News Trend Two Weeks In|Actual

That eager sprint and rollicking pink tongue make me smile every day.

It's been a minute.

It's been forever.

I still can scarcely believe that I did this crazy thing of adopting an Irish Setter with about five minutes of consideration, long before I thought I was ready to open my heart to another dog.

Then again, when I look into those shining teddy bear eyes and laugh at the range of expression she can manage with just the curl of her lip, I wonder if I haven't known this little girl forever.

But as of yesterday, it's been two weeks that this sweet dog has been in my life and here's an update on her settling in.

She's learning to love the whole family. For the first week, she loved me with an insane intensity and laser focus. Flattered though I am to be loved by a dog, I nearly drowned in all the attention. Now she's happily taking walks, car rides, and play sessions with every one of us, and we are all better off for that.

She's allowing me out of her eyesight. With a hitch. The trick, I have learned, is to talk to her. If I want to slip into the next room or pop my head outside for a moment without a hundred pound red furry freight train rushing to my side, a bit of chattering on my part helps to convince this girl that I'm not so dangerously far away after all.

And speaking of those one hundred pounds, the new weight loss plan is kicking in and my girl's starting to slim down. Her neck is now slender and streamlined, rather than chunky and thick; the contours of her powerful shoulder and flank muscles are beginning to take shape as the extra layers melt away. Adorable as she is now, my dog will be graceful and gorgeous when she gets down to a healthy weight.

Though she was bred for the show, it's already clear to me that my dog's best attributes are her serene temperament, inquisitive intelligence, and natural desire to hunt. She's already dealt with surly dogs trying to pick a fight and a two -year-old whose concept of petting looks a lot more like poking and punching. She wagged happily and stayed calm through both encounters. New commands come quickly to this girl and she's already added a dozen new words to her obedience vocabulary. And though I didn't expect much hunt to be left in this girl, she has begun to ruffle her nose through the dry leaves, and stealthily track squirrels and crows on our daily walks. Once, when she found a cat luxuriating under a bush, she set and pointed in perfect style. So proud of her.

No, she does not yet have a name. But we're getting close.

And while I am still waking up every morning to a fresh wave of shock and surprise that a new little redhead is sleeping at my feet, I can't imagine my life without her.

It's been a minute.

It's been forever.

News Trend First Visit To The Vet|Actual

First, we visited the vet.

Then we walked in the late afternoon sunshine.

And then this big red baby laid in the shade and watched the world go by.

My unnamed puppy and I made our first visit to the vet together.

Though there are plenty of good local vets, we hopped into the car together yesterday afternoon and drove forty minutes north to visit our friend, Dr. Jackie. To be sure, that's a long way to go for a vet visit, but given the special role she played in Ranger's life, it seemed like the right thing to do.

The three of us made some interesting discoveries.

Baby is seriously overweight.

She tips the scales at 98 pounds, and her ideal weight somewhere around 80. Jackie calculated an appropriate daily caloric intake of 900 Kcals and so Baby is hereby restricted to three cups daily of Science Diet weight loss formula and plenty of exercise.

Both of her lower canine teeth are fractured.

The remaining stubs are still healthy, so there's no need to act upon this news, but she definitely suffered some sort of forceful accident to snap them off. Jackie speculated that she may have been kicked by a horse.

Fleas and heartworms be gone:

Revolution is still the best, tried-and-true medication to keep the insects at bay. It's easy to use, harmless, and best of all, effective.

Mani/Pedi? Check:

Took two grown women to wrestle my child to the ground and get her nails trimmed, but once they had her pinned, she took it like a champ.

* * * * *

And though all these tidbits are interesting, here is hands-down the most mind-boggling development of the day:

Jackie's assistant is a college student whose family lives in my neighborhood. That, in and of itself, is remarkable since this vet's office is a solid thirty miles away. But even better, she recognized me as the mom of Ranger, the dashing Irishman on the long leash who loved his daily walks.

And that lovely coincidence was without a doubt the most interesting discovery of our first visit to the vet.

News Trend Partnership|Actual

My first-born has been rencana out this triple layer cake for days.

She special ordered the pans and searched out matching pre-cut parchment paper liners.

She found the richest and lushest chocolate cake recipe and did a special shop for the ingredients.

She spent the better part of two hours on this gorgeous sun-soaked day slaving away in the kitchen, getting every detail just right.

And when the last bit of frosting had been gracefully swirled into place, she stepped back and said, "Hmm. I feel like it needs just a little something more."

"Washi tape kecil banner," I mumbled from the other side of the counter, where I was coaxing my baby dog into yet another drop stay position.

"Say what?L" she countered. And I quickly whipped through my Pinterest app to show her an example of what I meant.

"Perfect," she agreed. "Can you make me one?"

Five minutes later, my wonky little flags fluttered in place atop this chocolate majesty.

And that was my contribution to tonight's delicious dessert.

