Category: Uncategorized

The Safe House (#388)

My neighborhood, which is flat with sidewalks, became super popular for trick-or-treating about a decade ago. Families drove in from other areas of LA, parked at the nearby schools, and made the rounds. I was thrilled, especially once our son Dalton decided I was “not allowed” to escort him tick-or-treating anymore. I’ve never met a holiday I didn’t like, but the elaborate costumes and piles of candy make Halloween one of my favorites.

Because dogs go insane over door knocking and doorbells (and we always have at least one dog), my friend JM and I sit at the bottom of my porch on Halloween night, wearing witch hats and handing out candy from a huge cauldron. Last night, I even had my K-Pop Demon Hunters playlist and speaker ready to blast the second we saw any members of Huntr/x or the Saja Boys.

Andy, who is not a holiday person, was happy to raid the cauldron, take all the Reese’s, and watch TV inside.

Generally the cauldron is emptied of candy by 8:30 PM. Until last night.

We had far fewer tick-or-treaters last night than last year or the year before. No one parked in the school parking lot, either.

Much to my sorrow, there was only ONE Rumi from K-Pop Demon Hunters.

We told every kid to take whole handfuls of candy. If they passed us again, we insisted they take some more. We pushed candy on every parental escort.

We flagged down adults walking their dogs AND the UPS driver, reverse-robbing them by demanding they take candy.

The horde of teens that usually comes by to mop up (maybe with a single mask or wig shared between 5 adolescent males) never showed.

We were ready to pack it in, cauldron still more than half-full, when a minivan finally stopped right in front of us. And sat there for a full minute.

JM and I saw a flap of black fabric, perhaps a Dracula cape, caught in the rear passenger door. There was movement in the car, maybe the twinkle of sparkly fabric briefly catching the streetlight.

We held our breath, like you do when you’re afraid to startle a wild animal.

Finally, the minivan disgorged a mass of costumed kids: an inflatable capybara jockey, a walking tombstone, something requiring glittery orange veiling, and more that I can’t remember because I was entranced by the capybara.

Those trick-or-treaters were bit taken aback by the enthusiastic cheering from two middle-aged white women. We had to encourage them to take as much candy as they wanted, which they did. It still wasn’t as much candy as I wanted them to take (but probably it was more than Dalton the candy hoarder wanted them to have).

Even though there were elaborate decorations and lights on all down the block, most of the group immediately returned to the minivan. Only the capybara jockey tried the house next door (yes, the one belonging to my infamous, asshole cop neighbor).

No one answered.

After the cabybara jockey returned, the minivan drove away. JM and I stared at each other, confused.

JM asked, “Um…why just your house?”

“I know, right? Every other house on the block looks like an infestation of Halloween inflatables and I just have the wreath you made me. I didn’t even do a jack-o’-lantern this year, since Andy thinks it’s a waste of money to buy food for decoration.”

Shaking my head, I looked back at my porch and its minimal fall decor.

And saw the flag I hung out months ago.

A white and red flag that reads "ABOLISH ICE"

I barely notice that flag any more. But I’m glad someone else did.

Andy On Notice (#386)

I’ve occasionally written about how maddening it is to have a husband who is oblivious to things like dirt. Or ants. Or a rat under the house.

This seems to be a common theme among women. Partner doesn’t notice the things that need to be done, which enables partner to avoid doing the things. This move is often referred to as “weaponized incompetence,” although I like the rebrand of “strategic laziness” better. Or maybe “strategic blindness,” which often pairs with “selective hearing.”

It’s frustrating when you’re the person who notices anything out of place—and you can’t do anything about it because you’re injured.

Me: “If the tendonosis in my arm and my knee injuries didn’t hurt so much today, I could have vacuumed up all the dead ants in the bathroom.”

Andy: “There are dead ants in the bathroom?”

Me: “Yes. Cuz we sprayed?”

Andy: “Really? I didn’t see any.”

Me: “You literally had to step over them to take your shower.”

Exhibit A:

Actual photo of dead ants

I can never decide why so many men don’t see the things that need to be done. Did male and female brains evolve differently, perhaps because only the observant mothers in the jungle who noticed the poisonous creature had surviving offspring? Or is it societal, where the patriarchy only punishes women for not cleaning up messes?

And do men not notice all details, or are they unconsciously—or possibly VERY CONSCIOUSLY—selective?

I’d like to say they are selectively obtuse, but my hair stylist once cut off more than 12 inches of my hair; Andy didn’t notice until all our friends complimented my new look.

More recently, there was our clock:

For one of our anniversaries, I gave Andy a crystal and mirrored glass clock. It sat on our sideboard, where we could see it while watching TV or hanging out in the living room. It was invaluable when counting down to bedtime or calculating our son Dalton’s various pick up/drop off times for school, sports, and all other activities.

I looked at that clock multiple times a day for nearly a decade. I figured Andy did, too. Especially since the cat liked to knock it over with a loud THUNK when she was hungry. (The cat was always hungry.)

