Dogs know more than you think

I have a dog, Fat-Chai, who taught me today that he has a much better understanding of the world than I ever knew. People will have you believe that dogs are not capable of anything more than the simple feelings such as happy, fearful, and excited. Supposedly they can't feel sad because that would require them to understand that something bad has happened.

Well Fat-Chai has been moping around the house all day today. In fact, he's been sitting in the small bathroom for most of the afternoon. There is no blankets or pillows in this room and the floor is cold and hard. Also, he never sits in this room, which makes me fairly certain he's unhappy.

This morning, I took Fat-Chai to the vet with his brother, but I don't think this is the cause of his current attitude. They were litter mates, growing up together for the past three years and both were very healthy. They knew today's appointment involved needles, so needless to say, they weren't excited to go. Fat-Chai was a little stressed out during his appointment but when it was all over, he morphed into a happy, smiling dog - his normal demeanor.

As soon as we opened the door to leave the vet, a disaster happened. Over the course of five minutes, Fat-Chai's brother broke from his leash, ran into traffic, was brought back to the same room at the vet's office where he just received his check-up - but this time, he never left the room. Fat-Chai was with me the entire time. He saw what happened. He did not have a simple reaction to this string of events.

I sat with him while we waited for my wife to arrive. He paced. He pooped indoors (he'd never do this normally, he's very well trained to go outside). He kept scratching his ears until they turned bright red. He kept rolling on the floors until the skin around his eyes was raw. I can say for certain that Fat-Chai was in shock. In fact, he still is - he's sitting in the bathroom again. The bathroom was his brother's favorite spot to sit.

Wife-ism #1

As is the stereotype, I am a guy and tend to forget things soon after they happen. This is a problem for me whenever I get into an argument with my wife; it's as if I am invited to a sword fight and have completely forgotten my sword.

Since my wife speaks English as a second language, she often has trouble with pronunciation. Again, these are things I make fun of when they happen but forget soon afterwards. To remember, I will keep this slip-ups in blog form.

Usually, it's my wife that pronounces things wrong that grabs my attention. Sometimes, however, she misunderstands what I say; this usually happens when I use uncommon words, like "abusive". This morning I jokingly referred to my wife as abusive, since she literally kicked me out of the shower. She instantly became offended because she thought I called her "obese". I'm not even sure what to make of that.

She wasn't upset when she realized what I actually called her.

I just had cheese that smells like feet

I arrived home yesterday from my trip to California, only to find that the cheese that we bought wasn't packed. There were two cheeses that we purchased at a Cowgirl Creamery in Sonoma. The first was Humboldt Fog, a ripened goat cheese made by Cypress Grove Chevre. The other was Oma, a cheese made by a tiny Vermont cheese grower Vonn Trapp, who utilizes the Jasper Hill Creamery to age their cheese.

For a few weeks now, I've had a strong urge to try Jasper Hill cheese. The idea is a good one: build a huge facility and rent space to small cheese makers. It allows small companies to exist, which is good for the local economy, but more importantly, it adds creativity into the world of cheese, which is good for all cheese consumers.

Not knowing much about cheese, but knowing about Jasper Hills and about a cheese that is washed in lambic beer, I asked for the cheese and ended up with Oma, which happens to be aged at Jasper Hills and has a fantastic flavor, but alas, is not bathed in lambic beer. I can't say I am disappointed for trying Oma and will be on the lookout for it in the Twin Cities.

Ironically, I found the cheese I was looking for to begin with - Winnimere - and was not a fan of it. The cheese itself tastes somewhat bland, it kinda smells like feet, and the rind is extremely bitter, but I guess most people don't eat that part.

California is Amazing

I spent the long weekend in Northern California, and although I have visited here several times, I always come away impressed with the scenery.

I traveled instead to the wine regions of Northern California: Napa, Santa Cruz, and Sonoma. These areas are ridiculously beautiful, even if you have no interest in Wine (I might even post pictures later). If you are a wine person and haven't been to these places, then holy crap, why haven't you?

