ducklings and a dog

This pic is from a really cute site called Cute Overload. The Akita reminds me of Naicha! That's totally what she'd do.

and i made bags!

I've been struggling with sewing for a while. I just didn't seem to be able to follow patterns very well. Tracing and cutting out patterns has been a challenge for me, so I decided the other day that I would try something different... I tried to make a couple of bags without patterns. And voila!





And I'm starting to feel better about my craftiness.

christmas bones

Christmas ham bones for the doggies! It's almost a tradition.

kevin is the man

This Christmas Eve we went to Ichiban for sushi. Kevin is the man and he hooked us up with loaded of yummy fish and sushi and other great dishes. Domo arigatogozaimashita!


look at him go!

hot pot octopus

John and I went to Little China and had spicy hot pot. Hot Pot is sort of like an Asian fondue with broth. The owner of the restaurant was in really good mood and he gave us a plateful of octopus. Hmm... Anyway, we started noticing that the octopus we put in the hot broth shrunk quite a bit!

Merry Christmas

rowdy the husky was shot

I was in the kitchen making the doggie's dinner and saw this horrific news on TV. I was sad and angry. I started swearing a bunch and Yama, being a little confused and scared about what I was doing, kept coming close to lick my elbow. A husky in Park City was shot to death because he was about to "attack a deer." Rowdy the husky apparently saw a deer and started chasing her. He was TRYING TO CHASE HER for crying out loud.

This reminded me of another dog shooting incident a couple months ago. A pit bull was shot in his own front yard because some old lady called the cops and said the dogs attacked her and was biting her ankle. The pit bull was IN HIS OWN FRONT YARD for crying out loud.

I question the officers' intentions for killing the dogs. They very well could tranquilize the dogs instead of shooting them to death. I wonder if they would handle the situations differently if the dogs were theirs. The captain of the Summit County Sheriff’s Office backed the officer's decision to shoot the Rowdy. The captain of the Salt Lake County Sherrif's Officed backed the officer's decision to shoot the pit bull a few months back. I wonder if they examined the evidence before they made that call.

I love my dogs and I see them as part of my family... my kids to be exact. I may still be too sad and angry about this whole incident right now to understand why the officers had to shoot Rowdy. However, you can read about the story on KUTV or on ABC4 watch the news video tape and think about how you'd handle the situation.


And that day the sherrif's office offered Rowdy's mom (and her daughter) a new dog.

lost dog

I was driving home yesterday and saw there was a dog wondering across street. I quickly made a U-turn when the light turned green to see if I could catch up with him but he had already ran across the busy 5300 South street.

Some cars stopped to let him run in front of them, and some almost hit him. I had to wait and made another U-turn and pulled in to a gas station because he seemed to be heading that way. I stopped and got out of the car and he saw me. I said, "Hey puppy! Come!" But he ran away.

I got into my car and tried to catch up with him. He walked sniffed all over the busy intersections.
I then lost him.

I drove around for a while but didn't see him again. I was really sad. I wonder what he was thinking when he was sniffing the ground. The temperature was dropping and I hoped he would somehow find his home and people, or someone will see him and be able to look at his tags and take him home. I was a bit angry because many people walked by him, and didn't even bother to stop him from running across the busy street.

He reminded me of the stray dogs in Taiwan. Just the thought of it makes me sad and depressed. I shall write about it another time. I just hope that people will care about the little lost dogs and cats in the streets. Be kind to them, give them some water, and call for someone to pick them up, or give them a ride home.

Just think about this: what if it's your dogs, cats, or even kids that's lost?

yama the polite

See what I just found in my files! Somehow Yama looks very polite in this picture.

"dancey"

I found this little guy online. I'm sure he has a real name of his own, but I've decided to call him "Dancey."

how fast can i type my alphabets?

So there's this game I found online called "How Fast Can You Type Your Alphabets?" It's a game that has you type the 26 alphabets and times you on that. I just did it for 3.435 3.395 3.285 seconds! There's another game that would have you type the alphabets backward. I have not yet dared to try it.



And yes I think I'm addicted to the game for some reason!

exodus

The Leonardo here in Salt Lake City featured an exhibit "Exodus" by Sabastiao Salgado. Since our caffe is next to The Leonardo's office, the nice people gave us a couple of tickets to go and see the exhibit. I thought, "ah, the exhibit is half a block away and I'll get to it soon!"

The exhibit ended today. I just realized I missed it. I'm not happy.

love is in the paper

Last night Kelly asked, "Do you read City Weekly? I said, "sometimes." And she pointed at the "Love Land" column and there was a little I Saw You ad about my buddy Brian.

Brian Sushi chef at Mikado
I was awful to you. You were nothing but good to me. I'm sorry. Last time I saw you, you laughed at me at Ichiban. I deserved it. Please forgive me. I wish you nothing but the best.

When: Thursday, December 1, 2005
Where: Ichiban
I saw a: Man
I am a: Woman
Date posted: Friday, December 9, 2005

Guess what happened then? Brian came to see me today. Of course I gave him a hard time on the "love ad in the paper." I now feel bad that I made fun of him and kept asking stupid questions like, "Are you gonna do it?" He said he already posted a respond ad today.

Ms. Summit
I saw you at Ichiban. I laughed because I had just seen former housemate Kevin and asked about you. He said your doing good. You should know I would never laugh at you. You had your moments. Both good and Bad. But I never held any of them against you. You never needed to apologize. I always knew you had a good heart. And that's why it hurt to watch you hide it. You should know you have a piece of my heart. I think of you often and have no hard feelings.

When: Saturday, December 17, 2005
Where: Ichiban sushi
I saw a: Woman
I am a: Man
Date posted: Friday, December 16, 2005

I wonder why Brian puts December 17 on the When space and I also wonder if there was something he left out in the story he told me. The story was sad, I think.

And why am I blogging this?

the little blue mug

We got these really gorgeous heavy duty blue mugs for the caffe. John is roasting our own beans now and we would like to start serving press pot coffee at the store right after Christmas.

These blue mugs are perfect for press pot coffee because they are thick-walled and of very high quality, and they are not too big. We actually tested fresh brewed press pot in various types of mugs and these worked the best! Its thick walls retain heat well so the coffee stays hot longer, and its compact size (10 oz.) is just right for the perfect cup... our press pot is going to be strong and very flavorful, and too much of it will be too overwhelming.

So the other day when we finally got the shipment of the mugs John was so excited I think he had 6 double Americanos in one of the mugs that evening. The next day he said, "You can use my cool blue mug." Ahhh.

And I have been using this little mug. I make little caffe latte in it too. I'm not quite used to pouring latte art in smaller and not-round-bottom cups so I think I'll have to be practicing in it often. Yay more shots for me!

html is still fun

My computer genius friend Regis told me HTML is old-age and "no one's using it anymore," but I don't care. I think HTML editing is addicting and loads of fun! I want to do things to bling up my blog and still keep it classy. We'll see... I adore the owners of some blogs I read daily. They update them on a daily basis and tell their readers fun and exciting things that happen in their lives. That's so cool. My goal is to update it daily often enough.