefully the type of design that will complement the one I already have.

What’s your skincare regime consist of?
Morning: Wash face with cheap cleanser. Put moisturizer.
Night: Wash face with cheap cleanser. Put moisturizer.

Favourite Beauty treat?
Uh... does putting more moisturizer count?

What’s your favourite beauty store?
Guardian Pharmacy

Favourite Budget brand?
Dove - I'm currently using the facial wash (it came free with the body wash... heh)

Favourite Premium brands?
Biotherm, Clinique

And what about Skin Care: Favourite Premium and Budget brands?
Premium: Biotherm After Sun moisturizer
Budget: Nivea Intensive Moisturizing Milk

And Hair Care?
Sunsilk for Long and Strong Hair!

What’s your ’every girl must own one’ item?
A compact mirror. For veg stuck between front teeth, snot in nose... that kind of thing.

And finally, best beauty tip?
Aloe Vera gel helps your tan to last longer, with no peeling skin. Really!

Wow, that took longer than I thought.

And now the fun part. I tag the vainpots I know:

Mowpea

Fruit of Eden

Think Tank

The past few weeks in the office have been madness. Piles and piles of work. Non-stop phone calls. Late, late nights. I felt as if I was being pulled in 10 different directions - all at the same time.

Needless to say, I had very little time to spend with poor Bessy.


Bessy says goodbye this way every time I leave home for the office.

So last week, I had a brainwave. Bring Bessy to work! Which was exactly what I did.

After a particularly late production meeting at 8.30pm, I swung by home on the way back to the office. I took Bessy for a walk to let her empty her bladder and intestines (or wherever poop hangs out in the body).

I packed her bone, and her emergency poop kit - old newspapers, bleach in a spray can, kitchen towels and Fabreeze. And then we were ready to go to work!

I had to park in the Basement car park of my office block to avoid the guards, who prowl the Ground Floor, from taking pot shots at Bessy. I smuggled her from the elevator and into my office without any problems.


Bessy under my table

Once in my office cubicle, I tied Bessy's leash to my chair, and she settled down quietly. Until word got out that "There's A Dog In The Office". Bessy received an unprecedented number of visitors - and she entertained them by going into hyper mode (pulling at leash, nearly choking herself with leash, jumping up and almost knocking glass jars over) at the sight of the many faces to lick.

Fortunately for me, everyone realized that I wouldn't be able to get any work done while they were lingering around and fueling Bessy's excitement. So they dispersed. (See, dog lovers are smart people.)


Bored Bessy

Bessy soon settled down again. She looked around curiously and saw a grubby looking pig cushion on my partner's chair. "grrr.... WRUUUFF!" I hushed her and pulled her under my table.

Am glad to say that apart from the above mentioned incidences, I worked efficiently (really!) while Bessy lay quietly chewing her nylon bone. With the occasional "thunk clunk" of the heavy bone hitting the wooden floor of my cubicle.

And. Bessy didn't even pee or poop! Not one drop! (Euw!)


Super bored Bessy

I think Bessy has proved that she is a Bringable-To-Work-Dog.

"Shocking Asian delicacies!" "Disgusting Chinese will eat anything!"

I hate how gwailohs so self-righteously criticise the way we eat, the things we eat, and how we kill what we eat. If they could look in the mirror. Foie gras, veal, to name a few.

That's why when I stumbled across this article, written by a gwailoh about how different foods are really a clash of culture, I thought it an immensely interesting read.

I don't agree with whaling. But it's refreshing to read another perspective.

Some highlights of the article:

• In front of me was whale meat, from an animal which it is simply unthinkable to eat in Britain - so unthinkable that I had to promise my daughters I would not touch a morsel of it during my time in Japan. Yet once in Japan, nothing seemed more normal.

• There is a popular view that all whales are endangered - and many species are, but by no means all. And it certainly was not Japan that drove some species towards extinction. The Americans, Brits and Norwegians did that, with a bit of help from the rest of Europe and its former colonies. Has it become convenient to blame Japan?

• Then I thought of the battery farm I had visited as a child in England - the hens cramped together five to a tiny cage, trampling each other in order to win a few cubic centimetres of space. I thought of halal abattoirs where cows are killed by draining out their blood, of fish impaled on steel hooks in the open ocean, of deer caught in snares waiting only for the relief of a huntsman's bullet, the peeled but still twitching frogs that I had seen in a Bangkok market years before.

  Who decides, and how, which cruelties are acceptable, and which not?

• At its 2006 meeting the International Whaling Commission saw a fascinating vignette played out.

  Australia's environment minister was laying into the Japanese delegation in forthright style, casting them as ignorant slaughterers of cute and special creatures. The Japanese delegate replied by asking about Australia's annual "slaughter" of two million kangaroos.

  Later I chatted with one of the Australian journalists who tend to write about whaling in pretty stark language, using phrases like "barbaric cruelty" whenever there is an opportunity.

  Not only did this particular environment journalist see nothing wrong with the kangaroo slaughter, but they had actually been on the annual hunt, shot some "roos", and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

The full article is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6695885.stm

I highly recommend it.