Year of the Blog

Er...I mean dog...Happy New Year of the Dog ( beginning January 29th). Yami invited me to help him and Joe out last year, at the New Otani Hotel. It was much the same this year, with me once again teaching among other things, papergliders. I also "taught" the 20-unit flower. Joe taught a cute barking dog action model (Jan 29th being the start of the Chinese Year of the Dog). Yami mostly entertained people with his ring and chain trick. He must have been practicing that diligently since the last time I saw him, as his "batting" average improved quite a bit. When it fails, he usually tells the woman he was showing it to, that he gets nervous in the presence of beautiful women. His friend Hideko did most of the teaching at his table (teaching Yami's doodle bug). Joe gave away FIT's to the fortunate few who were last to leave us. As usual, he had plenty of giveaways that he folded for the purpose of sharing origami with the world. One of my favorite parts is the free meal at the end. We buffeted at The Azalea Restuarant. If anyone ever hangs out with Yami and Joe, it's never a dull moment. Yami showed off to the waiters and to patrons. Joe and I passed around origami giveaways. After my meal, I folded up my napkin into something inappropriate (Won Park showed me this at OUSA2002) and discreetly dropped it into Yami's lap. He stood up and proceeded to show patrons at the next table; then pointed to me and said, "Michael made this." I was mortified. I didn't get a very good shot of the "improper napkin-fold", but you can see a half-drunk Yami pose for the camera with it (it had kind of come undone, at this point, and I didn't think to refold it for the sake of posterity).