Recently the clock stopped working consistently (possibly due to years of thunking). Sometimes it would keep time after I changed the battery. Sometimes it wouldn’t. I pointed this out to Andy, saying, “Honey, the clock is having issues. If only there was, I dunno, an engineer who could look at it.”

Andy did not take that hint, nor any of the others I dropped over the next month. I gave up and found another clock online on sale—this one twice as big and three times heavier. It arrived while Andy was at work. I set it up, put the old clock in the garage, and waited for him to notice.

New Clock

The cat noticed right away. There was angry tail lashing when the new clock proved unthunkable, but cat moved on (i.e., attacked a nearby picture).

It’s been weeks since I replaced the old clock.

The new clock works.

Our framed photo of Dalton is now battered and covered in feline teeth marks, but the new clock has yet to be knocked over.

And Andy?

He still hasn’t noticed.

Old clock & new clock. Are you an Andy or do you see a difference?

Update: Andy read my post and insists that he “noticed the clock last week and just didn’t say anything.”  

To which I respond, “Okay, Jan.”

An Envelope of Appropriation (#385)

No white woman appropriated the Chinese custom of giving lucky money (“lai see” in my husband’s Cantonese-speaking family) as fast as I did when I married Andy. All my debutante mother’s admonitions against giving money as a gift? Gone the second I realized that a pretty red envelope with gold designs was the perfect way to class up cash.

Cash is much more practical than gift cards. You can spend cash on anything, or save it. But gift cards? There’s NO WAY you ever spend the exact amount on the gift card. Corporations profit from expired cards, damaged cards, unredeemed balances, and sometimes fees. Starbucks, for example, gets about 10% of its revenue from unredeemed cards (from everyone except my husband and Coffee Kate). Stick it to corporate overlords and give cash instead!

I have countless nieces and nephews (thanks to over a dozen siblings, half-siblings, step-siblings, ex-step-siblings from various parental units’ divorces and marriages) who get lucky money on their birthdays. Our son Dalton has lobbied for cash gifts since he learned what money was (age 3). Dalton’s friends and coaches, even the non-Asian ones, learned to look forward to seeing red when they open a greeting card.

I buy my red envelopes in bulk. Yes, I know that most actual Chinese moms, like my MIL Sunny, get them for free from the bank when withdrawing cash for Lunar New Year or weddings or birthdays (stamped with the bank’s logo, of course, BUT IN GOLD). Back when Andy and I got married, however, our bank didn’t have red envelopes. I bought a variety of designs online: the nieces on the swim team got fish, the nephew who demanded orange juice got oranges, and the nephew who loved pink got red and pink peonies. I even splurged on some bigger, more rigid envelopes for weddings (the better to keep shiny new bills crisp and unbent).

While red envelopes haven’t gone mainstream in California (yet), there’s a Hawaiian custom that has: graduation leis. I’d never seen a graduation lei on the East Coast, but when I got my MFA in Los Angeles, flower leis were everywhere. Since then, high school graduations have morphed into a lei arms race in California. There are real flower leis, fake flower leis, candy leis, money leis, and even Happy Meal leis.

I’ve been at graduations where the leis are piled so high all you can see are the graduate’s eyes. Not one to miss out on the fun, I created a lucky money lei by braiding red yarn and gold ribbon, punching holes in red envelopes (with cashed tucked inside), and then attaching them to the lei with artificial daisies. (Then I warn the recipients to guard that lei with their life.)

SoCal high school graduation leis (mine has the red envelopes with flowers in the center)

When Andy’s nephew graduated, I had his lei all planned out: a kukui nut lei (to acknowledge his family’s history in Hawaii) with lucky money attached by red and gold ribbons. I sent Andy a reminder to leave work early and pick up cash on the way home. Lucky money is, ideally, the largest denomination of bills possible. As my husband is notoriously frugal, I texted him specifics: “I have 3 red envelopes on his lei, and, YES, each should be no less than a fifty!”

Andy brought home a bunch of crumpled twenties.

The ancestors wept.

The white wife insisted on stopping at an ATM that would let her choose hundreds. She may have also berated him the whole way there: “What is wrong with you? I’m not even Chinese and I know anything less than a hundred is shameful!”

Andy’s response was a shrug and, “It’s not like I got cash when I was growing up.”

“But when your mom gives Dalton lucky money, it’s always new, crisp hundred-dollar bills!”

“Crumpled twenties spend the same,” was all Andy said.

Until I returned from the ATM with a pile of Benjamin Franklins.

“How many hundreds are you giving him?!” he huffed, accelerating out of the parking lot with significantly more speed than necessary.

“You had your chance to get him fifties and you blew it.”

“But it’s only high school! And he’s got two younger siblings. You’re setting an expensive precedent.”

“Listen, Scrooge, I’m not giving him all of them. I had to get extra bills in case the ATM gave me old or ugly ones,” I explained. “See? This one is folded up in the corner. I can’t use that. And this one is creased! Only pristine bills make the cut.”

