The DC Disaster

   News story this morning: A local student band went on a trip to NYC. On their last night, they ate dinner at an Italian restaurant before boarding their buses to come home. And shortly thereafter, thirty-five of them got sick on the bus & had to spend the night at a hospital in Pennsylvania: food poisoning and dehydration.   This was a total case of deja vu for me. My 8th grade class took a bus trip to Washington DC. We spent several days visiting the Smithsonian, the Lincoln Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial, the Capitol building, and the National Gallery of Art, among others. It was a fantastic trip.
   On the last night, we ate Italian food at the restaurant in the hotel, boarded the buses, and settled in for sleeping the hours away as we headed home. It was supposed to be peaceful. But somewhere in Virginia, everyones' stomachs went south, and we made an unscheduled stop at an emergency room. I was one of the unlucky ones with stomach cramps and vomiting. One of my friends, Amy, started to suffer from hypoglycemia, and John, who was diabetic, began to have seizures. As they were seated in the row right behind me, it was really scary. We too were diagnosed with food poisoning and dehydration. Imagine an emergency room full of exhausted, sick eighth graders in the middle of the night. Eventually we were evaluated, treated, and were returned to the bus.
   Of course, I was in eighth grade well before the invention of cell phones, so parents, expecting us to arrive back at the school at 6 or 7 am, learned through a series of calls that we would be delayed. They were excited when we finally returned several hours behind schedule, and we were very glad to be home!
   Soon after, one of the parents came up with a fundraiser idea: she sold bright gold shirts with big blue letters that said, "I survived the DC disaster!" I had mine for years. Kind of wondering if it's still somewhere in Mom's house. My heart goes out to this band, as I know all too well what that experience was like!

Dog Park Fun with Friends

   Brett met me at Stoll Park tonight, to give my pups a good, long romp before I leave for San Francisco for a few days. He brought his pup, Sam, and his kids, Shane & Jenna. My pups had never met the kids before, but they were pretty much enthralled by all the extra attention.

Shane worked on getting Aki to jump...

And, WOW! What a jump!

Jenna sweet-talked Aki into a high-five:

Shane caught it on camera:

And then Mr. Tay moved in...

Tell me this isn't the happiest dog you've ever seen:

Mobbed for treats:

Run, Shibas, Run!

But watch out for that spiky tree!!! (A honey locust...?)

And watch out for that wild boxer!

And even wilder Wheatie!

   Okay. We all know kids and poodles and Shibas are cute—but ALL of us were upstaged by a lil' man named Porter. He's an 8-week-old Bernese Mountain Dog: ten pounds of adorableness.

He was a little hard to photograph: always moving!

All the dogs were jealous.

Off into the sunset...

And again I have to ask, this is March?! Are we sure? 'Cause it's almost 70 degrees. Where is the proverbial lion?

Squeaks & Beeps Are in the House!

Teddi's house, to be exact. Holiday open house tonight...

    And in case you were wondering, the bibs fit adults too. Mine has Space Invaders. Don't be a hater!

Plush with a Purpose

   My sister Kelley helped me learn how to make sock animals when I was visiting her in Los Angeles last weekend, and I created Maccha, a little green cat. I'm donating her to an online auction to benefit Japan in honor of my best friend Masayo, her husband Yoshihiro and her daughter Luna, who thankfully were unharmed in the terrible earthquake & tsunami on March 11. Love you guys!!

Luna & a friend

  According to the Save the Children organization, thousands of children and their families are still displaced and in evacuation centers due to the tsunami and the increased danger of radiation around the Fukushima power plant. It is estimated that at least 100,000 children have been affected by the disasters and that the conditions facing children and their families are so extreme that along with immediate relief responses in place they are developing a three-year strategy to help provide essential relief items to help restore children's sense of security and normalcy and advocate for their inclusion in emergency preparedness planning. They have set a funding goal of $20 million and need our support so that these kids and their families can grow up safe, happy and healthy!
   The Art Party for Japan silent art auction will be held online July 18-24th. More details coming soon. All proceeds from the auction will go to the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Relief fund through Global Giving Project. Thank you to all the artists who have donated their work to this worthy cause, and everyone, please check it out!

