This morning, as i was walking Mango to the lawn in front of the Queen Anne Medical Associates building at the corner of W Mercer St and 2nd Ave W, i noticed another dog owner was already in the vicinity. Since i know how distracting it can be for some dogs to do their business when other dogs are nearby – Mango is one such dog – i decided to wait about 10 ft north of Mercer on 2nd Ave W. The black and tan dog was taking a dump when i looked round the corner to see if i should start taking Mango there.

To my utter disgust, the owner of the dog was walking away from the pile of fresh poo. I immediately walked around the corner toward them. When the asshole saw me, he immediately turned back and pretended like he was going to pick up that poo. I decided to let Mango on the patch of lawn about 20 ft away from them, all the while looking at the guy from the corner of my eye. Every so often, he would look in my direction, probably hoping that i would walk away so that he did not have to pick up his dog’s poo. But i refused to move. I was ready to confront him if he was going to take off without cleaning up. Eventually, after he fumbled around for 20 seconds or so, he realized that i was going nowhere. He had no choice but to pick up the poo.

Lower Queen Anne residents, if you see an Indian-looking male with a medium size black and tan dog, keep a close eye on him!

Mango at Myrtle Edwards Park on a sunny spring day.

Mango at Myrtle Edwards Park on a sunny spring day.

For those who live outside of Seattle, The Lusty Lady is a coin-operated peep show joint in downtown Seattle on 1st Ave, not far from Pike Place Market. The Lusty Lady is also known for putting really cheeky sex puns on the two sign boards outside the establishment. I have documented some of the better puns here.

Fast forward to now, almost six months later. I was looking for dinner options and all of the sudden i recalled Elemental @ Gasworks. After taking Mango on his usual evening walk in Seattle Center, Smelly and i left for Elemental, arriving there a little before 2000.

Elemental @ Gasworks is “hidden” on the first floor of a condominium complex on Wallingford Ave, right across from Gasworks Park. If you are not actively searching for it, you will miss it. We didn’t have more than four hours to spare so we decided to hit Elemental Next Door (E.N.D.), appropriately named probably because it is right next door to Elemental @ Gasworks. When we stepped foot into E.N.D., we were greeted by our friendly hostess/waitress Allyss. We were told that we were free to seat anywhere we wanted so we found the smallest table available that was meant to seat four. The first thing that was unusual about E.N.D. was the lack of a wine list. Instead, Allyss pointed us to shelves full of bottles of wine and that every bottle costs $28. E.N.D. has a really good selection of wine. I estimated there were about 50 bottles of red, a dozen bottles of Rosé and 30 bottles of white. I picked the 2006 Weingut Geil Gewürtztraminer Kabinett from the Rheinhessen region of Germany.

Smelly in front of the shelves filled with bottles of wine (crappy picture taken using my iPhone).

While we were waiting for our wine to be chilled, Allyss brought us two glasses of champagne to wet our appetite. Not long after, she opened up the bottle of Gewürtztraminer. That was a great bottle of wine. It was an aromatic and fragrant light body wine with tastes of lychee and honey. I have not had such a good bottle of Gewürtztraminer for quite some time.

Elemental Next Door menu (picture taken by Nancy Leson of Seattle Times).

The only menu in the restaurant was hand-written on a board, an indication that items on the menu are changed frequently. Smelly and i decided to go for the four-course family-style dinner ($32 per person) instead of the ala carte menu. The first course was pan-fried prosciutto-wrapped squash on a bed of Vinaigrette wild greens sprinkled with toasted sunflower seeds. A bite of the pan-friend prosciutto-wrapped squash made me feel like i was in heaven. The second course was some kind of ravioli with cauliflower cooked in a cream sauce. I never knew that cauliflower could go so well with ravioli. It was simple and yet very tasty. The third course, probably Smelly’s favorite, was rice-filled Calamari with chick peas. The calamari was very tender and it matched really well with the chick peas broth. Originally, the fourth course on the menu was cheese with marmalade. I hardly ever eat cheese so to ask me to eat cheese as a dessert is a little far-fetched. Allyss was nice enough to substitute the cheese dish with a mouthwatering sake-poached Asian pear with orange sauce and some kumquat.

