pet connection

Pet Connection Director of Photography Morgan Ong has skills far beyond those with a Nikon. He’s also an incredible cook and a master-packer — and I’ve long benefited from all of his magic ways.

The food first. When Morgan and I are traveling on assignment, he always knows the best places to eat. Not usually the expensive, but the killer little joint in a suburban strip mall, or even the best food to be found at a baseball game. (Seattle and SF, good. San Diego, bad.) One time, we had arrived late at Sea-Tac, scrambled for the rental car and were fighting Seattle-area traffic to get to Sequim on time for an interview with Terry Ryan. No time for lunch. Morgan says, “Ya hungry?” while I’m driving, and then I watch in amazement as he pulls an incredible lunch out of his bag, including real tableware and cloth napkins.

At Global Pet Expo a couple months ago, he magically produced home-prepared spicy Tai noodles so delicious that I thought I was going to get mugged in the media room by a starving network cameraman.

That’s the food. There’s also the Mary Poppins-like nature of Morgan’s luggage, which has been known to produce multiple umbrellas, gloves, pens, notepads, chargers and even an oyster knife.

Yes, an oyster knife.

His ability to pack the entire contents of a two-bedroom house into a carry-on bag is not uncommon among professional photographers, who always travel with much more gear than mere reporters. But Morgan takes the skill to the highest level imaginable. I think he even has a refrigerator in there, who knows?

Almost every time I travel, Morgan packs me. Nothing ever gets forgotten that way, and everything fits in the bag. Since I can’t pack like Morgan does for the return trip, I find it’s usually easier to bring Morgan along to pack me to come home, too.

Of course, he’s usually along because … he’s our Director of Photography! We need pictures!

This afternoon, he’s coming over to help me load up the Best In Show DogCars.com DogCar of the year, the Honda Element, for my nine-day road trip. (Orgeon, with book-signings in Crescent City and Arcata on the way back.) I need to bring everything for four dogs, including all the stuff we need for the dog show. Plus all the books for the signings, all the free bookmarks the publisher sent, plus, um, stuff for me (raingear! sweaters!) and … no, I am not making this up: My espresso machine.

And Heather’s Queenly pillow, of course, given to her years ago by my friend Ginger.

Needless to say, Morgan has his work cut out for him. We (we=me and dogs. I couldn’t talk Morgan into going this time!) will be packed up and on the road in the morning. Whooo-hooooo. Road trip.