Jake's nemesis in the garage

Jake is our dark golden retriever. He is almost 5. He is fluffy, handsome, and happy. He has huge paws and walks like a tiger.

The first thing I hear in the morning is his happy tail sweeping around, hitting everything on its path. He would search around the house for the ball, his toys, or a shoe before getting his breakfast. His most favorite thing is fetching his orange ball over and over again.

Jake has a nemesis in the garage. See, our washer of three years, though a new model, shakes and makes loud noises when it's in use. Whenever I do laundry, Jake would stay at the patio, and barking nonstop at the garage. I figure he must be barking at the washer.

Today we did 3 loads of laundry, and Jake was very rowdy all day. We compensated the dogs with more milk bones and lots of love.

Flawless skin

One time I went shopping at Nordstrom, that is, in the days when I still had time to go shopping. I was riding the escalator down to the main floor, and saw a big advertisement sign hanging off the high ceiling, saying: flawless skin, and next to it a young model showing off her beautiful face.

It caught my attention for a flash of a second. Who didn't want flawless skin? Then I realized it was an advertisement for the Channel cosmetics. So to the cosmetics business, flawless skin means covering the flaws of the skin. For sure some products do a better job than others, and the effectiveness depends on the pricing.

I don't know about you, but to me, it is ironic and a tad manipulative.

Guy Ritchie overload

Last night we watched two Guy Ritchie movies back to back: "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" and then "Snatch."

I liked the "Sherlock Holmes" movies, but these two were Ritchie's debute movies, which helped him rise to fame.

As much as I enjoyed and appreciate them, watching two intense British gangster movies was challenging.

First, I had to sort out the who's who in different groups of intertwined activities, which involve mainly the top dogs getting rich via killing, gambling, and robbing ...

Secondly, unlike mainstream Hollywood gangster movies, in which characters don't talk much, except for Pulp Fiction, I guess, the Guy Ritche movies had a lot of dialogs. The British accent made it more difficult to follow.

Thirdly, these two movies are visually bloody and violent. At the end all the bad guys got killed, while those who innocently stirred things up walked away free.

At least these were my first impressions of these 2 movies after the double feature.

The stories are very tightly written, and the dialogs are interesting. I can see myself watching them again.

Movies and quotes

Some movies have more quotable quotes, substance, than others. Classic black and white movies have excellent dialogs! Some movies are full of quotes, so it's impossible to enumerate them. Here are some movie quotes off the top of my head. They may not be exact quotes, but you get the idea.

The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer

Tommy: I'm a square in Susan's social circle.

She said: He is like a heavy meal, it stays with you for a long long time.
He said: what about me?
She said: orange juice.

Susan: uncle Ted, let's dance.
Uncle Ted: Susan, I found your youth exuberance very tiring.

Susan: Oh, this is the most wonderful day of my life. I just want this moment to stay still.
Uncle Matt: well you can stay still after I seat down.

Dick Tracy

I have thought, I have a thought... It's gone.

An affair to remember

I'll just take my ego for a walk.

Gift shop

Have you ever wondered the purpose of a gift shop? This must be another one of those lifelong misconceptions: every time I go to a gift shop, whether its in a museum or in Chinatown, I always look for things for myself. It seldom crosses my mind that the purpose of a gift shop is for you to buy gifts for others.

That is one of the reason why holiday shopping is so challenging for me, I am always too busy looking for things for myself.

Perhaps if I keep in mind the purpose of a gift shop or gift shopping, it's help me be more focused and efficient.

Drawing the line on pain

I had a discovery yesterday after my yoga class with Jean, and I shared it with my physical therapist today despite the possibility of him getting upset at me.

I have not stop practicing yoga or going to classes since I had this neck pain. In my personal practice, I avoided poses that hurt my neck or shoulders. However, most flow classes include a few down dogs, chaturanga dandasana, and planks.

Lacking the insight, I kept doing those poses in the class. I even tried doing handstand prep two weeks ago. That's when I realized that certain yoga poses actually contributed to my slow recovery.

Yesterday's yoga class included handstand, but I took the option of doing legs up on the wall instead, and I came to child's pose on almost all of the down dogs. I felt so good and free after the class. Not only that I had a great practice with a good class and great teacher, I learned to better take care of myself!

I draw a line when it comes to pain. So no handstand or even down dog for me for a while. Luckily, I already have some good sequences without those poses.