Andy remained horrified over the amount of lucky money in that lei.

Same as my southern ancestors, I expect.

But I like to think the Chinese ancestors were as pleased as our nephew.

Me assembling the #1Wong Nephew’s lei on the freeway.

 

First Fire, Now ICE (#384)

Los Angeles still needs federal funds to finish cleaning up the devastating fires from January.

We got ICE instead.

We got the California National Guard, too, as Trump jumped at the chance to finally play Fascist-in-Chief. It’s not legal, of course, but what does that matter to Felonious the Filth?

Is this bullshit? Absolutely. Boston may run on Dunkin, but Los Angeles runs on immigrants (approximately 33% of our population).

And the immigrants ICE is targeting? Many are legal. They’re getting arrested at work, which means these immigrants ARE WORKING. Even the waste of flesh that’s running ICE admits they aren’t the criminals Trump promised to target while lying his ass off as usual campaigning last year.  These immigrants pay taxes, which is why ICE now uses the IRS to find them. Some have had the visas they worked so hard to get capriciously revoked. Some are being deported due to administrative and clerical errors.

ICE lies in wait in the fashion district and elementary school graduations. Cuz that’s where hardened criminals like moms and little kids hang out, apparently.

ICE is so proud of their work ripping apart families that they now cover their faces. Couldn’t get those MAGA fuckers to wear a mask during an actual pandemic, but now a mask is better than being identified. “Proud” boys, my ass. I guess they’d rather not have their own families see them sending other families to concentration camps.

Maybe it’s a good sign that our American-grown Nazis wear masks. Keep ICE ashamed and afraid.

ICE is SO bad that initially, both our notoriously racist and corrupt Los Angeles Police Department and Sheriff’s Department put out statements on Saturday saying, “We are absolutely NOT with them!” (Admittedly, that was short-lived. The LAPD is already climbing back on the authoritarian bandwagon.)

For those of you who’ve reached out, asking if we’re okay or telling me to stay safe, I appreciate your concern. We’re fine. The city isn’t engulfed in flames, no matter how many times the media shows a single burning Waymo car. The protestors are peaceful (with the exception of the inevitable masked agitators always looking for trouble, like during their attack on the UCLA encampment).

Today the biggest protest is in downtown LA, demanding the release of union leader David Huerta after his bullshit arrest by federal agents on Friday. 

The ICE/police/military response of rubber bullets, tear gas, and flash bang grenades are nowhere near us, at least for now. News 9 from Australia is in more danger than we are.

And if protestors shut a freeway down? It’s for a good fucking reason.

What you probably aren’t seeing are attempted ICE raids at our schools, or the 4th grader at a local school who was deported. Or the fear in the eyes of so many Latinos, even folks who’ve been here for generations. You’re not seeing much about the Asians who’ve been targeted, nor the international students at the University of California campuses who’ve arbitrarily had their visas revoked.

No wonder LA is protesting. The loss of anyone’s right to due process is the first step on the road to authoritarianism.

So, yeah, I’m gonna cheer on protestors closing those freeways.

What Los Angeles-hating MAGA never seems to realize is that the fascists will eventually come for them, too.

Maybe Buyer’s Remorse MAGA should also be out there protesting the use of the National Guard on American citizens.

While they still can.

Milton Leaves a Mark (#380)

Last year (i.e., last month) I blogged about having a live Christmas tree for the first time in a long time. He was a rental, and his name was Milton.

Milton was in a pot. He smelled amazing and looked lovely. We gave him a few quarts of water every 2-3 days to keep him from drying out. If a little water seeped out, it was caught by a large, circular plastic tray under the pot.

We didn’t have to worry about Milton tipping over (too heavy!) or the cat playing in the water under the tree.

We didn’t have to mess with a stand. Milton was delivered to our living room and picked up from our living room. Easy-peasy, I thought.

Until I was on the floor, cleaning up pine needles after Milton’s departure.

I flipped back the rug.

There was MOLD. Nasty dark green mold in a few places on the rug, but mostly on the wood floor.

I was too freaked out to get a picture of our mold, but here’s a photo that looks similar from a Reddit thread on moldy floors.

How could this be?!

Milton’s tray didn’t leak. I was always checking to make sure the floor and rug were dry.

I did some internet sleuthing and discovered that the lack of air circulation between the heavy pot, the plastic tray, the rug, and the floor most likely created a fantastic mold biome on our old hardwood floors. (This is one reason why couches and beds are built on legs—to allow ventilation and avoid mold. Also one of the reasons why Germans are notorious for throwing open their windows in the winter.)

I’m not sure why this didn’t happen with previous potted trees in the exact same spot. Maybe the trees were smaller. Maybe the humidity was higher this year (we had many foggy days in the second half of December). Maybe it’s because we had to remove the backing from our living room rug when we had it cleaned years ago. Maybe the seal on the wood flooring eroded over the last decade.

