Poodle

I got a dog in my house!!! My kids are excited but I have been low key screaming inside. 

Mother-in-law came from India after we took over doggy Lulu for one day. Maa was all fine when she met Lulu in the airport, she had no allergy, neither was she scared, not a tiny bit. Now after almost a day staying with Lulu running around, maa started calling out for Lulu and Lulu loves to rest around maa when she's working on something. See, everything is fine, you just need to have a little faith, wait and see when it happens, baseless speculations and paranoia do no good. 

Lulu was a rescued dog, she was abandoned before, so she stays close to her now mommy and daddy, always just a few steps away. Now she stays close to me, wherever I go. Because of childhood trauma, Lulu doesn't do good in dog daycare. She doesn't hang out with any other dogs, in fact, whenever she sees other dogs, she barks like crazy, usually she doesn't bark at all. Her best friends have always been human adults and mature human kids. In the daycare she would be locked up in a cage for up to 8 hours. When all the other dogs are playing, she stays in a corner all by herself, not interested in mingling with any other dog. That's why Chantelle prefers us to take Lulu in while they are away.

We had Lulu coming over several times before, including one sleepover with her mommy daddy and one afternoon sitting when they went to watch a movie. On that few hours here, she got scared because we were still strangers to her, so she stayed close to our front door waiting for parents to come back. We also took her on a walk around our court, she only made it one round, refused to move on the second round. It was our (my) first time picking up warm fresh poop, I kind of had forgotten about my kids' diaper time by then. This dog thing was still completely new to me. Yes, I loved many dogs before, I cried to keep them, I begged to save their lives. But none of my effort turned out to be useful, therefore I closed my door to having dogs and loving them in an intimate way. So for the longest period of time, I was feeling very strange to be close to any dog, talk to them or pet them. It took me maybe 10 years to finally one time patted a dog, I think it was Mrs. Bradshaw's puppy Raisin. That was a big step. First time caring Lulu for a few hours, I got to use the leash to take Lulu out for a walk, communicate with her, pick her poop, even lift her up while she refused to walk more, that was a major leap.

Sravan dropped off her food, bed, leash etc, then I directly put her on my front passenger's seat, with Aditi the three of us headed out to pick up Shiva from School of Rock. As if she knew she's gonna be with us for the next 10 days until parents are back, without any stress, she farewelled daddy casually, "Ok, daddy, I will be ok. You and mommy have fun in Vegas visiting grandma, grandpa and auntie. Bye daddy, don't miss me too much." Then she just happily came along with us like we are her new family! There was no whine and no cry whatsoever. 

Around the building of School of Rock, Shiva and Aditi walked her for half an hour, let her smell everywhere and pee everywhere. She pooped too, I picked it up after waiting for it to cool down a little bit. After that little walk we drove back home for dinner, kids were hungry but Lulu was famished. Whenever we give her food, she runs in circles. "Lulu is food motivated", as Chantelle put it, she follows adults, especially moms who most likely have access to food, and begs for food the whole time when she is awake. Before dropping off, Chantelle made sure I'm updated with every detail about Lulu and asked me many times if it was still ok to babysit Lulu. What happened was Lulu accidentally ate some human crumps from the floor and had constipation for several days. By Thursday situation started getting better, due to earlier constipation, there was a lot of pooping happening on the bathroom floor, on the carpet etc. "Is the poop watery?" I asked. "No." "Oh, then there's no problem at all."

After dinner I took Lulu to our backyard, she pooped a big one, I told myself, "That should be it for tonight then". As I continued tending to my own kids, brushing their teeth, cleaning Shiva's dental retainer, helping them shower, Lulu was giving signals such as making rounds, whining and walking to the front door. We thought she missed her parents, hence she wanted us to open the door and take her home. So we dismissed her "unacceptable demand". When I came down to fetch my kids' water bottles, I spotted a big pile of poop sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor. My eyes popped open, I turned around trying to find out who did this and give him/her a lesson. Then the most innocent stare from the purest soul looked into my fury eyes, Lulu anticipated the timeline of my discovery and was fully prepared for it. My annoyment disappeared before it was even established. Lulu standing right behind me, with the sweetest voice explained, "Hm, mommy, oh no, auntie Momo, or can I call you 'mommy no. 2'? I told you I wanted to use the restroom no? I came downstairs all by myself right? I waited for you in front of the door, didn't I? Uh, so, so it's not entirely my fault..." And for the rest of the night, she pooped 2 more times in my bathroom mat. I guess she didn't want to wake me up or couldn't wake me up, so she went to the bathroom to deal with it. I was not able to get angry with her at all, happily picked up all poops and cleaned up those spots. 

It was raining so hard on a day-light-saving day when we lost an hour, I was not able to get up early this morning to walk Lulu for her morning routine. When I finally got Shiva ready to do this job for me, I smelled the signature "Lulu poop" smell somewhere around living room. I searched for it once, couldn't spot anything wrong, I scanned the room twice, couldn't add anything new to my first patrol, then the strong smell of "Lulu poop" convinced me there was indeed something wrong. With determination, I finally saw the three thick brown sticks laughing at me from my kids' living room space mat, with hot steam still on top of their head. How much did we feed her from yesterday! Or how much food did Lulu's mommy drop on the floor last week?

I love it, an innocent pure creature following me around, looking at me, begging for love and attention, keeping me company. Now we know both Raj and maa have no allergic reaction to poodles, I am gonna get my own baby poodle one day soon. Unlike Sabrina, I have no fancy for big dogs and I can't take any hair shedding and drooling. Talking about Sabrina, she happened to babysit her neighbor's dog at the same time as me! And what makes it even less in probability is that if there's a third friend who doesn't have any pet but happens to babysit a dog. But that happened too, Jason is also babysitting his neighbor's poodle at the exact same time as me. "What in the world!" When I saw the poodle while dropping off kids so Jason would take them all to Chabot Space Center, that's the exact phrase that rang so loudly in my ears.

But that was not the end of the story. Friday night, Raj called me from Delhi airport, "Did you see the news? Silicon Valley Bank is closed down today, bankrupted! Today! Friday!" "Oh, I didn't know, so?" "Our first investment for IBC just arrived on this Wednesday! This Wednesday! 2 days ago! I am traveling in India, Panda is in the east coast, now we couldn't access the fund at all, 16m of it!" "Holy shit, but ya, don't worry..." All of them got very stressed for some time, but I dared not to tell anyone, all I could think was, "What in the world! It's not like any bank, no need to mention big ones, are closing down on daily basis. And you guys have been thrown to the outer space and back with this round of fundraising, now finally the fund is here, your bank is bankrupted. What in the world!" I couldn't stop laughing, by myself obviously... Today finally some news came saying the US government is making sure all depositors can take out all funds on Monday morning, I asked in our small Whatsapp group with Raj, Leena and Noah, "Now can I please make fun of it?" "No!!!....." Leena replied. 

What can I say, as I have always been suspecting, the sequence of events are scripted by my prototype in the real physical world, I am just a simulation with deceived sense of reality. Hence the more you take things seriously, the more you are gonna lose. If fate is something that stays constantly out of your hand, if truth is something that will never arrive within your reach, then why trying so hard to act like a God who at the end of day is another fabricated and manufactured element fed into your made-up memory? Just chill and fool on. In that way maybe you can fly a little closer to truth. 

Ya, I am getting a poodle to love me and company me.