   Here is Maccha's story: まっちゃ (Maccha) means "Green Tea"—a fitting name for a lil' green kitty from 日本 (Japan)! Green tea also happens to be her favorite flavor of ソフトクリーム (soft serve ice cream). Maccha wears a bell and a さくら (cherry blossom) on her collar to remind her of her home town, 犬山 (Inuyama), which translates to "Dog City"! She sends her love to everyone in Japan—and everywhere in the world—and would be very happy to make her new home with you.

こちらはまっちゃと言う猫ですよ。まっちゃは英語で「」です。そして、まっちゃもこの猫の 一番好きなソフトクリームのあじです。まっちゃは日本を思っていますからさくらとベールを着ています。日本の犬山で来ました。日本と全部の世界を愛しています。でも、まっちゃはあなたと住みたがっていますよ。

A day on the farm

The cow encounter on the prairie reminded me that I have a few fun cow-related stories from my childhood.

1) On Thanksgiving day, we usually visited the farm owned by my Aunt Marion & Uncle Dick, on my dad's side of the family. Of course my sisters & I were excited to see the animals, including the cows. One year when we arrived, the cows were having their lunch of corn & grain. They were all lined up with their heads down in the troughs when we approached. I leaned in to get a closer look... and just then, one of the cows lifted her head & licked the entirety of my face in one fell swoop. And I must say that as if a full-facial lick by a cow wasn't heinous enough, the addition of massive amounts of saliva & bits of grain which she had been chewing added all kinds of rich texture to the experience. Like rubbing your face with sandpaper which someone massively sneezed into. Nice.

2) One of my best friends from school, Laura, lived on a beef cattle farm. I LOVED visiting her at home, because there were always animals to play with. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was switched at birth because I should have grown up on a farm! We would spend hours outside exploring their farmstead. And one particular memory is my favorite: her father had just finished baling the hay, and there were HUGE hay bales (like you see in Impressionist paintings; they seemed 10' tall!) spaced evenly apart all along a field. We played tag, where the "it" person was running on the ground, trying to tag the other... who was up on top of the hay bales, jumping from one to the next. (We later re-enacted this game in her room, jumping between the twin beds.) As I recall, we had some incredible games of hide-and-seek in the yard with large groups of kids, she had some wicked Play-doh playsets as well as an Atari 2600 with the tanks & planes game, and her mom was a great cook. Whenever I ate dinner with them, it was accompanied by large glasses of ice cold milk... which I would refuse at home, but I was polite enough to drink when visiting. It tasted better on a farm. (And they didn't have dairy cattle!) When I spent the night at her house, we'd get up in the morning & make pancakes from scratch. Her favorite flowers were black-eyed susans, and I believe she named one of the kittens after them. Her family didn't live particularly close to us, so during summer vacations we would concoct extravagant letters that we'd mail to each other—mock newspapers and things like that. This devolved into unabashed goofiness like taking a plastic bag & filling it with flour, sugar and spices from Mom's cupboard, which we labeled as "recipes" and sent through the mail. Can you imagine kids mailing unidentified powdered substances to each other these days?? We'd be arrested as terrorists. How times have changed. (And not always for the better.) I'm sure the recipes were the inspiration for her 4H nutrition project, for which she had to create meals & calculate the calories & nutritional value of each. I thought that was awesome.

Whew! Lots of good memories packed into that post. It's funny how your brain works, when things you think were long forgotten find their way back. Enjoy this related video.

かわいい着物ですね。。。

Is it wrong that I kinda want to have a kid just so I can dress her in this adorable kimono dress?

Shiba quotes

check us out...we're FANCY.

So kids really DO say the darndest things...

On our walk in the park yesterday, an adorable little girl saw the shibas and emphatically said, "THOSE dogs look FANCY!"

I'd rank that up there with the little girl I saw last fall who shrieked, "SNOW DOGS!!!" when she saw us.   

LOL (wonder if it was the same girl??)

can I get you guys anything? a sandwich? anything?