Probably it’s a bit of all those things.

We tried to remove the mold multiple recommended ways: cleaners, bleach, vinegar, a peroxide paste with baking soda and Dawn. The paste worked on the rug, but the mold had gotten into the grain of some of the wood (original flooring from 1954 that had been refinished several times). There was nothing for it but to sand.

Handy Andy got out his mask, his sander, his little shop vac, and went to work. After sanding, Andy used polyurethane to seal the wood. We turned up the heat to decrease the humidity and speed up drying time. Once the polyurethane had cured, Andy lightly roughed up the area with sandpaper again and applied another coat of polyurethane.

Three coats and three days later, the floor looked like this:

Some areas look a little bit lighter, but it’s mostly under the rug.

The hardest part was probably keeping the animals away while the polyurethane dried. Tankie, especially, was determined to huff polyurethane at every opportunity. He had to be outside or locked in a bedroom for several hours each day.

Gate we used to try and keep Tankie’s nose off the polyurethane

I check the floor and rug daily. It’s been almost a week, and no sign of the mold reappearing.

But I’m sure I’ll look again. Daily. Obsessively. For the next year.

I thought my frugal husband would use Milton and the mold as ammunition to not spend money on a Christmas tree next year. Instead, he’s merely planning a modified dolly for our next tree.

 

Tanked (#368)

We spent several months depressed and dog-less before I spotted a video of a gray bully mix named Tank on Petfinder. The video showed Tank playing fetch with a young boy. Tank even sat nicely with a cat.

I showed the video to Andy. “Look! He’s great with kids and cats! He’s trained. And he’s under eighty pounds!”

Andy agreed. I called the rescue and arranged a time to meet Tank. We showed our son the video. Dalton promptly dubbed the dog “Tankie De Jong” after watching Tank chase a ball into a pool, a couch, and the bushes.  Dalton, who was all about soccer, told us that Dutch midfielder Frenkie De Jong always had to have the ball.

It turned out to be an accurate comparison. Tankie was friendly when we met him, accepting pets and giving sniffs, but the second a ball appeared? Nothing else existed. He barreled through any obstacle to get a thrown ball, then raced back to the closest human, dropped the ball, and waited for it to be thrown again. (This was novel. Getting the ball back from some dogs could be…difficult.) Tankie would sit and stay on command, lie down, high-five, and go to his crate. He even had perfect recall off leash.

There are, at any given time, between 26,000 and 44,000 stray dogs in Los Angeles. The majority are chihuahuas, followed by American pit bull mixes and American Staffordshire Terrier mixes. Tankie looked like thousands of other stray, gray bully mixes. He was found on the streets of Moreno Valley, unaltered, at age 2-4.  Months later, he was pulled from the shelter by a rescue.

A picture Tank’s foster mom took soon after she got him.

Tank spent at least a year in foster care, overlooked in favor of younger dogs.

His foster mom had been working with him for months, hoping that a someone would value training enough to opt for an older dog instead of a cute puppy.

And here we were, smitten, taking Tankie home for a two-week trial period. We just needed to make sure he was a good fit and that the boss was okay with our choice.

 And no, Dalton was not the boss.

This was the boss.

The Boss

Boss Cat was her full name, and she ran the household. She loved dogs—especially hitting them in the face—but she had refused to be in the same room as the last dog we’d brought home for a few days.

I warned Tankie’s foster mom that if Boss Cat didn’t like Tankie, we couldn’t keep him. She gave me a can of compressed air and said, “Use this if he acts up. He really, really hates it.”

Once he arrived, Tankie immediately made himself at home. He played with Dalton and a dog-proof soccer ball. He crashed on his outdoor bed on our sunny patio. He was a dream on our walk up to the park. Since no one was around, I let Tankie off leash.

Tank and his newfound football

He promptly found a discarded football and brought it to me for the inevitable game of fetch.

When we got home, I put him in his crate. Boss Cat walked by, stopped, and glared at Tankie. I grabbed the can of compressed air.

Tankie sat up on his haunches, ears perking into an alert. And barked a single, angry bark.

“NO!” I shouted, shooting compressed air into his face. Tank dropped immediately into a submissive pose. “Absolutely NOT!”

Boss Cat stalked away.

Tankie never barked at her again. He did his best not to even look at her. Boss would come sit within a foot of Tankie and glare, her tail lashing back and forth. Tankie would stare resolutely at the wall, or put his back to her.

Then she’d move until she was right up in his face, as if to say, “Come at me, bro. I got five daggers on each paw and I will CUT YOU.”  And still Tankie would look away. Sometimes he would look at me, checking to see if I noticed what a Very Good Boy he was being in the face of such outrageous feline provocation.

Tankie’s last test was three small children. My Boyfriend-Stealing Baby Sister came to visit with her kids—none of whom were known for having impulse control. I gave them all a very firm lecture on how to behave with Tankie.

