Friday, November 09, 2007

I Kid You Not


Occasionally I have Chinese or Thai food.
Daisy adores broccoli in any sauce and because I usually cook a hunk of protein (my pals at AFG can tell you how wearisome it is to read roast pork or chicken in my daily food day after day), I often get broccoli in something. Garlic sauce. Lemon grass. Basil. I save most of the rice for breakfast -- if you're on a food plan like mine, rice, fat-free ricotta, almond extract and sugar-free strawberry jam is a lovely breakfast, particularly in summer) -- and toss the fortune cookies in a jar to give Daisy another time.
They may be the only cookie in the world, aside from Fig Newtons, that I could care less about.
Lately Daisy has been on a hunger strike. It's not that she's trying to lose weight: she'll eat anything off the street, bite my fingers off for a cookie, try to rip open trash bags for old fish spines. At home, though, given her nutritious, measured kibble, she goes to sleep.
Other owners of Labradors find this to be impossible. They don't call `em "Lardadores" for nothing.
I think she's pouting over so many other dogs invading her space, even though these dogs are good friends.
If I have scraps of my protein, I cut them up and add them toher kibble, stirring well so that to get the last bit of chicken skin she has to eat her way to it. But yesterday morning, after her kibble had sat untouched for 12 hours and not really wanting to handle chicken at an early hour, I decided to lure her into eating by crumbling a fortune cookie into her bowl.
This is always an event because the fortune is then Daisy's, not mine. Sometimes they're so apt I put them on a little bulletin board on my desk. "Life is never more fun than when you're the underdog competing against the giants," reads one, and "Any impatience you show will only create more stress" is another I'm looking at right now.
Yesterday's, just in case you can't enlarge the photo, her fortune read, "Hungry is the man who finds salvation in a cookie".
You coulda knocked me over with a feather.
The irony -- looking for your future in a cookie. The irony -- my dog who looks me straight in the right pocket as we're walking down the street. The irony -- fooling her into eating correctly with a cookie.
The irony -- that this cookie would fall into my bag of lemon grass broccoli on some weary Friday night.
Do I really need to spell out the mirror image Daisy presents me of my own culinary tendencies?
Oh Lord, the irony.

8 comments:

Helen said...

Fantastic story. I love how life gives us these little synchronous gifts...like actual fortune-telling fortune cookies!

Anonymous said...

Wow, what a fortune to receive! Truth comes is a cookie about a cookie...

Cindy said...

Oh, the endless irony of life!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Tap, tap, tap....that's me arms crossed and impatiently tapping my foot while I wait for a new post. :)

Anonymous said...

I have a similar fortune taped up above my desk at work: "Some men dream of fortunes; others dream of cookies."

Bea said...

I am new to the world of labs.

Mollie is curious and full of energy and will eat anything. And I am at the beginning stage of ruining this shiny athletic dog with food. She wants to walk and run and play. I just want her to lie down and quit bothering me while I sit. So, I give her bones full of peanut butter to keep her from getting bored.

Yes I see the irony.

This dog is making a new creature of me.

Caciano Kuffel said...

my name is kuffel... caciano kuffel, and i would like know what you know about "kuffl" 'cause i find in google and see you "fraces kuffel" sorry my english i'm brazilian.

emails

cacianok@gmail.com
cacianokuffel@hotmail.com
caciano@comerciocaxias.com.br

Maggie said...

Hi Fran

Howzit goin' on the Heights? Hope you're well.

Maggie