Friday, November 21, 2014

Of retrievers and their focus

There's a video that's sorta gone viral over the last couple of days that had me cracking up the first time I saw it.



That dog knows what he wants, he does. And he reminds me of another dog, another golden retriever, who was just as single minded and focused about what she wanted.

One of my fondest memories of Kyra is this one evening when we had gone out, and got really late coming back. Kyra hadn't been given her evening meal because we weren't home to take her for her walk, so we had called to say we were five minutes away and that she could be fed. We walked in the door to see my poor ravenous princess furiously gobbling her meal, but at the same time, so thrilled to hear us walk in that her tail was literally (yes, I used it, go away) spinning with joy as she ate. But only when she finished eating did she turn around to come jump at us. She had her priorities, she did.

My princess wasn't quite aware of the fact that she was supposed to be a retriever, you know. When you threw something for her to, well, retrieve, she would run like crazy after it, pick it up, and then sit down to chew on her new treasure. So over the years, we came up with a new game. We used two toys, and when she would pick up one and sit down with it, we'd promptly throw the other. And Kyra would drop her first toy and run and pick up the second, at which point we'd throw the first toy again. Rinse. Repeat. But boy, was she focused on whichever toy she was running after.

The brother will tell you the princess was one of the most emotionally intelligent dogs to ever walk this planet. All I have to say is, there are retrievers, and there was, well, our retriever. The best dog in the world.

Certain members of my family may also point out that my use of the word "we" in this post is somewhat misleading. I will have you know I ventured into the outdoors at least once a year with her, thank you very much. Sometimes even more often. So there.

Tuesday, November 04, 2014

No matter how old you get...

Yesterday, a friend asked if I wanted to go out for lunch, and then made fun of me when I said I couldn't because I had brought ma ke haath ka dal chawal from home, and had to eat it.

When I was in college, I took French classes on the weekend, and one of my classmates at the time was a woman at least 15 years older to me. She was divorced, a mother of two, and used to travel every weekend from a city that was at least three hours away by bus, if not more.

And every weekend, when we would go to the cafeteria or to the nearby market for lunch, she would refuse to buy anything because her mother had packed her lunch, and she couldn't return home without finishing whatever had been packed for her.

And we would laugh at how someone her age, who was seemingly so strong and in charge of every other aspect of her life, was so terrified of her mother.

And yet here I am, close to a decade later, sitting at my desk at work, and eating fruit - which I absolutely despise - because my mother is visiting, and has taken to packing me fruit as an evening snack because she's convinced (and partially correct) that my eating habits when she's not around are absolutely horrifying. And I can't return home without finishing whatever has been packed for me.

No matter how old you get, your mommy packs food for you, you eat.

Also, no matter how old you get, being woken up by your mommy with a cup of tea in the morning is the most amazing feeling in the world.