and the president was in town

President Bush is in town to speak at the American Legion Convention here in Salt Lake. While he arrived in town last night the traffic was just a bit crazy, but this morning while we were entering downtown this morning.

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson demanded that President Bush to "speak the truth" yesterday at a rally. Tons of people showed up either to support/criticize Rocky or President Bush. I didn't hear the whole speech because I was at the store, but I heard it was quite intensive. One of our regular customers at the shop works at the Mayor's office, and he said the phones were just rining off the hook.

And I just learned now that President Bush is done with his speech at the convention, the numbers of angry calls to the Mayor's office has gone down significantly.

please don't waste water

I've noticed many times that the lawns that belong to the city are ultra green and pretty in the summer. While the city is encouraging its people to conserve water, whoever takes care of the lawns is watering the lawns too much, and for too long.

Sometimes the sprklers are on even when it's raining outside. I realize that most of the sprinklers are on timer, but making sure that someone turns off the watering system when it's raining should not be that difficult.

This morning we were driving into downtown and I noticed the excessive water on the city lawns and more just going down the drain. That doesn't look too good to me, and it gets me thinking about our yards. Maybe the city can help watering our lawns using the excessive water that's not going into the city grass any more.

57" on the center

One of the blogs I read often is Not Martha, which offers great information and ideas, and today I read about how to hang artwork without and not screw it up. Interesting.

strawberry milkshake whopper

OMG I saw the new Strawberry Milkshake Whoppers at the store yesterday and of course I bought a box. The original Whoppers of course are good, and boy the strawberry ones are yummy, too! Now if only I can remember to take a picture of the box before I finish it up...

see ya mom!

My mom is on her way back to Taiwan tonight. I was a bit teary when we parted, and so was she. I love my mom a lot I'm grateful for all that she does for me.

See you later, maybe next year, Mom!

chocolate lucky charms

I was organizing the kitchen at the store and found a box of Chocolate Lucky Charms. I bought it a while ago but somehow forgot to have any.

So I tried it. It was actually quite good... however it's a bit sweet for my taste. The leftover cereal milk tastes just like super yummy chocolate milk, which is a plus.

funky tomatoes

Dana gave me some tomatoes she grows in her garden. They were all of different kinds, and the one that intersted me the most was the peach tomatoes. It looks yellow-ish and has fuzzy skin like a peach, but when you bite it open you will see a tomato inside! That's just pure craziness.

And I really want to start my own garden! I think I'm going to grow Japanese cucumbers and eggplants first.

wasatch mountain fire

We were driving into downtown Salt Lake today and saw some smoke or thick fog near the east mountains. I later on learned that it was a big mountain fire that's possibly spreading! I hope it's under control by now.

crafty room

I'm still organizing and sorting things out in my crafty room. I saw this fun picture from Bust Magazine, and it's almost like my crafty room scene, except that mine is more cluttered and with big dogs on the floors with the cats. Oh, and my tongue is not blue.

yama is thinking

When Yama is not sniffing or licking anyone or anything, he's thinking.

slcc could be cool

My sister took a placement test and registered for the international student orientation at the Salt Lake Community College. She is going to start taking some language and art classes this semester at the college.

I hope she'll do well.

birthday sushi

We went to see Kevin at Ichiban last night for my birthday, since we had to be at the caffe on Saturday. Kevin was still super nice to us as usual, and he made wonderful sushi and other dishes. He even bowed to me and said, "Happy Birthday!" *blush* Ahh so Japanese.

I took some pictures of the meal, but of course there were ones that were just so wonderful and yummy I forgot to take pictures of. By the time I remembered and wanted to take pictures the food would have already been in my tummy.

And the funnest ones he made us were the futomaki. It was supposed to be a traditional big roll, and Kevin actually made us a super giant futomaki. I even placed a pair of chopsticks next to the futomaki pieces to show how big they were!

Thanks Kevin!

happy-ish birthday

It's my birthday today! Thanks for all the wonderful birthday wishes and gifts to all of my friends and family here and overseas. Among the little gifts, it's interesting to note that my dad gave me a big piece of white jade, carved into a wonderful symbol of abundance, and a precious rock carved into a symbol of happiness; my sister drew me a funny comic and gave me $60.

