Who Let the Dogs Out?

9/1/08

"So, do you have time for that lunch we've been trying for today?" Lori asked me. The lead up to the question had thoroughly extracted me from the somnambulistic reveries I surround myself with while I'm at the office. I was a thousand miles away, and then, suddenly, present chatting with the foxy cougar, Lori Lopez-Lopez, in my office who had stopped by my desk to catsup.

"Yeah, today works. What time you wanna go?" I ask eager for the chance to expand on the limited banter we share every so often around the office.

"How 'bout now? I'm starving." I'm in and we're off to the elevator lobby and on our way out for a bite. Lunch was going to be something simple. I had just had some dental work done and neither of us had a lot of time that day to really luxuriate away from our duties in the office, so we just went downstairs here in the building and found something easy.

Look, before I start getting a bunch of emails and comments chastising me for dating at work, let me just say that it is not something I do… anymore. I learned (re-learned) my lesson by making that mistake with a co-worker about 6 years ago. Things were great for a couple months with this woman and me and then, suddenly, things were far, far less than even mediocre with us for a couple months, which led, ultimately, to our breakup. This wouldn't have been so bad, we did have some laughs at the beginning, but now we still worked together and I was no longer laughing. Basically, she initiated a series of awkward, inappropriate and uncomfortable moments in the office over the next two years I worked there. Lesson learned.

Still, if the foxy cougar in my office today asks me to lunch, you better believe I'm going to say yes because even if she's not exactly swimming in my dating pool, that doesn't mean I'm not the kind of guy who wouldn't enjoy lunch and conversation with an attractive member of the opposite sex… and I hate my job, so further on down the road, who knows? Right? And, besides, where would I get the material for these little diatribes if I didn't accept an invitation here and there? You people, my so-called friends (ha!), are so lucky I am willing to suffer so that I might share later!

My primary goal at lunch that day was to keep the topics of conversation away from anything related to the goings on at work and to have some laughs. I can be, when inspired, amusing. After picking up some protein, fat n' fiber wrapped in a tortilla (we went for Mexican) and grabbing some seats, I managed to ask how Lori's weekend was. It seemed like a safe enough question at the time. She hedged quite a bit with her answer at first, when she simply replied that it was fine, nothing exciting. Of course, I couldn't just let it go at that, so I pressed a little for details. I asked, "Really? Nothing?"

And then Lori takes a deep breath as if she's downloading extra verbiage from the air between her head and the ceiling and launches into it. "Well, I have dogs. I have two dogs. The German Retriever is 14 and a Spritzing Spaniel who is 12." At this point I know I'm in trouble. There's no turning back. There is no escape. I'm going to hear all about it. And now, you, my (so-called) friends and (sometimes) readers are too.

"I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts." ~ John Steinbeck

Clearly, Lori's dogs are getting up there in pet years. A 14-year run is pretty good for any pet I'd say unless you're the owner (keeper) of a tortoise or a parrot. Naturally, at that age, Lori's dogs are having problems. The Retriever has arthritis and the Spaniel has cancer. She tells me that her dogs are better off on a special diet which supplements the medications her veterinarian has ordered for them, and in the case of the Spritzie Spaniel, takes the edge off the animal's chemotherapy.

It's at this point I start thinking about the cats from my last entry here (Korean Sushi – Dait Bate). In reality, this encounter with Ms. Lopez-Lopez happened just days after I posted that story, so they were fresh on my mind. Sorry, I've been slow on the blogging. You can pay me half this month what you usually pay me for these stories! Specifically, I'm thinking if I should bring up the cats as an amusing aside or counterpoint to her sick doggies, but Lori is getting on a roll and I can tell now is not the time to try to steer the conversation anywhere other than where she's going with it.

"I spent a couple hours Saturday afternoon shopping at Ralphs and then Trader Joe's for the ingredients for the dog's meals for the week," she tells me. Can you tell where I'm going with this? "And then I went home and spent the evening chopping, prepping and cooking for them." Yes, she prepares and cooks all her dog's meals. In her defense, what she was cooking for the dogs didn't sound too bad. It was some kind of beef, vegetable and grain stew. I think there was bacon in it too. Maybe I'm just projecting. Ok, I hope there was bacon in it too. What man or beast can resist bacon? I could do without the special fish oil she had to go to three stores to find.

Here I am, trying to remain active in the conversation, but I'm still quietly thinking about the cats. Now I'm thinking telling her about them might not be the best idea, but I really want to get them in there somehow. Originally, I was going to frame it in the context of the troubles a (crazy) misguided, well-meaning pet owner can cause to an otherwise healthy animal. Then I tried looking at it in terms of the folly of spending thousands of dollars at the vet, but I can't come up with a way to inject it into the conversation without sounding judgmental in relation to Lori's dog situation. I decide to let sleeping dogs lie (sorry, I couldn't resist squeezing that idiom in here somewhere).

Instead, I ask, "So what did you end up making yourself for dinner that night?" Her answer comes quickly, "Oh, I just heated up a can of lentil soup from Trader Joe's." Even more quickly comes my retort, "Let me get this straight. You spend hours cooking for the dogs, yet your dinner comes from a can." Damnit, I was trying not to sound judgmental. Smartass. I'd have been better off bringing up the cats.

Lori dives further into the care her dogs require. Apparently, she won't let them be left alone for more than 4 – 5 hours at a time. She has a neighbor go to her house everyday at lunchtime to see they're fed their special diet and medicated. She goes straight home from work every night to care for their needs. She uses much of her sick time from work to taxi them to and from the veterinarian for their various ailments. The Spritzer needs his chemo after all. She sums up her current relationship with her animals by telling me that if she ever felt the special care for her dogs wasn't helping their suffering or taking too big a chunk of time out of her life then she'd consider having them put to sleep, but she hasn't reached that point yet. Clearly, there's still some fun left in her puppies, but, like the cats, I keep that thought to myself.