Hunter Mountain

I haven't been skiing since middle school, but a few friends found a package that includes transportation and ski rental to Hunter Mountain, in the Catskills. It was towards the end of the season, so not as many people were going. The bus picked me up about a block from my house, at 7:00 am. On the bus, they had bagels and water, and it was about 2.5 hours to the mountains. They play movies along the way, but most people are asleep.

I had thought about cancelling, because I hate the cold and never was that good at winter sports. I had regretted signing up, thinking that I had just succumbed to peer pressure, and would just be miserable and shivering on the mountain while attempting to navigate the bunny slope. On the contrary, I actually had an amazing time. I even left lunch early so I could go back.

Notably, I fell, quite badly, numerous times. I think it may be kind of like when you go to the beach as a child, and you don't feel the iciness of the water because you are just so excited to be at the beach. I didn't realize how bad the falls were until later. It was a fairly warm day, and the sun was out, and the snow was, for the most part, powdery instead of icy. I'm surprised at how easily it came back to me--like riding a bike. I went on the only beginner trail that was open, probably around 10 times.

Since my friend were taking a break, I met a lot of interesting people while on the ski lift. Since I don't ski often, I didn't have any ski gear. Some kid asked me, "you don't use goggles when you ski??" I said that I do not, and he replied, "Wow, thug life!" I told him no, not really, I am actually just unprepared. Since I didn't actually have ski wear, when I fell, my jacket would slide up my back so that my bare back would end up on the snow. Of course, my clothes got kind of wet. Luckily I brought a change. Once, I fell and slid so far that the key to my locker fell out of my pocket and got lost in the snow. The staff were really nice about that though, and I didn't have to pay a penalty.

Some tips that were helpful to me, that other skiers shared, were to lean your weight forward to prevent yourself from falling, and to shift your weight side to side to try to slow down. People on the mountain were pretty nice. When I fell, some nice children would help me bring my ski poles, since I had a habit of sliding quite far away from them.

I think next year, I will try to go a bit earlier in the season. It was nice because it was not crowded at all, and it was a bit warmer, but I think there would be less slush when it is colder. It would also be nice to have more trails open.

Rocky

Last weekend, my dog passed away. It isn't really travel related, but I thought I should write something about him in any case.

As a child, I loved animals. My dad grew up on a farm, so he loved animals too, and the two of us would bring home random animals and my mom would get angry, but then accept that they were part of the family and give them a Chinese name in addition to their English one. Throughout my life, I have had hamsters, fish, guinea pigs, birds, hermit crabs, a turtle, a rabbit, and finally, two dogs. We got my dog Rocky in high school, out of a whim. We were in a mall, and I saw a little black dog in the pet store. A friend of mine said that statistically, black dogs are bought and adopted less, because people tend to prefer white or light colored dogs. I don't know if that is actually true, but in any case I loved Rocky right away. He was fluffy and had no tail (it might have been cropped). I normally don't do this, but I asked the pet store owner if we could play with it. My dad was with us, so he said yes. My mom said, "that's not a dog, that's a cat." He was so cute, only two pounds at the time. I didn't think we would be able to take him home, even though my dad and I both really liked him. However, my brother, who for a long time was against having dogs because he "didn't like dog poop," said he wanted it too. Since my mom has a special soft spot for my brother, she agreed.

We took him home, and set up a space for him in the kitchen. As it turned out, he is a dog that gets scared really easily, and hates to be at home by himself. We ended up getting a second dog to keep him company. It's too bad that they didn't get along that well, but I think he was a lot better with another soul in the house. Later in life, when we moved to San Francisco, we moved the dogs one by one. He spent some time alone while my dad was at work, and when he came back, he found that the door had been destroyed from Rocky scratching it. In addition to being alone, Rocky was really afraid of high pitched noises, and the crackling sound of the fireplace. When we started using our fireplace, he would be in the other room, huddled against our pet rabbit for protection. He became really scared of flies, because we had an electric fly swatter. The noise scared him for some reason, and he began to associate the buzzing of flies with that noise, even after we stopped using the electronic fly swatter. He would hide and shiver whenever he heard a fly, and someone would have to wrap a blanket around him and hold him. My mom said, "people love pets because they make you feel important. You feel special because they depend on you to protect them from stupid things."