“We’ll be very good with your dog,” they promised.

“Well, he’s actually not our dog yet,” I explained. “We’re still seeing if we’re a good fit.”

I introduced them to Tankie and showed them how much he loved to fetch. Then I watched them like hawks. I needn’t have bothered. Tankie was thrilled to share his yard with them. If they weren’t playing ball, he followed those kiddos around as they picked lemons, shot Nerf guns, and wrestled.

Such a good boy

When the youngest patted him on the head, he licked her face.

Tankie had been trained not to go on the furniture. But at one point, he came over to my chair and tried to climb into my lap.

“Tankie!” I said, laughing. “Down!”

My sister snapped a picture and said, “I don’t care what you say, he’s definitely your dog.”

And so he was.

 

When SoCal Gives You Lemons (#366)

If you have a square foot of land in Southern California, you probably have citrus tree. If you don’t, you might have one in a pot. If you don’t have one in a pot, all your friends with lemon trees are currently offering you free lemons (the oranges aren’t quite ripe yet).

Tis the season in SoCal.

Our lemon tree is loaded this year. Andy has made lemon pancakes and crepes with lemon curd multiple times in the last month.

Andy’s crepes with lemon curd

When Baby D had dental work done, Andy made him a lemon posset. (I thought possets died out in Victorian times, but apparently there’s a resurgence.)

When a friend asked me to bring a dessert for a New Year’s party, I figured I’d better use up some lemons. But what to make?

Then I remembered Lawyer Sis raving about her daughter’s addictive lemon cookies. Kickass Niece (who kicks ass in school, social justice, taekwondo, soccer, and baking) was apparently forbidden from making those cookies too often when the rest of the household stopped fitting into their clothes.

I hit Kickass Niece up for the recipe. She told me it was basically any sugar cookie recipe modified with extra sugar and two lemons. (My version of this recipe is at the end of this post.) I got to work.

The cookies came out super lemony (I suspect East Coast lemons are puny compared to ours).

Andy and Baby D tested them for me. They both shrugged.

Andy: “They’re good.”

Baby D: “They’re okay.”

I asked, “Where do they rank compared to my other cookies?”

Baby D said, “My cookies are the best, then chocolate chip, then maple rugelach, then chocolate cookies with white chips, then the cream cheese sugar cookies, then the candy cane and chocolate meringues, then these.”

Andy said, “The chocolate cookies are first, then D’s cookies, then chocolate chip, sugar cookies, then maple rugelach, then these.”

“So they’re last?!”

Baby D shook his head and said, “No, the oatmeal cookies with cranberries or raisins are last. Or the Berger cookies.”

Andy said, “No, the candy cane and chocolate meringues are last. DEAD LAST.” (Andy thinks chocolate and mint together are the devil.)

I sighed and wondered if I should have made different cookies—until I realized that Baby D was stealing the just “okay” lemon cookies off the cooling rack every chance he got. Cookie casualties reached the double digits before I started squirting him with the cat’s water bottle.

The lemon cookies didn’t look very impressive (even though I picked the prettiest ones for the party platter). But only a handful remained at the end of the evening. As we were leaving, I offered the remainder to the mom of one of Baby D’s classmates.

The mom said, “Actually, I think I will. Olivia’s got a cold and these might cheer her up.”

Her friend piped up with, “Oh, and I’ll take some for Janet.”

Olivia’s mom eyed her friend skeptically and said, “Janet?”

“You know, my imaginary friend who will get just as many cookies as your daughter.”

Olivia’s mom gasped in outrage and said, “I really am taking these for Olivia!”

“Suuuuuure,” said the friend.

We laughed and made our exit with an empty platter—which outraged Baby D, especially when he learned that we’d sent the last of the cookies home to Olivia.

He may even have sent Olivia an angry text about her eating the last of “his” cookies.

To which she responded: “What cookies?”

Olivia’s mom is so busted.

Lemony SoCal Sugar Cookies

Since folks on Instagram asked for the recipe:

Lemony SoCal Sugar Cookies (aka Kickass Niece’s Cookies)

  • 2½ cups (318 grams) all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 3/4 tsp salt (I used kosher salt ground finer with mortar and pestle)
  • 2 sticks (226 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 2 cups (400 grams) granulated sugar, plus ½ cup (100 grams) for rolling
  • Zest and juice of 2 large lemons (maybe 3 if you are using puny East Coast lemons)
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a large bowl, use an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment on medium-high speed to beat the butter and 2 cups sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the lemon zest and juice and beat an additional minute. Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla, and beat until combined. Gradually beat in the flour mixture.

Pour the remaining 1/2 cup sugar into a shallow pan or bowl. Using a small (1 tbsp) spring loaded ice-cream scoop, scoop out individual pieces of dough, drop them into the sugar, and roll them around until they are coated with sugar and roughly ball shaped. Place the dough balls on the prepared baking sheets, spacing at least 2 inches apart—these cookies will spread and flatten considerably as they bake.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the edges brown. (If you like softer, chewy cookies, cook less. Spouse prefers more caramelized and wanted them even browner on the edges.) Cool for cookies for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days, assuming you don’t have a ravenous child who eats them all off the rack.

