Sunday and Monday nights I dog and house-sat for some friends of mine. They have a lovely three-level townhouse and the best behaved dog I’ve ever met. They also have an enclosed patio equipped with fancy furniture and a gas grill. The Boy and I took full advantage.
Sunday evening we headed over around 6:30 to walk the extremely-happy-for-human-company dog and prepare everything for our soiree. My roommate and her boyfriend came over around 7:30, and we proceeded to grill lamb chops and veggie kabobs and be generally very fancy.
Cooking in someone else’s kitchen is a bit of a strange experience. Where is the pepper grinder? What do you mean there’s no pepper grinder?? I was mildly aghast. Also pleased I’d thought to bring my own rosemary to season the lamb!
As a thank you for watching the dog, my friends had left a lovely bottle of Sterling Cab. Yum. We drank that. As a thank you for being so considerate as to procure lamb, my boyfriend brought a lovely bottle of Washington State blend, Sorella. Yum. We drank that. As a hostess gift for the hostess I was pretending to be, my roommate had brought two bottles of a light Spanish red we recently discovered at Whole Foods. Yum. We drank that.
Many hours and wines and cigarettes later, my roommate and her boyfriend headed home. The Boy and I took the dog out again. Such a good dog. He poops on command!
We decided we should take full advantage of the situation we were presented with (three levels! And we had yet to occupy two of those!), so the Boy and I abandoned the back patio for the basement den where we drank another bottle of wine and played Scrabble til 1:00 in the morning.
We wore out the dog. He could barely drag himself up both flights of stairs when it was time for bed. Apparently my friends go to bed about 3 hours earlier than me…
Monday night I had the place to myself (+ dog). I had grand plans of taking the dog for a run, but the humidity got the best of me. We did a 40 minute walk instead. Again, tired dog. He flopped down on the floor when we returned and barely moved for three hours (by barely moved, I mean didn’t follow me to each room I entered unless I changed levels or went on the patio—a distinct drop in activity from normal).
Earlier in the day I had picked up food for a peaceful dinner alone. It was sort of a, well, sad assortment of food. I had first gone to Total Beverage to replace the bottle of wine we’d filched to drink on Sunday. I found that easily enough, then pondered what to get for myself. I settled on a Sonoma pinot noir as I felt it would go well with the salmon I intended to purchase. Off to the grocery store! The only salmon was in hunks large enough to feed the five thousand. The rest of the fish selection was either wretched-looking or catfish. So, wah, I figured I’d get a filet instead. Um. No filets. At all. Also? No sirloins (except in the aforementioned family packs). So I ended up with a (larger than intended) ribeye—not my favorite cut of meat, not pleasant to grill (what with the flames spurting out and all!), and definitely not a good match for my pinot noir.
Apparently there are huge differences between the Shoppers Food Warehouse located near affordable housing and frequented by mothers of large families and the Whole Foods located near luxury $1500/month studios* and frequented by yuppies. Who knew?
I made the best of it and, with the help of a college friend on the phone, managed to light the grill without blowing myself up. I also took advantage of my friends’ washer and dryer and did some laundry. I consider the night a roaring success. (Except that I got sucked into the chick-litty-religious-commentary-slash-eighties-glorification novel listed to the right and I stayed up til midnight reading, again causing the dog to heave great sighs of exhaustion.)
Having a dog for a couple days was… interesting. I’ve been on quite a tear lately with the dog-wanting. I am over that.
It’s nice to have something that welcomes you so exuberantly upon your return from work. However, it’s not nice to have something that is leaping and wriggling and groaning with joy fling itself at you as soon as you arrive home from work when you a) are wearing stilettos, b) are wearing dry clean only pants, or c) have to pee (and the trifecta was wretched!).
It’s nice to have a reason for a forty-minute ramble through the neighborhood after work. However, it’s not as nice to have an obligation for a fifteen-minute stumble through the neighborhood first thing in the morning.
It’s nice to have a creature that adores you so much he follows you everywhere, including the bathroom. Alright, yeah, that’s not nice, but at least the version I have only weighs 14 pounds, not 60!
In conclusion, the Boy and I are over whimpering about the dogs being adopted out at Petsmart on the weekends. We have a new ambition for how to populate our new apartment, in addition to the two cats, we shall get a betta. Yay, then I’ll have a house betta and a work betta, and never the twain shall meet.
*I do not live in a $1500/month studio. I could not afford that, and even if I could I would strangle both the cat and the Boy if I didn’t occasionally have the option of putting a closed door between us. I would not have that problem with the glorious roommate, though, oddly enough. Or the betta.
