The Peacock Room vs. The Peacock Neighborhood

For those of you who ever visited me when I worked at the Freer and Sackler Galleries, I most likely tried to give you a tour of their most well-known exhibit --- James McNeil Whistler's "The Peacock Room." Most of you will know this American artist by the satire inspired by the painting of his mom sitting in profile.

Anyway, at one time in the history of the Freer, there were actually live peacocks that roamed the inner courtyard until they became too pesty with their calls that sounded like dying racoons and their meanness. The male peacocks are beautiful and that's about it.

Well, who would have known my years working at the Freer and knowing wayyyy too much about peacocks would come in handy on my CA trip. Turns out that there is an aboretum around the corner from my cousin's house that had peacocks. Those peacocks "escaped" and decided to set up residence in the "well to do" neighborhood across the street and have been there since.

They are EVERYWHERE in this neighborhood. In trees, front porches, hanging out in driveways, in the middle of the road. Its both fascinating and completely bizarre. There are signs at the entrance of this community that warn that feeding the peacocks could lead to a fine.

One of the days I dragged my cousin to go walking, we were able to see them up close and personal and they are quite beautiful. Seriously? Only in Southern California......

Tet and the Year of the Tiger

Danny and I just came back from our trip to California where we stayed with my cousin Chi and her family in Arcadia (20 minutes from Pasadena -- 40 minutes with traffic). I flew out early and then Danny came in a couple of days later. We left the cold and snow of the east coast to be greeted by sunshine and 70 degree temps. NICE!

Tet (the Vietnamese New Year) is the same day as the Chinese New Year but for the rest of you gringos it landed on Valentines Day this year. There is one word to sum up our trip: FOOD. Lets just say I never lost the 7 pounds I wanted to BEFORE the trip and then proceeded to gain an additional 3 while I was there.

I've never ingested so many carbs and so little veggies, I am sure my body went into shock. But my mouth and tongue seemed quite content.

I have many stories to share about our experience and will be posting them as I remember, because many are funny and meaningful to me. This year was especially meaningful because of my mother's passing. I know my cousin and my aunt both "felt closer" to my mom because I was there.

If you've never been to this part of southern California, let me tell you --- it really IS like being in another country. At one point, I said to my cousin, "I didn't know I'd needed a passport." EVERYONE is Asian. But its very specific. In Arcadia, they are Taiwanese, in Alhambra they are Chinese and Chinese-Vietnamese. That is to stay they are Chinese who lived in Vietnam and can speak Vietnamese but are NOT Vietnamese. Who knew? Then of course there's Santa Ana, which is all Vietnamese. Everything reflects which ever Asian culture is dominant. And for the rest of us half breeds and non-Asians, they kindly put English translations in small type.

When Danny arrived, I said "You're the first white person I've seen in days."

Below are pix from my first couple of days. I literally put my bags down and we began preparing and cooking Vietnamese dumplings and of course consuming them.

My mom's older sister, my Auntie Oanh (sounds like "one").
She calls me her "Princess."

I make a mean dumpling!

These can be boiled or fried. I seemed to gravitate toward the fried ones.

In addition to cooking, Auntie Oanh crocheted me 2 scarfs.
My cousin Chi also made me one while I was there.
Considering the weather was 77 degrees there
and 32 degrees in Raleigh,
they are much more useful here.

I asked my cousin to crochet a bunch of little circles and then
string them together to make one long scarf.
She thought I was crazy and thought the scarf was ugly but I loved it.
While doing it though, she complained incessantly
about how awful the yarn was to see
and she'd never do another one for me again.

What to do with Bitty

Okay, I'll just be frank. Bitty was suppose to die almost 18 months ago. But she lives. She seems fairly normal. She has a good appetite, is still social, cuddly and snuggly (okay, only with me) and "hangs out" with the family. She is still on pregnazone (SP?) and if I never told you, you wouldn't know she was 13 yrs old and got some form of leukemia.

So what's the problem? She has been occasionally peeing OUTSIDE of her cat box for the last 8 months. Its sparadic. There's no rhyme or reason. And we've done all the things the vet suggests ---- making sure the cat box is clean. Getting more than one cat box --- yeah, she actually has FOUR to chose from. And its not like she doesn't use them, she just likes to go elsewhere in the house too.

We have now confined her to the storage room where her cat boxes are because we don't trust her not to pee somewhere else in the house. What kind of quality of life can this be? Yes, she has a nice warm bed and the room is large enough, but I can't stand the thought of locking her up in there until she dies ---- which was as I mentioned earlier was suppose to be 18 months ago.

I don't want to put her down because I can't emotionally handle making that decision. She isn't acting "sick" -- she's just destroying my carpet with her pee and the vet doesn't have any answers.

How do I try and give her away? Danny has suggested finding her a home with someone who has a "farm" where she can live outside, but I think she'd get in some sort of accident.

I have spent A LOT of cash on this cat in the past 13 years. I'm not interested in replacing my carpet because of her.

The SPCA is very strict about taking in animals you want to give up. They must be "adoptable" blah blah blah. And how do I say, "Yeah, she is 13 and might live for another couple of years but was suppose to die like 18 months ago...." ????

ANY SUGGESTIONS???