I think I just got free mushrooms, but it’s tough to be sure.
Yeah; on second thought, I’m not starting there.
We’ve spent the last five days bickering over the problem of Jolie (cue a Sound-of-Music-esque swell of song, there). Nick, predictably enough, was in the “we should let her do whatever she feels up to” camp, while I, also perhaps predictably, kept pointing to the part of the vet’s follow-up instructions that say “Keep her calm for the next seven days.” These instructions were obviously not designed for our dog.
I’ve seen convalescing dogs. Their owners warn us away on the street, because they can see that Jolie is getting ready to jump all over the poor sad bandaged things. “She’ll bite today,” they say. Or, “Usually he is nice, but he had surgery.” You get the drift. And even if they don’t get snappish, there’re still adjustments to be made–Mom said that Molly kept trying to climb stairs after being spayed, and yelping in pain. You have to manage expectations, I mean.
Jolie, in contrast, appears to be completely oblivious to the wound in her abdomen. Sure, she’s been all odd and drugged for the last four days; it just made her sweeter. And today, the first without painkillers, she’s still taking the stairs and rushing at golden retrievers. She even spent half the morning in one of her old favorite passtimes: ears back, tail down, racing around and around and around the couch at top speed, looking for all the world like she’s about to catch…something.
So it wasn’t surprising on Sunday when Nick wanted to take her with us to the English bookstore that he likes, miles up the Seine. Bad enough, he apparently thought, that he’d had to leave her on his–now their–regular weekend runs for two days in a row. She watched him strap his iPod® to his arm and pull on his sneakers, and she knew. And when he left without her, she went berserk–she has never taken so long to calm down. So he had some guilt, is all.
By way of compromise, we decided to see if she might possibly fit in the basket of one of the Vélib bikes–for the last two weekends we hadn’t been able to find a working terminal to save our lives, but we were optimistic.
Jolie, snugly tucked in her carry-bag, did not remotely fit into the basket.
So she slept on the kitchen floor while we had our very first Vélib adventure, which gets mixed reviews. Nick found the bikes extremely uncomfortable; I found them impossibly heavy. It was legitimately work to lift the front wheel over a curb, and even the highest gear provided an incredibly low return on your pedaling. And cobblestones hurt.
We also made a poor judgment call: when the streets got busier, we headed down to the quay, which, in addition to many more cobblestones, is home to Paris Plage, a nifty project that turns the quay into a makeshift beach, complete with lounge chairs, mist “showers,” and games. So…can you say “crowded”?
Complaints aside, it really was fun–I insisted on biking home, too, although I think that Nick was kind of hoping for a comfy Métro ride, instead. And I got some sun, and found out which leg muscles I apparently haven’t been using so much in recent years.
Oh.
Speaking of which.
Sir? Yes; you, with the no teeth and the catcalling. I am aware that I was wearing a skirt, and that it blew back a bit at times. Since it was a two-layer mid-calf deal, I’m entirely sure that you’d've had a lot more to look at down at Paris Plage. Oh, and your face is going to freeze that way.
Anyway.
On her first painkiller-free day, Jolie is trying to make up for lost time. Aside from the couch-laps, she asked to go out about four times before noon, just for fun. Luckily, she seems to have tired herself out, and has crashed now–I say “luckily” because I am expecting a package, and I have to stick around.
I think that I got a call about it yesterday, but if I’m bad with French on the phone, I’m abysmal with voice mails. Anyway, some woman called me this morning, and it was like a miracle: we understood each other. I’ve simply never had a French phone call go so smoothly…and by the time I might logically have asked her to repeat the delivery window, I had become aware that this was (I think) the very first time I had made it through one without at least one “Pardon?” on either side. So I didn’t ask.
To be clear: it’s not that I didn’t understand the times that she gave me. It’s just that I drifted off for a moment while thinking about how well we were conversing, and when I drifted back in, I could summon a perfect memory of her mentioning three different time slots.
Look: it was either 2:00-4:00, 4:00-6:00, or (for the smart money) 2:00-6:00. So I’ll just be around…you know, in case.
So I got the outside errands done on the early side, like taking Jolie around the block, and going to the grocery store. And when I checked out, the guy said something about the mushrooms, following it closely with, “These were not rung up,” when I looked quizzical.
“Oh,” I said, nodding sagely and bagging around the mushrooms.
But by the end of the transaction, with nothing but the bag of mushrooms between us, the inescapable conclusion was that I had missed something. He’d never called for the price-check I was expecting; had he been telling me that there was something wrong with them? They did look pretty smashed–normally I wouldn’t have bought them, but I have this plan that I think will be completely delicious for tonight, and I was willing to overlook a few dents. So…what to do with the bag? I’d assume that, if he were doing some kind of mushroom recall, he’d've moved them away from my other groceries, but then, I’d also assume that, if I were meant to take them, I’d've been charged for them.
I asked. Really lamely.
He waved them toward my bag. “A gift,” he said, apparently recognizing me just then as the brilliant wit who had stared slack-jawed at him a few weeks back when he tried repeatedly to explain that the heavy basket I was carrying could also be rolled (I knew; it’s just that the aisles were kind of narrow). “Goodbye.”
You tell me.