Good Bye Allison

On Sunday 7/26 our time fostering Allison came to an end. We returned her to the Midwest Animal Rescue where she was adopted by a nice young couple from Burnsville. Both Anne and I felt sad to see her go especially when she ignored her new owner and the Animal Rescue staff and stared out the glass door at us as we left. She was a great dog who transformed from being super shy and anxious to very friendly and comfortable. Though both Anne and I miss her we have come to agree that it was good for her to move on to her adoptive family's home.

Are we in China again?

Anne and I love authentic Chinese food, so to us one of the best parts of our trip to LA was the plethora of places we could enjoy it. What makes it even cooler is that the Chinese food in LA is cheap. They even had my favorite bubble milk tea (here is a picture of one from China in case you forgot and a link in case you don't know what it is (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_tea ) for $0.75, though they call it boba milk tea in LA. You can get it in Mpls but it costs $4.50 for one of the same size. In an attempt to satisfy our cravings we had a combined 4 dinners/lunches, 8-10 bubble milk teas, and we walked around and made purchases from 3 large groceries stores selling only Chinese products. We visited China Town, little Tokyo (not Chinese related but cool to see none the less) and visited a few cities in which most of the signs were in Chinese and where the people were completely fluent in English and Chinese. The real cool/sad part was that the authentic Chinese food in California was better and about 1/2 to 1/4 the cost of the same type of food in Mpls. We were so jealous.

Welcome to Hollywood

Last/this week depending on which days your week starts or ends (all the country hopping has gotten me confused on this topic) Anne and I went to Los Angeles. I went for fun (and to support my hard working wife) and Anne went for work. Anne's family (Mumei, Jim, and Andrew) were nice enough to show us around since they live in the area. They were phenominal hosts - Thank you! Our first stop after arriving was to Pink's. It is a famous hotdog shop that has been featured on several travel shows and is known for having a lot of celebrity patronage. As it turns out there was a camera crew onsite recording what I am guessing was a british music group, but I could be wrong. We also went to the Hollywood Walk of Fame and saw Michael Jackson's star - which still has a large crowd of people around it. We miss you Michael! We also saw the Hollywood sign which was kind of funny because it now reminds me of the keelung sign in Taiwan (check out the Taipei Day 4 post from november).

Later in the week we went to Santa Monica and Venice Beach. Both are pretty close to each other, but there couldn't be more of a different crowd (okay there could, but they were pretty different). Santa Monica is a nicer area that has a pier with a ferris wheel and other fun things. It also has a section that is closed to cars, but open to lots of nice shops and street performers (We saw one from America's Go Talent - or so they said about 15 times). Venice Beach on the other hand has a weight lifting gym (right on the beach), basketball, and handball courts each with bleachers for viewing. Note - the movie White Man Can't Jump, was filmed at these basketball courts. Venice Beach also has tons of suveniour stores and individuals selling various goods. One of the more bizarre stores was the medical marijuna and botox shop. Yes, you read that correctly you can get medical marijuna and botox shots at the same shop. Sounds like a disastor waiting to happen if you ask me. I guess the upside is that if you end up looking like frankestien at least you will feel good. The last stop of the day was to In-N-Out Burger. We ordered off their secret menu (just to feel like locals). I had heard several times from different sources that In-N-Out Burger was awesome. I am sad to report that though the burgers were good they don't come anywhere near Sasebo burgers in Tokyo.

Bill the Dog Catcher Extraordinaire

On Saturday & Sunday Anne and I spent most of the day sitting in our backyard playing with our foster puppy Allison. Well technically Anne spent a good deal of time working, this was due to both a busy schedule and wanting to play with and be near the puppy, but also being allergic to dogs so she can't have too much direct contact. This results in me being Allison's main source of physical attention and she soaked it up all weekend.

On Monday Anne went back to work and I continued my search for work, but apparently this interrupted with Allison's allotted attention time and that was apparently unacceptable for her. So she came up with a brilliant solution. She broke her collar and decided to explore the neighborhood. At one of my breaks I looked in our back yard to find one of our patio chairs sitting in the middle of the backyard 25 feet from our deck. I realized that her chain/leash (whatever it's called) was attached to the chair, but Allison was no where in sight. I will tell you nothing makes you fell terrible like having a foster dog and losing her on the 3rd day. I spent the next 1 1/2 - 2 hours searching for her. I eventually found her about 4 blocks from home sitting in someones yard. They were kind enough to give her water. Allison greeted me with the "Hey dad, where have you been or what took you so long?" look. I took her home and called Anne to let her know she was ok.

Allison was recently spayed and all the activity irritated her stitches so I was off in search of the Midwest Animal Rescue to have them check up on her. I received directions from Anne and drove off to find them. Now as I am sure Anne can attest to I from time to time behave less than intelligent. This was one of those times. I wrote down the directions, but forgot 2 of those directions. This resulted in Allison and I driving for about 1 1/2 hours without finding our destination. We arrived home to see Anne waiting for us and after a laugh at my incompetence we made a second trip - this time arriving at the destination.

Midwest Animal Rescue was nice enough to give us a new collar and the matching leash. They also gave us some medication to prevent infections since the spayed scar was a little bothered by her off the leash antics. They said that we should give Allison the medicine with peanut butter. I had always been told that dogs and peanut butter are funny to watch but I had no idea how amusing it actually was. Long story short, I learned that Allison is quite capable of monopolizing my day regardless what I have planned. Now she is tired out and resting for her next big adventure.

Foster Parents

Before your imagination gets too out of control after reading the title, we're fostering a dog. One of my friends, Hilary, works at an animal rescue shelter - http://www.midwestanimalrescue.org/ She asked if I was interested in fostering a puppy before they're adopted. The puppy will come with food, leash, kennel, everything covered. How could I say no? I've always wanted a puppy but Bill told me I would have to pick up the poop. Yes blog readers... that was the hold up for the past 1.89 years... I did not want to pick up doody.

After perusing the website, there were tons of puppies that needed a foster home! Initially, I had my eyes on Koko. However, Bill and Hilary were way ahead of me in thinking (potty training, etc) We're now proud foster parents of Allison. Allison's a 15 month old Anatolian Shepard. At first, she was a bit shy, but she's warmed up. She loves to hang out in the kitchen under the table, but prefers the sun room or outdoors. She's super quiet, we haven't heard her bark yet and the best part of it all is that she's potty trained... really potty trained. She went through the entire night w/o going potty. NICE

Last Week's Project

We have been considering having our kitchen cabinets remodeled for a long time. Anne decided that the best way to do it would be to paint them white and get new hardware for the knobs. After finding out that we would be moving to Asia we put that idea on the back burner. After arriving home it was decided that it was time to make the change. So the majority of last week I removed the cabinet doors and drawers and removed the hardware. I then sanded all of the wood work down. I applied one coat of primer and 3 coats of ulta white paint (apparently there are different grades of white). I knew of pasty white and glow in the dark white as they have been terms to describe my skin (I don't tan well and I am not the outdoors type).

Back to the project at hand, I added some new knobs (which required some drilling of new holes) and placed the panted cabinets back in their place. I have to say the cabinets look like new and it turned out to be a great idea Anne!

Before...

After...