News Trend Chicken Drumsticks|Actual

This is the chicken I got from Aqil last week.

I unashamedly begged him for a few pieces of his latest shipment.

He goes to school at University of Washington, and lives twenty minutes away from me.

Though Aqil is totally in the swim of American culture, he loves his native Malaysian cuisine

The chicken was prepared by his mom.

In Havana.

Where she lives with her husband, the Ambassador of Malaysia to Cuba, and Aqil's brother and sister. Her Cuban kitchen is filled with the spices of home, and even in the midst of this sparse Caribbean island, she manages to feed her family their favorite, familiar meals. .

Aqil's mother grew up in Kelantan, a quaint little corner of Malaysia, tucked up under Thailand on the beaches of the South China Sea. She learned how to blend spices and flavors in proper Kelantanese style from her mother, Aqil's grandmother, whom I hear was quite a cook.

As so, as I tore into these delicious drumsticks with my fingers and sucked every delicious and spicy morsel from the bones, as is the Kelantanese way, I thought of Aqil, and his mother in Cuba, and his Kelantanese grandmother, and what a beautiful miracle it is that they all helped to bring this tasty treat to my American table.

All I can say in return is, hey Aqil, thanks for the chicken.

* * * * *

More stories about my friend, Aqil:

An Invitation To Dinner

Aqil's Chicken

Chicken Drumsticks

Ready To Launch

An All-American Dinner

Moondawg For The Win

* * * * *

Check out more stories about my once-in-a-lifetime trip to Cuba and my wonderful friends who lived there:

I Will Bake You A Pie

Cuban Makan

Cuban Economics

El Malecon Cloudburst

A La Playa

Creepy Cuban Kudzu

Plaza De La Revolucion

Old Havana

Poolside in Havana

A Cuban Sunset Story

Sunset Chasers, Cuban Edition

The Puppy At The Castle

Old Havana On The Eve Of Fidel's Birthday

An ASEAN Celebration

Nayli's Bedroom

Varadero, Cuba

Winding Down

Dear Cuba

Aqil's Chicken

The Gentle Art Of Reframing

My Cuban Home

Tickled Pink

Full Circle

Chicken Drumsticks

News Trend Director's Cut|Actual

It's one thing to haul a van full of stuff from your parents' homes across the country.

That's the easy part.

The hard part, I am learning, is trying to figure out what to do with it all once you get it back home.

I'll be honest. I'm not going to spend my precious and fleeting Seattle summer in my garage, digging through the endless boxes and rearranging all my storage. Oh no. There will be time for that when the clouds roll in.

For now, I'm leaving my newfound treasures to rest in the dark while I enjoy myself in my gardens.

Well. Except for two striped director's chairs from my mom's deck at the lake in Michigan.

The minute I dragged them out of the truck, I knew just where to put them. They seem to be enjoying their new life in the Seattle sunshine just fine.

News Trend Cat Chair|Actual

My mother-in-law, bless her soul. Was a cat lady. Now, for the most part, this was a theoretical concept, as she really only had just the one cat during her entire adult life.

Well. One live cat. During her battle with Alzheimer's, she cared for a whole collection of stuffed cats and happily enjoyed their quiet company until her dying day.

So it has given me great pleasure to let this old wicker rocker - which she gave me many years ago - live out its waning years as a special spot for our three furry boys.

Now lately we've developed a duduk perkara. The weather and the years and the sharp little kitty claws have each taken their toll, and what I discovered when I lifted up the seat cushion this spring was that the bottom of the seat had finally given way.

Well. I was not about to give up quite so easily.

So using my best MacGyver meets Gilligan Island repair skills, I armed myself with some sisal rope from Home Depot and went to work.

Mmhmm. I know. I've got some pretty professional weaving chops right there.

But the bottom line is that my kittens are back in business with a soft, secure cushion underneath their furry selves for some sweet afternoon naps in their favorite chair.

And I'm sure that my mother-in-law is smiling down from heaven.

News Trend Butterfly Effect|Actual

"Inchaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence oninitial conditions in which a small change in one state of a system can result in large differences in a later state.

The name, coined byEdward Lorenz, is derived from the metaphorical example of the details of a tornado being influenced by minor perturbations such as the flapping of the wings of a distantbutterfly several weeks earlier."

- edited from Wikipedia

Smoky sunsets are gorgeous and terrible.

Here in the American West, wildfires are a summer fact of life.

For the past week, our neighbors to the north in Canada's British Columbia have been under siege. More than a hundred wildfires are burning; as of today, twenty-three are considered to be significant in size.

Check out these photos. The devastation is horrible and beautiful.

Smoke from these fires has been drifting down here to Seattle all week long. Our normally perfect blue summer skies have been hazy, our air quality compromised, our sunshine brassy and unfamiliar.

And while our discomfort is a small price to pay for Mother Nature's destruction, I find this a stunning reminder that when a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, an tornado truly is born in Texas.