New Years is a pretty special day for a lot of people and the expat population of Da Nang feels the same way. There are a ton of parties and everyone gathers to their favorite spots and counts down the day the month the year with their close pals. Well, that is not always so easy to pull off when you have a doggy that is absolutely terrified of fireworks and since you know that they are going to go off, unless you are a jerk you go home to console your little friend. Therefore Nadi and I decided that it was going to be an afternoon sort of day for us, but we had a problem - she was kind of stinky.
I woke up pretty early on the 31st because I had no schedule to stick to. But I ended up giving her a bath after our morning walk. As always, she was very compliant and patient with me and we got it done as fast as we could. The drying off part takes a bit more effort. At this point it was around noon or 1pm (I didn't look) and I was starting to feel tired. Much of this has to do with my home and how there is a lot of screen in it and this makes me feel tired, even when I shouldn't be.
So we needed to order some coffee. This ended up being a great ability to kill two birds with one stone though, as I was able to convince Nadi to sit in her "sun chair" to speed up the drying process from the bath as well.
She's in the back there, working on what we call a "chewy chew" while I sit in the foreground with my delivery coffee. I got 2 of them just to make sure the wake up juice actually works. Just so you know, if anyone ever offers you a "Vietnamese milk coffee" just know that by "milk" they mean sugar or condensed milk. This thing is so sweet it feels like I am drinking cake.
We'll save the avoidance of processed sugar for next year I guess.
Later on I was clearing out my fridge and was nibbling on some cheese and all of a sudden this meme came to mind. It's been a while since I did a meme post and I don't feel like it yet so we'll just throw that in here.
I was talking to a vegan friend and Nadi's love for cheese came up. since she doesn't eat cheese she is never around it. She thought that dogs don't like cheese and I corrected that very foolhardy opinion. Dogs LOVE cheese. It is one of Nadi's favorite things and I am convinced that if I put a bunch of it on the floor there is no limit to how much of it she would eat. She would gorge herself until she involuntarily vomited then she would relax a bit and head straight back into eating more cheese. She would never stop.
I did go out to the bar with Nadi, but we didn't stay long. Then I went and dropped her off and made a promise to her that as soon as I hear or see a single firework, I am going to come back home. I was at a pub that is only 1 block from where I live so I was prepared to run if necessary.
We managed to make it until midnight before any fireworks went off. I quickly downed the complimentary glass of champagne and headed home immediately. Nadi was already hiding in the bathroom and shivering as she was under the sink trying to get away from the noise. It's a bit crazy how affected by fireworks dogs are. There are plenty of other loud sounds in our lives that don't bother her like that does.
Past midnight on new years day is not a good time to be hungry anywhere in the world and Da Nang is not an exception. I went to the fridge and threw together some "ghetto nachos" which consist of Doritos, sliced American cheese, and Tabasco. Heat this concoction until it looks melted and voila! You have an absurdly unhealthy snack with no nutritional value.
Because she had just been exposed to a good 10 minutes of torture at the hands of the fireworks though, I decided that she could have some as well. She was a big fan of the cheese but Tabasco, not so much. I guess dogs have hyper sensitive tongues or something.
The next morning I took Nadi on a walk past the same pub I was in until 3 minutes after midnight or so and the place was still busy at 7:30 in the morning. I am willing to bet that we will not see those people for a number of days. I can't even imagine the level of hangover that a person accomplishes with with that many hours of consecutive drinking. No Thanks!
So it is now 2026 and everything for me is exactly the same as 2025. Things don't change for me and I am actually extremely OK with that. If you do have some change or what not, they go for it... I hope you succeed even though the odds of resolutions actually working are very very small.