Meeka Dog: 1, Moose: 0
Posted by Moose on January 11th, 2008. Filed under: Travel, Uncategorized.We’re up in Tahoe. Most people are skiing. I am sleeping, drinking hot chocolate, and trying not to get woefully lost when I walk the dog.
A few years ago, my roommates and I would occasionally join a friend at his parent’s cabin. There was much carousing and cookie baking (the two are not as mutually exclusive as you might think) and, after all my Quiet Person fuses had blown, I would take my car and go for a short drive to regain the use of my ear drums after the third Hair Band album was cranked up with a shout of “DUDE! YOU GUYS! THIS ONE IS AWESOME!” So I’d drive around for a bit, listen to some classical music and reflect on the fact that I appeared to be a 65-year-old professor in a 24-year-old’s body.
Unfortunately, cabins in Tahoe tend to be built in a maze, not unlike the one in ancient Greece where, if you didn’t find your way out fast enough, an enormous man/beast would eat your head. I would drive for about five minutes, at which point I would be totally lost. Not remembering the precise street where we were staying didn’t help. One visit, after driving aimlessly through the rabbit warren for about 40 minutes, the boy had to borrow a car and COME FIND ME. I was circling the same six streets, but just never managed to find one that looked familiar. He pulled up in Crunchy’s car, and I followed him around one measly corner back to the cabin.
So it was with trepidation that I led the dog out for her morning constitutional. Meeka Dog adores the snow, and she had been staring out the window for hours, turning only when she heard me shift under the covers so she could breathe heavily in my face as if to say, I’M NOT GETTING ANY YOUNGER HERE. When I finally opened the door, she bounded out and started galumphing happily through the snow. Such was her glee that she only chased two cats on the way out of the cabin maze. I did have to walk into someone’s garage and fetch her, but it was better than the time she darted into SOMEONE’S LIVING ROOM and I had to race up the stairs past astonished family members, shouting apologies over my shoulder as I retrieved her from their couch.
Leaving the streets for the trees and snowy fields made me think about the Donner Party. I didn’t WANT to eat the dog, but I have to admit, if we got lost and I got hungry enough, I might just do it. The dog must have sensed my willingness to sacrifice her for my own survival because she never dashed off into the woods, forcing me to chase her and lose my bearings entirely. Though it’s safe to say that my bearings are pretty much gone once I’ve stepped out the front door.
We walked toward the hills, following snowmobile tracks, Meeka trotting ahead of me on the trail with her tail standing up like an attentive bottle brush. Sun glinted off the untouched banks of snow and the only sound was snow trickling out of the tree branches. Every so often, the snowmobile tracks would split and Meeka would choose one way or the other, me following, secure in the knowledge that I could just feast on her tender haunches if we never found our way back.
When my feet got cold, I turned us around and let her take the lead again, knowing she was far more likely to lead me to the nearest cat than to the front door. But she trotted straight back home like she had a map, forcing me to realize that a dog with a cranial cavity the size of a kumquat had just bested me in the brain department.
January 11th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Ha! You must be staying in Tahoe Donner, because we got lost up there a few years ago while staying in a cabin with friends. It took us nearly fifty minutes of aimlessly driving around in what seemed like a blizzard before we finally found the house! (And, yes, it seemed like one big maze to us). Glad you made it back to post. Enjoy the snow!
January 11th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
You know, funny aside, I just saw a kumquat for the first time over New Years and have been comparing EVERYTHING’S size to it recently. My husband is getting highly irritated.
We got married in Tahoe. I just beam every time I hear of it. But I let him do all the driving for that exact reason.
January 11th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Hooray for Meeka!
And hooray for you for having such a smart dog
I am envious of the sleeping. Enjoy your vacation!
January 11th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
So she has a good sense of direction. That doesn’t mean your brain isn’t bigger than a, I don’t know, satsuma.
January 11th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
I couldn’t do it, sup on a dog for survival, even if it died before me . . . I don’t think. Had I lived in New Orleans, I would’ve been one of the refugees to refuse rescue if it meant leaving my dog behind.
It’s easy to say that when my reality is comprised of living in the other extreme: we have a beautiful kumquat tree in the backyard dripping with ripened fruit, which we leave to drop and/or rot, unconsumed.
January 12th, 2008 at 3:14 am
I love to tell people I have a good sense of direction (and I love to graciously admit that if I have a map I am actually really good at reading it. Just not at the same time as driving.) but really I just keep going until I find my way to someplace I know. Even if it takes 3 hours and the place I know is a few hundred kms of suburban maze away from where I need to be, at least I know where I am!
Now I just take the train. I’ve found trains rarely get lost.
January 12th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
The scenery sounds really pretty! So, you know, you would have something to look at while feasting on Leg of Meeka.
January 12th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Speaking of kumquats, I was at fancy-schmancy Meatpacking restaurant in NYC the other day (not my typical scene), and was feeling particularly experimental when I ordered a kumquat mojito, which did not sound AT ALL appetizing to me, yet turned out to be the yummiest cocktail ever. I would even suggest flying from CA to NY just to try it. Or if you have a Magic Bullet, perhaps you could just make it in your own cozy SF home!
January 14th, 2008 at 3:20 am
Ha ha! Remember that one time when you found yourself crossing two bridges to get from San Francisco to Palo Alto?
That was funny.
January 14th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Take comfort: Meeka’s brain didn’t best yours; its nose did. And it’s a safe bet she has a bigger nose. You could work on learning to identify the smell of your own footprints, so that you could just follow the smell of yourself back home when you were lost…but that seems like way too much work. I say just keeping following her. Let her have the upper hand (paw? nose?) on this one. Besides, I bet she can’t type.
January 14th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Ok, sorry, I no speak English good today. HER nose…KEEP following her…please just pretend I can type better than Meeka.
January 15th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Yay dog! They can be very smart when they want to be, as my parent’s dog is whenever you have a treat for her.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Tail as bottle brush = awesome.