Dogless (#365)

We had never lived in our house without a dog. The night the owners of our current house accepted our offer, we got our first dog. Woofie came with us to the housing inspection. In less than six months, we’d gotten Woofie a buddy named Fey. Dogs were incorporated into our lifestyle from the start.

They prewashed our dishes, which was especially handy with egg yolk.

They made sure we got exercise: 2-6 miles daily.

They helped us meet our neighbors. (To this day, I generally know the names of all the dogs in the neighborhood. Their owners’ names? No idea.)

They guarded our house and saved us money on alarms and utility bills. If the dogs were home, we could leave the windows open when we were out.

They gave us a handy excuse to leave awkward dinners or parties: “Gotta get home and let out the dogs before Bad Things Happen.”

The dogs helped entertain and raise Baby D, as well as ensuring he had a very robust immune system.

Even in Los Angeles, I could walk those dogs at any hour without an ounce of fear. Only the most desperate, hopeful dog-lovers would approach me and my 160 pounds of canines. (When they did approach, it always made Woofie’s day.)

No TV show was ever as funny as watching their battles over water bottles or tug toys (which generally ended in Woofie dragging Fey around the yard as she hung onto said toy). We spent many summer evenings on our swing in the backyard laughing over their antics.

They were family, whether snuggling with us on the couch at night or counter surfing relentlessly during the day.

And we lost them both to different cancers within a year-and-a-half of each other.

I took losing Woofie hard. So did our Boss Cat. While Fey had guarded her yard all day, Woofie spent much of the day inside, playing with Boss Cat or getting attention from me. I kept expecting to hear his claws on the hardwood floor, or feel his muzzle lift my arm when I paid too much attention to the computer screen.

Boss Cat tried to play with Fey, but Fey was a sensitive German Shepherd mix. When Boss Cat batted her in the face, Fey barked and snapped. A normal cat would have fled. Boss Cat glared and hit Fey with her right paw so hard that the WHAP reverberated through the house. Fey—who had vanquished multiple loose pit bulls, a Tibetan Shepherd mix, and a Rhodesian ridgeback—winced and slunk away. Without a canine playmate, Boss Cat consoled herself with food, gaining a pound after Woofie’s demise.

Andy took Fey’s death hardest. She was his obedient girl who loved to jump on the couch and have him pet her face after he got home from work. Andy consoled himself with Boss Cat, who allowed cuddles and head bunting nightly.

*****

Our dogless house was a quieter place. Less mess. Less money spent at the vet. No need to hurry home from Baby D’s soccer tournaments. It was much easier (and cheaper!) to hire the girls down the block to feed Boss Cat than to find a reliable dog sitter to stay in our house when we traveled.

We closed and locked all our windows up when we left, returning to a house that was a veritable SoCal sauna.

We had to throw out leftover food and waste water rinsing away egg yolks.

I still went for early morning walks, but my only companion was Pokemon Go. Sometimes I would see a big dog and run over, cooing, “Oh my GOD! She’s so cute! Can I say hi?! I have a venison treat in my pocket in case she had allergies is that okay?!”

I had become the desperate dog stalker.

We took care of a friend of a friend’s dog for a few days. Boss Cat hated that dog on sight. She nearly tore out a window screen trying to escape the house and refused to come into the living room until the dog went home.

I told Andy, “I guess if we want another dog, it would have to have Boss Cat’s approval.”

“You want another dog? You’re the one that always goes on about how you have to train it and do all the work.”

“Yeah, but…our house doesn’t feel right. Every morning, going up the hill, I think, ‘This is such a waste of a walk. Some rescue dog out there would be loving this.'”

“We’d have to find a dog that is good with cats and kids.”

“But it has to be a rescue dog that needs a home. A big dog.”

“Not over eighty pounds,” Andy declared. “I need be able to carry the dog ten years from now when it’s old and sick.”

“It’ll have to be trained. And not a puppy. I am not up for spending hours on dog training again.”

“So we’re looking for a dog that’s good with cats, good with kids, is big but under 80 pounds, is young, but not a puppy and fully trained?”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “We’re probably not getting another dog for a while, are we?”

And we didn’t.

Until I found the Tank.

The Coffee Maker (#364)

I did not grow up drinking caffeine. At my dad’s house, there was only hot tea (usually Bigelows, usually herbal) on cold game nights. At my mom’s house, there was coffee every morning, made on the stove in a cheap, old fashioned percolator. That coffee smelled so good that I would occasionally try a sip, only to gag at the bitterness.

Back then, when the world was so new and all, we didn’t have fancy Peppermint Mocha Crème Brulé Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccinos to make coffee palatable. Since I was an insomniac, I never needed coffee to stay awake. Tea remained my drink of choice (except when laced with lead in misogynistic ceremonies).