Live and learn.

Business suit, lipstick and yoga pants

One of the weird things about going to technical conferences is, usually during breaks, when people race to the restroom, the women's restroom is almost always nearly empty, while our male counterparts are waiting in long lines. At least, those were the observation and amusement in the early days of my career.

I had the rare chance to wear my blue suit today for an event at work. It was so unlike me to wear a suit, I felt out of place. I rushed to work early in the morning, and barely had enough time to put on some lipstick before rushing into the building. I left my lipstick in my pocket, while reminding myself not to pull it out in front of respectable people.

After a long and eventful day - shaking hands with senior execs; getting a glimpse of the CEO, and yes, we did treat her like a queen at the lab -I went to teach my very first yoga class at a studio. It was a good class. Everyone came out refreshed, relaxed and beaming, which pleased me.

After class, I walked out of the yoga studio with my yoga outfit and business suit on top to keep warm. I was slightly embarrassed by the mix-matched outfit, but thankfully, it was very dark so nobody could see me that well.

What a day, and how I survived. Now it's time to let everything go and check out for the day.

It's the tea

Over the last 4 years, I've been going to my favorite yoga teachers evening classes at least once a week. It feel like going home and I feel safe in her class.

Once a while, I would email her to tell her how much I enjoyed the class, because I really did. For a few times I told her I was especially energized after the classes, and sometime even had a hard time falling asleep at night, and she was quite puzzled. I just thought it was some powerful yoga that I practiced.

Just recently I discovered the reason. Those times I has trouble sleeping after the evening class, I also went to have Chinese food for dinner and they gave me tea.

When I explained to my teacher and told her: "it's the tea, not yoga," She laughed and was relieved.

A four year mystery solved.

Two scoops and an extra sausage

Since I had my neck pain 3 months ago, my right shoulder became very weak to the point when it was difficult to carry anything or cook.

One evening we made Kung Pao chicken for dinner. As usual we put loads of vegetables in it to make it more healthy. We cut up mushroom, bell peppers, celery, onion, and chicken. With Jack's help, the preparation was a breeze.

I fully cooked the chicken, then put all of the chopped vegetables in the wok. Then it became too heavy for me to stir because of my hurt shoulder, so I assigned Jack to stir-fried the food, and I cleaned the dishes.

I told jack to go ahead and add the spicy sauce but "don't put in too much please." When I turned around, I saw that he put 2 extra scoops of spicy sauce in the food when I was not looking. He looked at me and smiled, and I said: "better put in as much as I want before she catches me." He nodded.

Another night, when we made pasta sauce, I told him to only put in one sausage because the ground turkey was quite a lot of meat. He put the second sausage in the sauce anyway when I was not looking. When I saw the sausage gone, I smiled and said to him: "you can say what you want, and I'll do what I want."  He smiled and nodded.

Isn't it fun when you can finish each other's sentences?

The shortest relationships

What do you think qualifies as a shortest relationship?

I have one in mind that we encounter almost everyday, but you may not think of it that way.

When I drive, I feel that my relationship with the other drivers on the road can be the short relationships.

Sometimes, the other drivers pass me to get ahead, and I learn to accept that, and gladly let them do so, because I don't want someone to be tailgating me anyway, especially on one-lane mountain roads.

Some other times, the relationship with other drivers can be quite harmonious. We keep our respectful distances, from the front to the back and stay away from each others' blind spots. We should be good drivers, keep both hands on the steering-wheel and be observant to the surroundings. At that time, driving can be pleasant and safe.

Defensive driving is like an art. It is an art to learn to deal with others within the society with many different personalities and from all walks of lives, and not being frustrated or hurt by others' ruthlessness. It is an art to accept and adapt to situations without getting oneself out of balance. It is an art to let go of one's ego and judgement occasionally. It's also an art to be able to recognize the smallest goodness and celebrate it.

Life is an art. How do we build healthy relationships and get rid of bad ones? It seems to be a life-long lesson, and we have our whole lives to practice and be better at it.

Quotable quote

I spent a few hours struggling to find, reset and consolidate my Apple ID, iCloud ID, and all the various passwords. The fact is, some of these IDs were rarely used, so I could never remember them.

At the end I was able to finally sync up all of my accounts, but I was quite annoyed for how troublesome it was.

 In my frustration, I said: "If you want to remember something, you better write it down." All of a sudden it sounded quite philosophical, so I chucked.