Sure is cold outside. Yep.
I've promised myself -- and a few close friends -- that I'd let go of all the angry stuff, which pretty much leaves me with the weather. Yep. Sure is cold. Which is why I'm finding myself nose to muzzle with Manny the obese puggle on the couch with a space heater blasting right at our faces while Leo the labrador frolics outside in the weather he dreams about all summer. As I gaze at Manny's handsome wrinkly face, I can't help but think about how cold the world would be without mutts.
Years ago, when designer mutts were becoming all the rage, I wondered how puppy purchasers could be sure that their costly hybrids would indeed have inherited the best traits of both breeds. Labradoodles were selling like hotcakes up here in deep dark upper middle class suburbia; folks who wanted the hipness of a big dog without the ickiness of a fur-infested couch paid top dollar for puppies guaranteed to have the sweet disposition of a lab with the custom-made-furniture-friendly coat of a poodle. My luck, I would've spent thousands of dollars and gotten a bitch who sheds.
My kids are mutts -- Irish Jews -- beautiful mixes of the stereotypes from both worlds. They're all a little bit meshugenah, and the older two can drink me under the table. I have high hopes for my youngest on all counts. My Italian workout partner is married to a Jew; she lovingly refers to her kids as pizza bagels. Kind of a food theme that seems to cross ethnic lines. I'm sure, like my kids, they're beautiful and a bit meshugenah, and they probably talk with their hands. Except for the religion thing, I'm not certain that Italians and Jews are all that different from each other, so, if anything, the mix just enhances two already marvelous gene pools.
When my youngest daughter was in third grade, she used to go on and on about a kid named Eliot Goldstein (not his real name, of course, but you get the gist), a kid who was so far off the charts academically he had become legendary among eight year olds. The deepest, darkest, suburban competitive mom in me wanted a piece of this Eliot Goldstein, this super Jew with the super brain whom my brilliant (in my mind) daughter found untouchable. So when she brought home her class picture, I scanned it, looking for the big nosed nerd. I couldn't find him.
"That's him," she said, pointing to a face that looked as much like an Eliot Goldstein as Jill Ocean from Brooklyn looks like Bridget Flanagan from Belfast. I stared at this little smiling Asian face in the sea of whites, and burst out laughing. An Asian Jew. Talk about a designer mutt! And talk about an unfair advantage! It's like giving an already massive football player steroids. Trying to compete academically with this Eliot Goldstein would be like running a marathon against a Kenyan.
Manny is a designer mutt of the highest order. Part pug, part beagle, he is as fat as a house and has a freakishly keen nose for critters and freshly removed underwear. He howls like a beagle, but only when he's jumping all over you with relief because you've been gone for a few hours. He can lie around all day like a pug, but give him a whiff of a cookie or a hamper full of dirty laundry and he can leap from his slumber faster than a flying squirrel. He's an agile little porker. And so sweet.
That's how mixed breeds tend to be: "wholes" that are better than the sum of their parts. I have no first hand knowledge of Eliot Goldstein's disposition, but word has it he's a nice kid. Well don't that beat all. My kids may not be brilliant, but they get by, and they're pretty nice people. I have yet to meet a nasty labradoodle who sheds, or a mean-spirited, underachieving Asian Jew. Okay, I only know two, but I'm just sayin'.
Now I may be a pure bred Jew, but I'd like to think this post has been as sweet as if it had been written by a mutt. Not a trace of anger or nastiness to be found. Sure, I may have inadvertently offended Asians, Jews, Italians, the Irish, and various canine breeds, but I think I tried my hardest to focus on only the most flattering stereotypes.
Back to snuggling with my sweet Manny. Sure is cold outside.
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