Andy, my Chinese American husband, grew up with tea during dim sum, hot tea with meals (even in Hawaii!), and the devil’s brew known as foo chai when he was sick. The he went to Starbucks—I mean, Seattle for a semester of college.

By the time I met Andy, he brewed a ten cup carafe of very strong coffee every morning. He also had his own coffee and coffee maker at work.

In grad school, I worked in a restaurant. While staff wasn’t allowed to have food, we were allowed as much coffee we wanted—including milk and cream. So I’d have a tablespoon of coffee and a mug of cream while working (don’t judge, in my hungry family, we NEVER turned down free food).

By the time Andy and I moved in together, I could manage a mug of Andy’s coffee in the morning…as long half of the mug was half-and-half.

Then we had Baby D and I was up at 4:30 AM. Sometimes I needed a second serving of coffee.

Eventually, Andy started making my coffee milk and leaving it on the counter. I thought it was very nice of him, though I was constantly reminding him to use a coffee mug, rather than my favorite teacups. My friend M sent me a hand-thrown mug with a fall leaf, but Andy rarely used it. Instead, he’d pick the smallest mug available.

I finally caught on: “Hey! You’re hoarding the coffee! That’s why you tried to use my little teacups and you won’t use the big mug!”

“What? No, of course not, honey. I know you like the little mugs and you do have a little mouth and you don’t want to spill,” he protested. UNCONVINCINGLY.

“But it’s fall and I want the coffee in my big fall mug that has the rim I like!”

“But when I give you that mug you never drink it all!”

“That’s because I can’t before Baby D needs something, or the cat throws up, or a dog has to go out, or there’s a racoon in the yard, or whatever! And then my coffee gets cold and it gets a skin.”

“If you just drank coffee black, you could reheat it, like me.”

“Oh my God, I get, at most, 2 cups of coffee. That means you get eight. HOW IS EIGHT CUPS OF COFFEE NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU?!”

Andy’s coffee from Costco

Andy had no response…besides finding the darkest, bitterest roast on the planet and grinding more of it to make his coffee even stronger.

 Since we’ve been married, he’s gone through four coffee makers and five grinders. The knob of the last grinder fell off, but since the grinder still worked, my frugal husband used pliers in place of the knob.

For our anniversary this year, I printed out reviews of the best combination grinder/coffee makers—all with 12 cup coffee carafes— and put them in his birthday card. I told Andy to treat himself to his favorite. It sounds lazy, but while I’m fairly ignorant about making coffee, I’m not stupid enough to pick out coffee equipment for a coffee snob.  Also, our kitchen was being repaired after water damage and there was nowhere to actually put a coffee maker. (Andy was living on Starbucks.)

When the kitchen was finished, Andy ignored all my reviews and bought himself a new grinder and an expensive De’Longhi coffeemaker.

“It looks fancy,” I told him. “But the carafe only holds ten cups! You sure you didn’t want a twelve cup one?”

“The De’longhi only comes with a ten cup carafe. But look! It has a milk steamer. You can have cappuccinos or lattes.”

“But I wanted YOU to have the coffee maker that that would give you all the coffee you wanted. It’s not supposed to be about me!”

Andy shrugged. “It’ll be fine.”

My cappuccino with one of Andy’s mochi doughnuts.

The next morning, after a lot of noise in the kitchen, Andy presented me with a frothy cappuccino—in my big fall mug. It was deliciously mellow, not at all like his usual bitter brew.

“This is amazing! Thank you, honey.” Andy beamed, but I still felt badly that he’d gotten me a gift with his gift. “Listen, you don’t have to do this all the time. Just leave the instruction manual out and I’ll figure out how to use the frother and steam my own milk.”

Andy did not leave out the manual. When I called him at work, he said it was in his file cabinet. It was not.

I searched up videos and instructions online. The next time I got up before Andy, I frothed up my milk and added it to some coffee from the carafe.

It was bitter as all hell. Stronger than the coffee from our previous coffee maker for sure. I was still making faces when Andy hurried into the kitchen.

“This is bad, honey,” I told him. “I dunno why it doesn’t taste like your cappuccinos.”

“You used MY coffee?!” Andy looked both outraged…and guilty.

My espresso bag.

“What do you—what coffee have you been making ME?” I whipped open a cabinet. “Is there a can of instant or General Foods International Coffees in here?”

“I would never! This new coffee maker also does espressos, so I make you your own shot for your cappuccino.” He pulled down a brown bag and showed it to me.

“You mean you’ve been secretly making me different coffee? So you can have all ten cups to yourself? While I was feeling bad you got a smaller carafe in order to get the machine with the milk frother?!”

“But don’t you like the cappuccinos better than my coffee?”

“That is…not the point!” I stalked off to walk the dog. And also to complain to my Lawyer Sister about Andy’s duplicitous coffee-switching.