I cannot recall the last time i had such a great meal eating out. We spent more than two hours eating great food and drinking good wine. E.N.D. fully embodies the ideals of the slow food movement in which you take your own sweet time and pleasure in eating locally-produced food that is simple and yet mouthwatering. If you do not have more than two hours to spare, E.N.D. is not the place for you. But if you do, you will enjoy probably one of the best kept secrets in Seattle. Best of all, prices on the menu are gratuity and tax inclusive. What you see is what you pay. I love it!

I expected Mango to gather some attentions from passersby but i did not expect him to be attracting so many people! It was impossible to walk a few steps without having people stopped by and asked what breed Mango was, including several who inquired if Mango was an Akita or a Norwegian Elk Hound. Walking Mango by teenage girls would elicit numerous “soooooo cute” from them. We also met several people who have/had Shibas, including a lady whose 16-and-a-half-year old Shiba died not too long ago. Smelly was telling me that when the lady was patting Mango, she saw tears in her eyes.

We eventually settled down on a spot in front of the Apple Store to enjoy the last bit of evening sun.

A quiet moment from getting oooohs and aaaaahs.

A smiling Mango in front of the Apple Store.

Mango watch!

Mango and i relaxing in front of the Apple Store.

Smelly and Mango.

Two of my favorite inedible fruits – Mango and Apple!

A lady, whose 16-and-a-half-year-old Shiba past away not too long ago, saying Hi to Mango.

Mango doing some investigating at Sam Smith Park.

Mango in one of his stalking positions after spotting another dog in the distance.

So what if i am still pissing like a girl???

Mango performing the “watch” command perfectly.

Like many other responsible dog owners, i am really sick and tired of having to navigate my way through minefields and minefields of dog poo when i am walking Mango.  Walking him at night is even more challenging as i literally can’t see shit.  Since my dog duties involve walking him every morning and every night, with the sun not rising until after 0730 and setting before 1700 in the dead of winter, i am basically doing two “night” shifts in a day.  Therefore i was not surprised at the number of comments left by outraged readers on a Seattle Times article about a dog owner who wanted challenged his citation for not carrying a scoop device (aka poo bag).

I believe the Israeli municipal of Petah Tikva has the best idea in dealing with dog owners who don’t clean up.  The idea is to register every dog in the municipal and to collect the DNA from them. If poo patrol finds droppings and DNA from the droppings matches with the DNA database, the registered pet owner will pay a municipal fine. This innovative approach was honored by New York Times Magazine in its 8th annual Year in Ideas.

Right now, we are paying $20 a year ($30 for a 2-year license) for an altered dog license in Seattle. To implement what Petah Tikva municipal is doing, i suggest the following and make them mandatory:

• Add $30 or whatever the amount that is sufficient for the initial DNA collection. This is a non-refundable one-time fee.
• When a dog is registered the first time, pay a $100 per dog deposit that will be held for at least a year. This deposit is refunded after a year for dog owner with no infraction. The city is free to put the deposit in an interest-bearing savings account. The interest generated can be used to give pet shop coupons or gift certificates for responsible owners.
• If DNA from the dog poo matches with the DNA database, the irresponsible dog owner is fined $1000. The $100 deposit, if it has not already been refunded, will be confiscated. When it comes to renewal time, the deposit for the offending dog owner will be increased to $200.
• Right now, owners caught with unregistered dogs are only fined $54. To “encourage” dog owners to register their dogs so that their DNAs can be collected, increase the fine for unregistered dogs to $5000 per incident. This will discourage those who think they can get away from the DNA search by not registering their dogs.
• With an estimated 125,000 dogs in Seattle, the initial deposit will amount to at least $12 million dollars. That is more than sufficient to hire at least 50 additional animal-control officers (aka poo patrol officers) if we pay them at least $20 an hour for a 40-hour work week, which amounts to a little more than $2 million a year.
• Too much hassle to check for unregistered dogs or dogs with expired tags? No problem. Add a weather-proof RFID chip to each dog tag. The RFID chip can be read from within 30 feet using a RFID reader and it will be easy to identify dogs with expired tags. The lack of a RFID chip on a dog tag indicates the dog is not registered and therefore is liable for the $5000 fine.
• For those who cannot afford or unwilling to pay the $1000 fine for not picking up their dog poo, or the $5000 fine for not registering their dogs, they will be required to perform hours of community service as unpaid poo patrol officers. Of course, these unpaid temporary poo patrol officers will be supervised since they can’t be trusted as they are not even able perform the simple act of cleaning up after their dogs.

I have even thought of a catch line: Pick Up or Pay Up!

11 inches of snow.