The Pocket-Kibbling Puppy Fraud

I've moved to an entirely different, but parallel, city and time zone, one where I'm exotic and irresistible, and it's great. This one is mapped according to grassy patches and trash cans. I've made a lot of new friends here, Luna, Gustav, Turner and countless others, but they're into public defecation and it's hard for me to embrace their subculture. My roommate is doing her best to integrate me, it comes so naturally to her.

This morning, I spoke to 25 people more people than usual, using language I barely grasp (heavy on breeds and canine health references), about four hours earlier than I'd normally interact with anyone at all. I did so before coffee and wearing no make-up, motivated to leave my house only by the prospect of not having to wipe urine from my refinished wood floor. But, to the untrained eye, I am a "dog person", and that gets me major "cute" points.

The truth is, I am a pocket-kibbling puppy fraud. It's not my puppy, she's a foster puppy belonging to an organization with a much higher purpose, and the only reason she listens to me is because I have a pocket full of kibble. My other pockets bulge with poo-bags and emergency squishy, meaty treats in case I really need some pull. Seriously, I don't usually smell like dog food.

To her credit, she's the cutest puppy I've ever met, and it's she who is irresistible, not me, even if she eats shit sometimes. Recently, in the classifieds section of a local publication, an anonymous admirer declared that I am "nearly as cute as [my] puppy", and he'd like to meet us. Before my foster-puppy arrived, I might have been offended by any comparison to an animal, but my context is now kibble crumb-coated, and I'm starting to get it.

Already she's shaken my existence, but when she grows up, this noble little puppy will be an assistant to a child with special needs, and make a more significant contribution to that child's life than most people ever could, and I love her for it. A lot. It's an honour to be her sidekick, for however long that may be, even if it means that I am, once again, just the pretty girl's best friend.

My mother on a short leash

My mother's index finger has gone arthritic, and is crooked slightly to the side, making it look more like the witch finger she claims it is. It's one of those unfortunate health issues that's turned family joke, and I suspect she enjoys the additional power she wields when she points it at us. We recoil as though she's growled our full names: first, middle and last. It's that scary.

It's that finger I imagine hovering over the keypad of my parents' phone right now, waiting to call me and say, "I told you so." She's the only person who can get away with saying this to me, and not just because I'm scared of her finger.

Of all the voices in my head, my mother's is the loudest. While she's given me some crap tidbits of advice in the past, she always delivers them with my best interests in mind. On occasion, I regret that my disgusted "I know" moans, have caused her to keep her opinions to herself when it most matters, leaving me completely vulnerable to her follow-up "I told you so," a phrase she's reluctant to surrender.

My parents outsmarted me several times when I was a kid, concerning my want for pets. When I asked for a rabbit, they said yes, but first, I'd have to endure child labour and toil for my opportunistic neighbours, to afford the rabbit and all its trimmings (the cage and food). The lesson taught me well. Now, I always set a rate in advance, and I know rabbits aren't worth the trouble, they are the trouble.

Still, when the opportunity arose to temporarily foster a puppy, bred to be docile and compliant, with a gorgeous fox-face, I fell into the same trap. The dog is destined to become an assistance dog for children with special needs, and all I have to do is give it love. Lots and lots of love, until it finds a semi-permanent foster home (in days, or weeks, or at most, a month). Oh, and there was something about training.

During these first few days of the experience, nearly everything's gone smoothly, all until the otherwise floppity, waggity, semi-comatose fluffball spies a larger dog in the park and barks uncontrollably. That's why, I suspect, my mother hasn't called yet, there's no need. She's channeling through the puppy: "I-wowowowow told-rrrrwarrrrwwrr you-bowowowow so-oh-oh-oh-ohhhhhh!" I'd know her voice anywhere.

Regardless of the readjustment and challenges ahead (missed debauchery, bike-ride hiatus, picking up feces), and all the whining I'll be doing because of it, I know that even my mother's witch finger, in all its cynical glory, would disappear in this puppy's fuzzity coat.

Speed-dating: Alien or Predator?

We were sprawled in the grass, me and a close guy friend (read: ex-intermittent lover), drinking Czech beer from brown paper bags when I brought it up. It was one of the first real days of spring---sunny enough to make you feel guilty for not spending every last second in a city park, and not quite warm enough to fully enjoy.

"I'm thinking of trying speed-dating with some girlfriends, you know, for kicks," I said. I was talking myself into it because I'd already promised to go with them, and we'd already childishly, unethically and without concern for the feelings of others, made side bets on the outcome.

"Everything I know about speed-dating, I learned from Alien Loves Predator," he said, and gave me a run-down of the basics as interpreted by a comic, further interpreted by him.

While an awkward evening of asking all the wrong guys inappropriate questions would make a story, good or bad (and I am usually a sucker for that), the more I thought about it, the more I feared complete humilation. "What if no one checks my box?" I whined for reassurance that the little adventure wouldn't go hideously wrong, call up karma, and crush my self-esteem.

"Well, you don't have to worry about that for two reasons," he said. "First, you're a total flirt. And second, no one will detect your neuroses in under 10 minutes."

Leave the "bitch" at home, please

"I like your pussy!" It came from a chubby pubescent boy behind me on the sidewalk, more for the benefit of a passing truckload of gawking local men than to gain my affections. It was noon in Tegucigalpa, the first day of my return to Honduras (with a human rights organization), and I was headed downtown for a late breakfast. I'd been in the country once before, and had promised I'd never subject myself to it again. Never say never. I've heard that before, too.

My first trip to Honduras was purely for pleasure, but dodging bullets and sexual harassment aren't my good time. It was a valuable visit, though. I discovered that while learning a new language can open doors, not all doors need to be opened. What this boy said to me, I'd heard many times from the lips of Honduran urbanites. It's been whispered, it's been yelled, it's been accompanied by classic goosing.

I assumed this boy didn't know what he was saying, not really, and only mimicked the older men to impress them. Tens of them, crowded together on the flatbed truck, heeded the boy's cue and jeered. If any were silent, I couldn't be sure; my eyes rolled too far back to tell. My stomach growled. If only I could fart on command.

I felt obligated to clear things up for the boy, to give him a fighting chance for future international relations. In crap Spanish, I explained that if he ever wants to actually land an English-speaking girlfriend, he shouldn't mention the P-word when he introduces himself. He seemed to be listening, and thought for a moment before screaming, "I am going to fcuk you so hard, you bitch." To his credit, he pronounced each word perfectly.

As any lone traveller, my skin is tan and thick, so it's not the heckling that bothers me. Depending on where I am, I'm a güera, gringa, muñeca, guapa, flaquita, linda, or even a calientita huevos. That's fine. It's just that I'd rather leave the "bitch" and "pussy" at home. So, if I ever meet the jerk tourist who imported that phrase, I'm going to be sure he knows what these guys are saying about his mother.

Anyway, this is what I ended up eating for breakfast:

Take me to India, over coffee

Dangerously, I've encountered a man who has the power to make me fall desperately, actively in love with everything he shows me. I'm at his mercy. This morning he's managed to make me homesick for India, and for all the places in the world I've not yet travelled, chest-achingly desperate to be there, absolutely everywhere, right at this moment. Ouch.

He's Jonathan Clark, a photographer, and you can see his genius, too.