Monday is Menosukhi day

As had not yet encountered Blogville when the bloggy began, have been taking liberties with re-posting a few articles. Don't worry, won't make a habit of it... This one is on the getting of Jade dog. For those interested in the life story of the J's, do click the label!

There were Jet G-pig MacSqueak and Jasper Cat MacLean, getting on like cat and rodent never should, when along came our landlady - (my Punjabi 'mummy' - who was so happy having a tenant who did more work round the place than she did, she never put the rent up in 7 years!) - who was mystified. 

"Why would you have a cat and 'rat' when you could have a dog?"

Mummy J had three dogs you see.  BIG dogs.  Tara the mountain-sized Rhodesian Ridgeback, who sulked almost continuously. The break in her clouds came each day with the arrival of the postman.  Then she became the Sydney Switchback.  He knew she'd be there, but she got him every time.  MJ and I came to the conclusion he was a good actor, secretly in love with her and liked to make her think she was the very devil herself. 

He was a VERY good actor.

Then there was Sita the Rottweiler.  I always thought of her as Sofa - a two-sita sofa at that.  As canny and sooky a dog as you would be likely to find.

Thirdly came Meena the Dobermann.  She had been abandoned by the previous tenant in the house where I had taken residence.  She was shackled by a chain and surviving on eating her own droppings and stretching into the outside dunny for water.  MJ was naturally horrified at the discovery.  It was this incident that made her become a direct and hands-on landlady rather than use agents.  Clearly no checks had been made.  Meena was skeletal and as unhealthy as all get-go, but MJ put her grand TLC to work and that sorrowful girl became quite the beauty.

Given this experience, you'd think MJ would have been a tad cautious about a tenant having any pets, let alone a dog.

But she had quickly surmised she was onto a good thing with YAM and loved the little J's very much.  Not the same as a dog, though, she felt.  I said my life was too erratic for a puppy.  I was still studying  Homoeopathic Medicine and working part-time.  How would I manage?

Once these seeds are planted in the ground round YAM, though,  there's a tendency for spring to get sprung.  Within two weeks of that conversation, I was up at the mall for groceries and avoiding looking in the pet store window.  Am really not a fan of these places. The window had other ideas though.

Every other week for years I had managed to walk past without its accosting me.  That day though...  That day it had to shout out to me "Look what I've got for YOU!"  I continued walking with only the slightest side glance.

Fortune held the cards such that I had to pass that verbal window at a later point in the morning, but I again managed only the merest flicker of observance.

At the corner of the avenue an internal voice yelled "LOOK AT ME!".

I turned and looked back across and there was a little pudding-like thing sitting to the side of all the frenzy, staring straight at me.  Naaahhhh.  That only happens in novels, right?  I continued to walk.  Two days later I had to visit the bank.  It was three shops down from the talking window.

"LOOK AT ME", it said as I emerged from the business at hand.  There it was again.  No doubt about it.  I was the focus as there was no one else in the avenue.  Once my attention had been firmly caught, the pudding produced a tail.  Long and thin and wagging so fast it was a blur.  Then there were the eyes.  Those, large, liquid, kohl-rimmed eyes.

What's happening?  Feet, stop that this instant!

Too late, they'd taken me inside.  Somehow, magically, the pudding was sitting in my arms looking up at me all agog with "ooh yeah, I got you babe!" written all over its face.

How was I going to break this to the little J's?...

NB - For those who rely on their blogroll sidebar for checking posts, you may have missed the Sunday one. This is a note to say that MenoSunday post is there, but lots of you may have seen a post in your readers that was 'empty' - I hit the wrong button and the schedule went and published anyway. Have sorted that; don't worry, it'll show up again!