I do have come to realize that birthdays just don't seem as important (to others) any more once you're over 21.

Anyhow, happy birthday to me!

erasers

Remember the bunny I carved out of an Artgum? I've been wanting to carve more stamps, but the erasers are just a bit too much here, so I asked my mom to bring me some plain-o' erasers from Taiwan for me to carve. She brought me a whole bag-ful! I'm going to be carving a lot of fun stamps!

it's not the dog

Seriously, it's not the dog.

NO ON PROP SB861!!
THOSE WHO KNOW MW KNOW I WOULD NOT HURT A FLY!!

LAKOTA ~ VA BEACH VA

My Name is Monster, but a Monster I'm NOT!!








cowboy







Layla is sorry too































































Roxy

and they came

My mom and sis got in town last night, and they are going to stay with us for a little while. My mom is going to be in Salt Lake for 3 weeks and my sister is going to attend SLCC and will probably be here for a couple years. I'm not sure if she likes me that much and would want to stay with me all that much, even though my parents think so. I think she's eager to be more independent, and I'm not sure if staying with me would do any help. We'll see.

There are some apartment complex that are fairly close to the college, and are close to our house (in case she needs anything from me), and we're going to take them to check those out some time.

The dogs seem to like my mom and sis. It was amazing for me to see the skittish Yama coming close and sniff my mom. He usually doesn't like strangers, but last night he was actually pretty frienly, and that was a good thing.

I wonder if the cats noticed my mom and sis yet. I guess I'll know when I get home tonight.

fight?

I came home yesterday and the dogs wagged their tails and happily greeted me at the door. I took each of them out for a short walk and let them go potty and stuff.

Then I had them all sit down and gave them some treats, and that's when I noticed that the corner of Naicha's eye looked a bit weird. I checked it and saw it was a little wound. I checked the other side of her face and saw a tiny red spot.

They must have fought, I thought, so I checked Yama. He seemed all right and happy, but the hair on one of his ears was all stiff... which means someone had chewed on his ear. I then saw a light blood stain on his head, which I think was actually Naicha's blood.

They were playing and sniffing each other just fine, and I wonder if they just played hard. When Yama was small he would be frightened and not willing to go to certain areas of the house if there was ever a fight between him and Naicha, but he was not doing that this time. He still went with the pack (us) everywhere in the house, so I guess he's OK.

The dogs almost never fight anymore because they know we're in charge! I really wonder what happened sometimes when we're not home. I'm considering putting in a surveillence camera so we can see what the dogs are up to.

let us read

While attending grad school getting my M.Ed, the Diary of Anne Frank was brought up quite a few times. Sad to say, but I had never read this book back in Taiwan where millions of young girls had read it, usually when they are around Anne's age when she kept the diary.

I went to the library yesterday and actually found a Mandarin copy of the diary and I read the whole book in an afternoon. I was sad, not only because of the story about Anne, her family, Jewish people, and Holocaust, but also because of the fact that I didn't read the book until now. While the American middle school students are reading Anne Frank and some other important books about/for history, the Taiwanese students are struggling to memorize words in their history books and hoping they will be able to fill in the blanks correctly in their next history exam.

I guess the Asian students do read more about the wars between the Asian countries while the American and European students read more about the Western wars... but I believe that in order to allow the students to be educated to be a "global person," being taught more about the whole globe is important, and knowing the important events that happened in the world will also allow them to broden their views and visions. When we learned about Jewish people being persecuted by the Nazis, the history book that we used in school simply stated that Jews were persecuted by the Nazis at the time. Nothing else. No additional reading being assigned or encouarged for students to read.

I've realized that there are a lot of great books I have to read to catch up with the people around me. John reads fast and reads a lot, and so do I (in Mandarin; I can't read English books all that fast), but I'm going to read not only Mandarin and Japanese books but English books, and allow myself opportunities to see the people and world around me a more sophisticated view.

naicha's favorite spot

Naicha's new favorite spot is right behind the curtains in the kitchen, right above the vent.