The Other Woman

Matt loves Azuki and Azuki loves her pa. In fact, when we both come home from somewhere, and I open the cage door, Azuki barely gives me a glance and runs straight up to her pa, wiggling her tail, hopping, and then flipping into an automatic belly-up position to receive her belly rubs. She MIGHT come to me for about 2 seconds, lick me in the hand and then runs back to her pa, showering him with kisses and squeals of joy. This is rather offensive because as I am basically a SAHMTP (Stay At Home Mom To Pup), I am the one who takes care of her most of the time--I feed her, train her, take her for walks or romps in the park or BOTH, as well as wipe her butt after she poops. Her pa's primary job, on the other hand, is PLAYING with her. On rare weekend mornings when Matt gets up first to entertain her, I often find a dog scratching at my bedroom door 10 minutes later. When I come out, I will inevitably find Matt on the computer reading the latest news on football, while the pup roams around bored to death trying to find her ma. One time, when I heard that scratching noise at my door, I came out and found our pup slung innocently over Matt's shoulders, her eyes still fixated on my bedroom door, while her pa is reading sports online. That is apparently Matt's idea of pup-sitting.

But to be fair, Matt loves Azuki very much, and spends much of of his free time babying her and playing with her. Last night, he spent at least 15 minutes before bed saying good night to the pup, and trying to make sure that the portable dehumidifier/cooler is at a good distance from her crate so she is comfortable.

One reason that he is so smittened by our pup is that unlike the other woman in his life, Azuki doesn't complain when he has to go on a long business trip and she is always estatic when he comes home. A casual 'conversation' with Azuki will never lead to something much bigger and more serious, like "How much longer are we going to be living in Japan?" (which, by the way, the answer has gone from 12 months to 18 months, and the answer now remains 18 months no matter how many months actually passed. So it is always 18 months away). The pup is already spayed, so she will never get cranky during certain periods of the months when hormones rage, and starts to ponder outloud on the meaning of her life, demand to know how much he really loves her (and if he indeed loves her as much as he claims, then why are they still in Japan?) and acts totally annoying and pretentious while quoting lines about how her life is standing still from highschool-required readings(Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird). In other words, Matt appreciates Azuki's utter devotion and enthusiasm, which comes without the complicated baggage that is human emotions.

This blog entry is dedicated to pup pup's pa--thank you for putting up with your two females and shall we say, our quirks ;)