Everyone knows Napa, but have you tried the Robert Mondavi reserve wines? Wonderful wines and (relatively) cheap. My favorite part was the final tasting at Mondavi where I could tasste the 2005 Stags Leap Reserve Cab against the 2006 Oakville Reserve Cab. These growing regions are maybe 10 miles apart and the difference between the two is very discernible - it's like a wet baseball mitt versus a dusty mocha-like wine, respectively.

Santa Cruz has two of the highest quality wineries right now (IMHO) and I went to a tasting at one of them: Ridge's Monte Bello vineyard. Again, even if you don't like wine, you should go here. The area is located at the top of a mountain in Cupertino and has a free picnic area. Next to the picnic area is a garden that overlooks the valley, allowing you to see all the way to the San Francisco Bay. A gorgeous view and the wines were pretty good too.

The highlight of the weekend, though, was Sonoma. If you like oysters, cheese, baked goods, and/or wine, you really want to go here. We grabbed a few dozen freshly harvested oysters, an amazing strawberry/apple/peach pie, and some wonderful cheeses (more on that in a minute) and headed to the beach to eat. After we ate, we went to Copain Vineyards, which just might be my new favorite vineyard - the Kaiser en Haute Pinot Noir was that good.

So about the cheese. We went to the Cowgirl Creamery in Sonoma and found a cheese made at Jasper Creek in Vermont. Jasper Creek is an aging facility that allows small cheese makers to have a sustainable business, which provides consumers with some incredible cheeses. We found a cheese called Oma, made by the vonn Trapp Farmstead and it is de.lic.cious. It's washed in lambic beer - need I say more? We bought some more cheeses from the creamery and they are all outstanding. The cheese and the creamery are highly recommended.

When I post about wines, I plan to append tasting notes that I leave on grapestories.com. In the meantime, you can just look up the profile "dtodd" on said website to see the notes.

First (and hopefully not last) Post

I am vacationing in Northern California this week. I'm not sure why, but I always have the urge to blog when I travel even though the urge may be to blog about non-travel things. I don't know how many blogs I have started over the past 5 years, but I typically lose interest after a week. I expect the same result this time, but my plan will be a bit different.

In the past, I always tried to focus my blog on a specific topic, but no more. This blog will have lots of unrelated stuff in here and I have no intention of weaving a red thread through it all. At this point, I think I will use the following topics/tags for my posts, in order of what I assume I will talk about the most:

1 - Drink; this refers mostly to wine and beer, since I have had a fascination of both for over ten years. Also, I have way more than a week's worth of wine in my cellar, so even if I lose interest in blogging, I shouldn't lose interest in finishing off my wine and commenting on it.

2 - Food; my wife is really into cooking. She has at least 100 cookbooks (no, this is not an exaggeration) and her cooking abilities have greatly improved since we married 3 years ago. I would expect this to become a large part of my discussion because, well, I eat her food and I try to pair my wines with her cooking. Also, eating out will be included here.

3 - Exercise; I often become obsessed with running. This is because running is the easiest way to build up endurance for what I really like to do: bike and snowboard. Unfortunately, the time commitments for biking and snowboarding doesn't allow me to do them too often, so I end up running for the sake of running. I would expect all topics to be discussed at some point.

4 - FOB; stands for "fresh off the boat". My wife is a foreigner and I've been letting the fact that she's a FOB slide for far too long. When we were leaving for our vacation, she came to me and asked if she should bring "sneakers". After a few minutes of apparent confusion, she went to the kitchen, grabbed a Snickers bar, and presented it to me. She obviously meant "Snickers". This is the crap I have to live with, and it will be documented.

5 - Travel; this would have been more important a year ago when I worked for an airline and could travel more easily. I still do travel (after all, I'm in CA this week), but I have no idea how much this topic will come up. Still, I feel the need to include it to keep me motivated to blog.

6 - Random; just like the Animal Kingdoms use "worms" to describe any animal that doesn't fit into any other category, I'll use it for my posts as well.


I have plenty in the archives that I plan to re-post. I think this blog can last at least a month...