The Writing on the Wall

I've been feeling awful the last few days - just general body aches and pains compounded by binge eating and unnecessary exposure to paint fumes.

Mom finally got her red bedroom.

After a decade of dreaming in monochrome, she can now enjoy vivid dreams offset by cranberry red walls and sheer white curtains draping the bed.

My dreams, on the other hand, are still the same - food and feline-related - and I wouldn't have it any other way.

In honor of family expected over the long weekend, I spent a traumatizing day at the groomer's recently, where I was shaved, bathed and had my anal glands expressed by an unfamiliar woman. Trust me, guys, this is not as pleasant as it sounds - not when the woman squeezing a certain sensitive part of your posterior is close to 200 lbs. and can smother you in her ample bosom.

Thankfully, Orbit and Kariba left before witnessing my indignity. I look like a plucked chicken without my coat and humans now mistake me for a schnauzer. And the catcalls I have to endure on my morning walks...

The only silver lining in this cloud is that dad returned home after three long weeks, just in time for his 10th wedding anniversary. He took mom to a pricey Italian restaurant where the pasta sauce did not come out of a jar and there were at least four vegetarian options on the menu.

Here's a first: mom and dad went out to dinner without the kids and found the experience strangely delightful.
Here's a second: they actually made it through dinner and the ride home without any arguments. That hasn't happened since ... wait a minute, that's never happened!

Could it be the red room, you think?

A penny for your thoughts

Penny, penny
easily spent,
copper brown
and worth one cent.

I was in a parking lot the other day, when I spotted a grimy old penny beside my car. I don't know about you, but I'm always in a quandary when I see unclaimed money lying on the street. Do I pick it up or do I pass by?

Now, I've read way too many Amar Chitra Kathas and listened to too many Hindu moral stories to not be perplexed about certain issues. Here's my predicament: what if goddess Lakshmi chooses that very moment to fly by and watches me walk away from that penny without a backward glance? She might mistake my honesty for arrogance and abandon me. Not a good situation.

What if, on the other hand, she spots me picking up the coin and thinks, after all that she's done for me, money has made me greedy? She might want to teach me a lesson and abandon me. Not a good situation, either.

If the said object in question on the street, however, were something remotely edible, there's no question what I would do. I would lie in the parking lot and lick, scrape it off the street. Which is what I do on my daily walks. Be it a bird or another creature that's been run over about 10,000 times by passing cars, I refuse to leave it adhered to the asphalt.

Humans are mortified when I pick carcasses off the street. I don't understand what the big deal is. That dead chicken in your sandwich is also a carcass, right? Besides, compared to the Purina crap I'm served twice a day, this baked-by-the-summer-sun stuff is so much better. It's 100% organic, free of pesticides and genetically modified material.

Best of all, it's free!

Time out

You wouldn't believe what happened today. I just hope you're not eating something as you read this.

Mom's not a morning person on the best of days. Today was no exception.

As she rubbed her crusty eyes and walked down the corridor, she tripped on a Lego block on the floor and almost fell nose-first on a trail of dried poop on the WALL!

That's right! As if it weren't bad enough to defecate on the carpet in the middle of the night, Orbit had used the wall as toilet paper and merrily wiped her a*** (pardon my French) on it. The trail continued down the corridor and ended on the master bathroom floor.

Luckily for me, Orbit's tush was also caked with turd, so there was no question who the nocturnal Picasso was.

She was swiftly whisked to the groomer down the street, where she stayed all morning, and came back stark naked!

Now, if you're not a dog, you have no idea how traumatizing a trip to the groomer's can be. While some of you might actually enjoy having a strange woman rub her frothy hands all over your body, I find the experience about as pleasant as a prostate exam or a dental visit.

Poor Orbit is now half her size and looks nothing like her old self. And she has a citrusy fragrance about her that's making me sneeze. But it shouldn't last too long. Come dinner time, she'll smell of pungent garam masala or sambar podi again, like we all do - depending on tonight's menu.

Of female hormones and eau de toilette

Panting ... heavy breathing ... moaning ... watching her every move ... groaning ... drooling ...

It probably sounds like an avuncular pervert from your childhood, but it's just Orbit following mom around.

Yes, my so-called girlfriends are back. For 19 long days, this time.

Kariba, whose ancestors were bred to hunt in the African veldt, is easily as tall as dad. And Orbit, a hirsute sheepdog, has a penchant for chasing approaching cars. When the three of us take mom for a walk around the neighborhood in the evenings, we usually run around her in circles, making her trip on our leashes. I'm usually sandwiched between the girls (and not in a nice way). The neighbors shake their heads and wonder if mom has finally lost it, or if she's illegally operating a dog-sitting service in a residential area.

The other night, mom caught Orbit drinking out of the toilet bowl. After she threw her out of the bathroom, we found Orbit downstairs, licking little Kuki on the face as she lay giggling on the floor, shrieking, "Tickle, tickle!"

The way she reacted, you'd think mom has never put anything non-food related in her mouth.

All this extra estrogen around the house is taking its toll on me. The females are loud, vocal and prone to mood swings - one minute, they're all over me like I'm their best buddy, and the next, they look right through me. I'm confused. Am I supposed to humor them or ignore them?

Hmmm ... maybe I'll just ask my human for help; he's bound to know something about mysterious feminine wiles.

Then again, maybe not; he's in the doghouse a lot.

What's love got to do with it?

The top dog of this house hates Lifetime TV.

He thinks it should be banned from the networks for glorifying weepy emotions and promoting unrealistic expectations of love. Really, it's entirely too much to dad to be uxorious about a certain brown-eyed woman, come home with flowers on occasion, enjoy bargain shopping for hours on end, and, make amorous advances only when she's in the mood.

Mom, on the other hand, is a sucker for sentimentality.

She likes to read How We Met stories in the newspaper, cries at the movies, and is thrilled to bits when little Kuki throws her arms around her neck and declares, "I wuv you!"

When Anu was but a baby learning to babble, mom tried to teach him to say "I love you," along with his ABCs. She tried saying it in English, then in French, Italian and Spanish, but a genetic predisposition makes him incapable of uttering the sentiment, even with token sincerity.

Disappointed, but not defeated, mom refuses to give up. She continues to liberally sprinkle the phrase around the kids, confident that their significant others will thank her someday for bringing up such expressive and emotive individuals.

With dad, on the other hand, she uses reverse psychology. Mom figures even if she rarely expresses her sentiments, somehow, dad will read her mind and be more affectionate toward her - almost as if to make up for her lack of sensitivity.

Confused?

Just be thankful you're not dad.