After she quit laughing, Lawyer Sis said, “I don’t know why you’re complaining. Your husband makes you your own special cappuccino every morning. Take the win.”

“Yes, but if I get up first, then I have to wait for my coffee.”

“Oh, boo-hoo. Other people have to pay money and drive to Starbucks for cappuccinos. My husband doesn’t even know how to make coffee. He drinks Dr. Pepper. FOR BREAKFAST.”

I shuddered and conceded.

Andy promised to show me how to make my own shot of espresso. I have yet to take him up on his offer.

Perhaps because I am also enjoying my new coffee maker.

Cappuccino holiday style!

Hurriquake (#360)

We had a little excitement over the weekend. Historic excitement, even.

Southern California has its share of disasters. When I moved west, I knew I was trading in hurricanes, tornadoes, ice storms, blizzards, and locusts (or at least cicadas) for earthquakes and wildfires. (My son Dalton thinks this was a shit trade; he is green with envy every winter, when his cousins get “snow days” and have no school.)

My partner Andy thought he was leaving hurricanes when he moved from Hawaii. You know why? Because meteorologists have long said Southern California’s coastal waters were too cold for a hurricane to survive and the winds send storms back out to the Pacific.

Last week, Hurricane Hilary made a beeline for us. Thanks to the fossil fuel industry’s greed, the Pacific Ocean has warmed up quite a bit.

Now, technically, Hilary was downgraded to a tropical storm before crossing over from Mexico into the United States. So, yes, we still haven’t officially had a hurricane (let me get that out before white bros start “well actually-ing” the crap out of my comments section). But SoCal and its Maine-like water temperatures were supposed to be relatively safe from tropical storms, too.

Fuck you, Exxon.

Next up on our bingo card: ice-storm, probably. Courtesy of Shell and all the white men insisting on driving jacked up pickup trucks to prove their toxic masculinity. May all y’all drive those trucks into the rising waters and get swept away in a rush of double irony.

Even though meteorologists were always very clear that Hilary would only be a tropical storm by the time she reached us, a tropical storm still meant way more rainfall than SoCal usually gets. 4 inches of rain is a pittance on the East Coast. In SoCal, we get maybe 10 inches a year—4 inches is a DELUGE! In our inland deserts? Death Valley gets 2 inches annually.

So on Friday, Dalton and I cleaned out the rain gutters. (He’s young enough that climbing on the roof is exciting, plus he’s lighter than his parents and less likely to damage the shingles, plus didn’t you know conservatives are bringing back child labor?) After the city cut down the seven trees around our house, gutter-cleaning was far easier than in past years, but in the rain gutters Dalton discovered dirt, 3 drill bits, one entire rusted drill nose/ bit, and several metal cylinders (probably from our solar installation last year).

Meanwhile, Andy reapplied caulk around the roof vents. He tucked away all his pots and gardening supplies in the garage and shed. Any light furniture, yard signs, and cushions went into the garage.

We were ready for the worst, even as we watched Hilary’s projected storm track move further and further from the coast.

Normally, we get strong afternoon winds blowing in from the ocean. Saturday, those winds died. Andy informed me that this was typical pre-hurricane weather: hot, humid, and still.

SoCal’s nighttime temperatures normally drop as much as 20 degrees, thanks to our lack of humidity.

Sunday morning, as Hilary approached, was even hotter than Saturday afternoon. When I checked the doppler, the majority of the rain was passing to the east of us.

Occasionally the sky would spit, but we didn’t get light rain until about 11 AM.

It didn’t cool off a darn thing.

This was my phone yesterday.

At about 2:40 PM, the rainfall got heavier. As I shifted in my chair to look out the window, the house seemed to move. I had a split second to wonder if the barometric pressure changes were giving me vertigo before my phone started screaming “Emergency Alert!”

One flooding alert for Hilary.

And one for a 5.5 earthquake.

As SoCal social media alternated between gleeful “#Hurriquake” and gloomy “#FML,” thankfully someone in Los Angeles office of the National Weather Service quickly tweeted that a tsunami was NOT expected, post-earthquake.

Alas for #Hurriquanami.

The quake did no damage to us, since the epicenter was far to the north. (No injuries or serious damage, just a lot of broken glass in Ojai.) The worst storm systems went around us on both sides of the Los Angeles basin, proving once again that geography has an impact on weather. We finally got some cooler winds and heavier rain by about 7 PM.

Our area got about 2.5″ of rain in exchange for a few tree limbs down and loss of power. I invited neighbors to come by and recharge at our house (thanks to our powerwall), but power was restored before anyone got that desperate.

Palm Springs and Coachella Valley were far less fortunate.

Several school districts canceled classes today.

Our school district, however, is still on summer break.

Dalton is rather bitter about this: “That was probably the best chance to have school canceled for weather!”

“Give it time, dude. Our climate is heading for extremes. You could still get a snow day.”

“That will NEVER happen in LA, Mom.”

“They said the same thing about hurricanes once, buddy.”