Na Mee

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Fat Bear Week returns for fall 2026 Similar to March Madness, Fat Bear Week is a bracket-style, single elimination tournament. This annual competition from Katmai National Park is a celebration of a summer's worth of hard work, a hat…

No one:

Me: you’re right; I should share pictures of the lineup

*tosses salmon scraps in the air* WELCOME TO FAT BEAR WEEK 2026!!! Here’s a Fat Bear Week 101 and very some bite size contender descriptions to whet your appetite. So many more bear stories to come; follow along and be an informed voter!!! Who are you rooting for???

JUST PATIENTLY AWAITING THE 2026 FAT BEAR WEEK BRACKET REVEAL (11am AKST on YouTube)!!!! Join me again this year as I write DAILY MATCH UPDATES about our favorite fat friends and frenemies at Katmai National Park for KTOO public media — find them at ktoo.org and tune in at 3:30pm AKST to hear me on the radio fully nerd out 🐻🤓 I’ll be sharing some here on instagram too- did you know you can star my account (Add to favorites) so you don’t miss an update?? 😘 I know this is the competition you need every detail of.

Lesssgo!!

Slide 2 is Queen 128 Grazer, source: NPS

On a flight back home and our flight attendant reminds me so much of the flight attendant David who I wrote this piece for a long time ago. I wonder how David’s doing and if he’s running Alaska Airlines yet lol. Also, I am never not writing on airplanes so this is my occasional sponsorship pitch to Alaska Airlines to make me their poet-in-residence which is not a real position BUT IT COULD BE 🤔💭⛅️✈️ !

I adopted this wild thing six years ago!! I didn’t know anything about training dogs at that time but whewee was in for a ride! 😅 I’ve learned soooooo much and only half of it was about dogs. Bear isn’t perfect but he’s a very different dog than that dark summer we met. We’ve been rehabbing each other. Here’s an example of what six years of training gets you 🌟

More about this trick (“Leave it”) on last slide 🤍

🤓To teach LEAVE IT:
1- Show your dog a treat
2- Cover it with your hand. Your dog will try to get it from under.
3- As soon as your dog pauses for any reason, mark it (say yes) and then uncover and give a treat.
4- Repeat until they start to get the hang of it. Once successful, introduce the words “leave it”, so they know that’s what this is called.
5- I like to add a “watch me” cue here too, either verbally or with a hand signal so that they also learn to “leave it” and then look at me for directions. Then mark it (say yes). Repeat until you don’t have to cue them to watch, they just do it naturally with the leave it. Give treat each time successful. (This is assuming your dog already knows to “watch me” cue).
6- Then say “leave it” and uncover the treat. If your dog just goes for it, cover your hand back up and don’t say anything and wait for them to remember how to do this trick lol. The object of the game, of course is that they can see the treat and still leave it. In training in general it’s good to mix it up- do a hard one (eg uncovered) then do an easy one (covered), even just commands they know by heart (sit, down) so they get some wins and feel like pros in the process
7- Then you can work up to putting more treats on the floor and eventually on their body or even tossing into the air at them before saying “yes” / releasing them
(Note: keep training session short so they feel fun and not frustrating. So you might not get through all these steps the first time, it will take a few sessions.)
My dog loves this game and it’s actually v meditative for him so I play it when he’s amped up, too, to take a breather.
Have fun! Thanks for coming to Bear school 🎓🐻‍❄️ lol

Snippet from BIRD music video circa 2017 + announcing winners of the giveaway Cozy Puppy Reads and Whitney Janny 🤍🤍

Xo

“Bird” 🕊️

This was originally a spoken word piece, and I’m so honored to have it included in this anthology of Asian American Pacific Islander poetry so it can live where books live, too. My son was 7 when I wrote this and if you want to see how freaking cute and not ugly at all he was you can watch the music video we made to go with it on my website! Or maybe I’ll share it on IG here too soon. I meant to share this two years ago when the book came out but I’m a mom so time moves at a diff pace lol😅

I’m giving away 2 signed copies to 2 folks who share this piece with their peoples or their anyone, anywhere. Sharing can look however you want, but because that might happen in stories or on a private account or in DMs or in real life, pls leave a BIRD 🕊️ in the comments to let me know your name should be in the drawing. I’ll draw 2 random names next Monday!

(If you really want a copy and don’t wanna wait for the chance to get a free one, I also have them for $20 on my website 😘)

This book is full of so many amazing AAPI poets, and I’m floored to share space with friends and mentors and heroes like edboklee and Matthew Olzmann and saymoukda vongsay Joshua Nguyen, PhD catzie vilayphonh Jason Bayani Sham-e-Ali Nayeem Beau Sia Ching-In Chen Kay Ulanday Barrett Taiyo Na David Mura Hieu Minh Nguyen ocean vuong and so so many more. I love us 💛

Kamsahamnidaaaaaa Thank you thank you thank you to editors Franny Choi Franny Choi, Bao Phi Bao Phi, No’u Revilla, and Terisa Siagatonu Terisa Siagatonu for inviting me to contribute and for believing in this poem. Thank you Haymarket Books for giving our voices a platform. Thank you to my son who is making the world a more beautiful place each and every day. Thank you to you for reading.

Getting my MFA in friendship
MFA in windows
MFA in rituals, in birds, in unintentionally dressing as a 70s girl band with your roommates
MFA in other people’s dogs
MFA in watching your friends succeed
MFA in togetherness, in getting lost
MFA in shadows, MFA in dreams

Headed into my “last” semester Randolph College MFA
Quotations cause some of this I’ll be studying forever, if I’m lucky

Meanwhile: THESIS here we go 🐥🥹

Wish me luck, send memes and snacks 🙏🏽