Happy?

Asha is still shedding but much less now! (Whew!)

Time to start gardening

We've been having such an unusual weather in Colorado this year. We've had so many gray days as if we were in the northwestern States - it was even snowed a bit last week Tuesday. We complain if it's cloudy two days in a row here. We are supposed to have more than 300 days of sunshine in this state! To contrast, I would wonder what was going on if we had sunny days three days in a row when I lived in London...

Shades of purple for the shady spot by the entrance

Anyway, the temperature all the sudden went up to 80s during the weekend, which was a quite jump from freezing, and it's finally time for gardening as we don't have to worry about the temperature dropping under 30s any more. This is my 4th year of a container gardening here in our townhouse without yard.

Flowers that love sun for the back deck

Snowstorm bacopa is great for containers. Its creeping stems with flowers will drape gracefully

Fuchsia has been one of my favorite flowers since London

All kinds of daisies for small pots on the steps by the gate

Vegetables in the Earthboxes - can't wait to have our own organic veggies!

Kent Lambert (a.k.a. Roommate)

My brother in law recently released his debut album We Were Enchanted in Japan.This is the second CD in the US after Songs The Animals Taught Us. Wanna listen to the music? Roommate

He is a video artist and a musician who leads a band called Roommate based in Chicago. Click here for the info on CDs/LPs, press quotes, shows (he is touring in Netherlands this week!), etc.!

Colum from Chicago Reader describes Kent,the band and their music.

Izakaya experience in Denver

A friend of ours took us to this hip izakaya or Japanese tapas restaurant in Denver last night.

Traditional Japanese vegetable appetizers

They shipped 10 tons of materials from Japan and 20 carpenters also came from Japan for this project worked to put them together only in 2 weeks.

Korean style short ribs, Prince Edward Island mussels and some kind of white fish on top of grilled rice ball.



Hoisin duck crostini - yum!



Izakaya Den

Mother's Day Celebration

Instead of going out for a Mother's Day lunch in Denver, we decided to go to Castlewood Canyon State Park for a picnic, which turned out to be a really nice day out.



Yogurt marinated lamb kebabs and chicken kebabs with thyme and bacon. Very delicious!

Asparagus that Kevin's Mom found while she was walking in her neighbourhood. Truly organic.

A short hike to burn off the calories after the meal. What a gorgeous day!



There were a lot of families out. After staying a long queue to get into the park, we learnt that Mother's Day is the busiest day of the year there.

What both Asha and I hate in this season

Normally it starts around the end of March every year but it finally started last week as the temperature got warmer all the sudden after the long winter...

Asha started shedding!!!

My goodness, it seems endless. It's impossible to keep up with vacuuming even though we live in a small townhouse. I can never put the vacuum away...

Let's see what we got today - She is a half the size in summer time due to the amount of hair she loses. She is actually a skinny dog!

This is a real cherry blossom viewing

A friend of mine sent me some pictures of hanami, cherry blossom viewing in Tokyo from a few weekends ago.

Cherry blossom viewing party

...it was 82F yesterday and it started snowing this afternoon. Such a Colorado weather!

Weeping Cherry in our front deck

It's finally peaked this week and having cherry blossom viewing parties 3 days in a row. It's so beautiful but it has such a short life, which makes it very special. Hope it will last till the end of this week.

Good salad

It's actually easy to make good salad at home. And the basic and the only rule is, mix any kind of greens, nuts, sliced fruits in a bowl and toss it with some vinegarette. I like arugula, spinach, mache(lamb's lettuce) and endive. Transfer it on a plate and sprincle some crumbled cheese such as goatcheese or bluecheese.

A great tip that one of my American friends gave me recently is that Japanese "ponzu", or citrus-based sause commonly used in Japanese cusine, makes a great vinegarette when it's mixed with olive oil. Sprincle a bit of salt and pepper, then it turns into a cheap and natural dressing.

You should be able to buy it at local supermarkets. I'm very impressed with their selectons of Japanese ingridients nowadays.

When it snows......

The snow slides down the slippery sollar panels like avalanche. It makes a loud sound and the room turns dark for a moment. Then....

Asha gets scared and hides under the desk. (She acts like this during a thunderstorm and fireworks.)

Dogs probably think it is a natural disaster... (She's using my knees as a chin rest.)