The Descendant

Zorro the dog was brought home – saved – by my father from imminent death because he had a bad leg, and his original owner didn’t want to keep him because he was the weakest link among his brothers. So Zorro joined out household while I was still mourning my recently-deceased dog, Taho, killed by…

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Machi’s Diary

Day 1: Today is the day I meet my foster humans. I hope my snack schedule has been relayed. Day 3: Clearly I’ve gotten the shitty end of the deal in this foster home situation. While I am a personable floofball of charisma and scintillating charm, I have been handed to a family of cold,…

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Wow and Flutter

In the analog audio world, pitch fluctuations are called Wow and Flutter. It gets more technical than I care to delve into, so to keep it simple and in amateur turntable speak: When a vinyl record dips its pitch once every rotation, that’s wow; when the sound fluctuates in quick succession, that’s flutter. Whether caused…

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Hong Kong, After

In Central, my hotel’s elevator opens up directly to the room. It’s got one room per floor, not because it’s a particularly swanky hotel —although it kind of is swanky, if you think about it— but because the building is so narrow that space-wise, this is the only way it could ever work as a…

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The Foster

Shaggy in photos, he’s actually pretty thin in real life. Having lived in a shelter with 500 other dogs, the doggo — a scruffy mix — is understandably quiet and easily spooked. He enters our home gingerly, alternately shaking under the table and scratching himself because of the flea medication he received before leaving the…

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Xiamen Postcards

We use the weather app as an oracle and agree that Xiamen has just the right amount of sun we are looking for. It’s that draggy period between Christmas and New Year’s, and though restrictions were lifted a couple of weeks ago Shanghai is still anything but normal. People are staying home, either recovering from…

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