Yesterday evening was A DELIGHT. And it didn’t involve the Ikea succulents that I had initially anticipated.
I came home to an under-stimulated puppy whose face screamed “Thank God you’re here. I’m totally about to leak.” So I took her out intending to make it a quickie in order to get down to Stockholm before it closed for the night. Alas and alack, we bumped into Isabelle the puggle and her daddy, which cost me 15 minutes of browsing through the compact fluorescent lightbulbs in minimal cardboard packaging. And then we were hit up by a semi-homeless guy wandering through the park in the middle of little league baseball games trying to sell magazines so he can continue mentoring at-risk kids at the YMCA. It took me a solid ten minutes to convince him that I really had no use for Reader’s Digest (despite the embarrassing admission that I was a subscriber in college and THAT’S why I know so much about Timothy McVeigh).
Just as I was about to beeline it back to the house, I saw Ursula the St. Bernard and her very friendly mommy. I thought I ought to say hello and check in on Ursy’s seasonal allergies which I knew had been plaguing her for weeks now. And boy, am I glad that I stopped!
Ursula and her mom were hanging out with Raja and her mom, and although Berlin and I had met Raja before, it was while she was being walked by a stand-in. And boy did Raja’s mom and I hit it off. So much so that we were all invited back to Ursy’s pad to hang out on the back porch while the dogs played. Here Berlin and I were… totally on cloud nine… being warmly accepted by WICKED NICE dogs and their people who lived ON OUR VERY STREET! These were people I could ask for that cup of sugar while baking, or if they could please run over and feed the dog and cat because I was heading to the emergency room to see Matt who had been hospitalized by the parasitic bite of one of his case children! My domestic dream of REAL LIFE NEIGHBORS was coming true right before my very eyes.
When Matt finally got home around 8:30, I had only been there for half an hour. Berlin was totally wasted from playing so boisterously, and I attacked Matt jabbering a mile a minute with the anecdotes of a heavenly puppy playdate. He was happy on two accounts – that I had made some new dog-obsessed friends, but mostly that I had been obstructed from the spending frenzy that inevitably occurs when I get to the plant section of Ikea. Oh don’t be fooled, Matteo. I will have my cake and eat it too!
