Deathday 2015

A cemetery in Central America, at the tail end of 1990's


The deathday of my first dog, Ninety (a Border Collie mix), is just 12 days away which I adopted since he was born


I flew from Los Angeles back to Taipei on March 18th, 1995. I had not been in Taipei for long. I could not wait to reunite long-separated, he was born in 1990, Ninety

He was a highly intelligent and incredible black-and-white fussy being.

He was virtually having fun and dining high with me since being born. Naturally he had picked up some of my personality traits and characteristics make his personality so unique.


1. Love Coca Cola

2. Like beef, particularly fine steaks

3. Gloat on Japanese Yakisoba (焼きそば), literally fried buckwheat or Sōsu Yakisoba (ソース焼きそば), a Japanese dish but originated in China and is technically a derivative of Chinese chow mein

4. I drove him real wild and nuts every time I stewed the beef mushroom sauce, for Spaghetti

5. He's a Green-Eyed Monster

6. Enjoyed joyride with me, except he nearly got me a car accident for his motion sickness on his maiden sail

7. Full of life with an expressive glance

8. Well house behaviors. Using one sharp short bark to let him out of house, i) high pitched bark for pooping, ii) slightly lower for peeping, iii) the highest pitched only for emergencies!

9. He would shadow me everywhere I went with a leash in his mouth and furrowed telling me, "don't I deserve a walk now?"

10. He knew Chinese, English and Japanese. You would never, never, never want to talk behind his back

11. He used his nose not only to get my attention, also guide my hand to tickle him wherever he assigned

12. While other canines lick human all over, Ninety only licked face. And peerless but me



My legs went weak and rubbery after buried him in my own yard, his usual spot. A friend tried hard to comfort me and insisted that I should crash at his for a couple days on the phone. Then, I would have to reignite my car with trunk full of unloaded luggage from the airport.

I would have to muster up all my strength behind the wheel but seemed unable to steer my vehicle properly. It smashed into one of my metal gate posts. Suddenly, I was losing capability to shift the gear to reverse. The time froze making me just sit there immobilized until the friend drove all the way coming to check on me.