I had been read somewhere that we should all treat our partners with the same forgiveness that we treat our pets. Our love for our pets is not conditioned on good behavior, and we are so tolerant of their mistakes--we don't refuse to pet them because they tore up our shoes, for example. Rocky used to get car sick, and throw up when we went for rides; once he threw up in my brother's lap, and for a long time my brother proclaimed that he did not like Rocky because of that incident (I think Rocky might have also pooped in his room).

The vet said that Rocky would grow up to be 10 pounds, but he ended up being about 30. Our theory is that maybe he was not treated well--we found out that he came from a puppy farm. I am so happy that we have Rocky, but I will think very carefully about where I get dogs, if I do get dogs again, in the future. His fear of certain things, and also how he was so skinny when we got him, led us to believe that perhaps he did not have a good life where he had been raised. In any case, Rocky was on diet dog food for most of his life, because of his weight. He would eat everything--orange peels, random bugs, poop, grass..once he ate a banana slug, and the slime was all over his face. He used to like to roll around in stinky things too, and he would wipe his face on the carpet in my parents' room.

I had been devastated because I had loved Rocky so much, but my mom fed him some sausages and after that my mom was always #1, and the rest of us were probably tied in some second category. Perhaps my dad was promoted later, since they hang out a lot. He would hang out in the kitchen while anyone cooked, and gobble up any food that was dropped. It was convenient in the sense that we never had to clean anything up. Unfortunately, he also got diabetes later. After he went on insulin, he lost a lot of weight and became quite bony.

Initially, he didn't like going for walks, but he also doesn't like to be left behind. Our second dog loved walks, so he would always go. Towards the end of his life, he was blind and couldn't go out, but whenever I came home, he would want to come when I took a walk with Sandy, our other dog. He would walk very slowly, and sometimes he would fall off the curb if I got distracted and wasn't watching him. His head got a lot dirtier because he would crash into things around the house because he was blind.

Since he was half Lhasa Apso, he was accustomed to colder temperatures and very sensitive to the heat. During the summer, he would drool a lot. He didn't like to be out during the day because his black fur would heat up, so we usually walked at night. There were a few times when I took him out around noon, and it was quite bad--he would have to find a shady spot and just lie there, drooling. At night, he would sleep in my parents' bathroom, on the tiles because it is cooler there. He was punctual too. At around 9:30 every night, he would head into my parents' bedroom by himself, and go to sleep. When he passed away, he also went into my parents' bedroom, and that was where he died.

He was such a good dog. He rarely barked--for a long time I thought he didn't know how to. He never bit anyone, and he was so nice to our other dog, Sandy, and our rabbit, Flora, even though both of them were not so nice to him. He had such a sweet personality, a good temper, and was so easy going. He had been part of my life for so long, that it's hard to imagine home without him there too.  

Arlington National Cemetery and 100 Day Party

I went to Washington D.C. this past weekend, to visit my best friend. Another friend of ours joined us, and stated that he wanted to go to Arlington National Cemetery because his grandfather's ashes were there. Neither me nor my friend had been before, so we all went together. It's a very beautiful and interesting place. I didn't know that President JFK was buried there too.

There are several areas, but since we were with a relative of someone there, they gave us a temporary permit that allowed our car to drive in. Some areas are for ashes, and it actually looks a lot like the area for ashes at the Buddhist Temple that I go to. Nearby, are some more recent burials from the war in Iraq. It is really sad that a lot of them were so young. What is also interesting is that the wives are also buried there. So, we saw one grave where the grass had not grown, meaning that it must have been recently dug. The man had passed away some year ago, but his wife had passed away just a few month ago, so she was buried their too. The gravestone marks the soldier, but the back of the gravestone will have the wife's name.

On an opposite and more cheerful note, we also went to celebrate the 100 day party of a baby. It is a Korean tradition that the first 100 days of a baby's life calls for a big celebration, usually with games, where the baby is supposed to select from a bunch of items and that indicates something good for its future. My friend apparently selected noodles, which means she will live for a long time. This baby is is half Korean and half white (not sure the origin of her father), so the party was thrown by her mother's side of the family. I bought her a little onesie from UNICEF, since the proceeds are all donated to UNICEF. The party had four different types of rice cake, which is supposed to be eaten for this type of event.

On Sunday, I had brunch at B Too, which has some of the best drinks that I have had in my life. They have a bacon and bourbon bloody mary; bloody mary's are probably my favorite drink, except I try not to have too many because of the high amount of salt. They also had a hot chocolate with cream and baileys.