My entire life, I’ve wanted a dog. When I was about nine, my 19-year-old sister surprised me with a pale Labrador puppy. We’d recently moved away from the farm where I’d grown up , and all of my brothers and sisters were away at college. “He’ll keep you company,” she said. She was into Tolkien at the time, so she named him Gandalf.
But Sandy had not cleared the dog with my dad. Due to Lady, he was completely against it.
Lady was the family dog before I came into the picture. A mostly Collie mutt, her intelligence was legendary. She helped raise my brothers and sister for nearly a decade – until she was hit one day by a speeding Buick. Lady died in my father’s arms.
My dad was so bruised emotionally by her loss that he vowed never to have another dog. Without discussion, he made my sister take Gandalf back after two days, while I was at school. I refused to speak to him for a couple of weeks.
After 30 years, I decided that it was finally time to get a dog. After two years of listening to me talk about it, Mike agreed. We found a cute little maltese yorkie mix with a breeder. We debated overnight and finally made a decision. This morning, the breeder assured us the dog was still available. We emailed the contract and sent the deposit via Paypal. We assumed the deal was done… until late this afternoon when we received an email saying “another couple was interested.” What?! We waited. We called. I checked my email every 90 seconds. Hours later, he finally called to say that they sold him to a different couple.They had received their paperwork first. Sorry.
I’m not mad at them. Well, OK, I’m sort of mad at them. There’s something cruel in waiting until 8 p.m. to tell us that we didn’t get a puppy that we thought we bought at 10 a.m. I had a dog bed picked out. I bought him treats at Mud Bay.
But the big thing was that we got the call while we were eating at Siam on Broadway. It is not an exaggeration to say that Mike bought our house due to its extreme proximity to Siam. We eat there at least once a week. It’s a rare day that we don’t have remnant takeout boxes from Siam in our fridge. When we’ve been traveling, the first thing that we do when we come home to Seattle is head to Siam.
It was one of those things that you could count on – until tonight. After 20 years, the owner decided to close down. Tonight was the last night.As a farewell, today we ate both lunch and dinner there. Tonight, as we ate our Siam special curry and our fish cakes, we talked to the staff. It was as if we were saying good-bye to relatives planning to move so far away that we all knew we’d ever visit. They poured generous glasses of wine, and brought us free food. Longtime patrons packed the place for one last meal, and the night took on the feel of a good-natured wake. We ordered too much on purpose, so we could eat their food for a few more days. In the middle of all of this, I got the call about the puppy. The evening took on a strong melancholy note.
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