just as i thought i'd surround myself with positive influence regarding my food intake, i turned to ben and jerry as they offered me a taste of their version of heaven (in this case, my weighing scale's future hell if i visit them one too many times). i never really had much resistance against pretty things. so it was inevitable that those rainbow sprinkles got me on the hook.
ellis and i walked my vanilla ice cream with rainbow sprinkles and his chocolate fudge brownie over to the port imperial park, just a few feet past ben & jerry's. and as we staked out our spot, towering over everyone else from the platform fountain, i noticed that while we were walking our 200-calorie-filled single scoops, everyone else was walking their dogs.
i was never fond of dogs. or more correctly, i was never fond of pets. my family had a white askal (asong kalye or stray dog) when i was much younger. my uncle meant to bring him home to act as a guard dog. instead, we all had to watch our backs for when the little thing escaped its restraints. because as much as he was supposed to be a guard dog, it had trouble differentiating master from burglar. one time, i was trapped on top of this table in the patio for half an hour while my uncle tried to calm 'squeaky' down. i always wondered why my uncle named him so. with the bark and the bite on that dog, he was anything but squeaky.
after squeaky, my parents, my sister and i moved across the street from our ancestral home, where we didn't have to deal with my uncle's strays. so growing up, the only pet my sister and i ever had was a school of goldfish (which her class eventually overfed and killed after she volunteered to bring them as class pet/mascot). i knew i wasn't much for pets because the whole time we had them, the only responsibility my sister and i ever assumed was to feed the fish. clean-up was mostly up to the maid or my dad. that's also why i think we never pushed for getting a legit breed pup. i didn't want to do the clean up. i wasn't sure we'd have the time to walk them. and unlike most households on our block, we didn't want to just keep them tied down in the backyard (which, back then, we didn't even have). we wanted them to be playthings, have them roam around freely and come back to us at the end of the day without having to go through training them. so my dad put his foot down and said that if we weren't willing to do the work, then having a puppy would be too much of a waste.
even now, i couldn't see myself owning a dog. last year, my cousin's ex-girlfriend was moving apartments, and she asked us if we could take care of her cairn terrier, spanky, while she figured out the living arrangements. mind you, my cousin and i were condo-sitting for my aunt who is working in montreal at the moment. we're staying on the 10th floor of the building with a small balcony. and because my cousin and i have completely opposite schedules, i got to experience part of the puppy-parenting process (though i highly doubt i qualify). my cousin would feed and walk him in the morning. and i would let him out on the balcony with a pad at the end of the day so he can poop and pee. i could see he was miserable in his cage on most days. so sometimes, i'd let him out of his cage and let him roll around in the apartment. when he ends up acting too hyper, i lure him back into his cage with a treat (which mostly happens after 5-10 minutes of letting him out of his cage). i felt bad for the little guy, but i didn't have much patience for him. maybe it's a mood thing because sometimes, i do have fun just watching him run around the apartment and being all happy, wagging its tail and jumping up at me. those days were very rare though.
recently, ellis got me hooked on fish. while he has a small set up in his parents' home for 3 goldfishes, and a small set up for a beta at his allentown apartment, i had a small set up for a beta, HAD being the operative word. after a few months, i came home from work to find my beta grey and floating upside down. i don't exactly know what i did wrong, since fish ranks low on the maintenance department. but again, they never stick around for too long with me. somehow, that makes me worried about having my own kids.
if i can't even take care of a low-maintenance beta, how should i take care of a kicking and screaming baby, waking me up in the middle of the night without any way of telling me what's wrong?
after all this rambling, i get jolted out of my head when ellis asked, "are you going to finish that?" pointing to my cup of melting vanilla ice cream. i look at my cup and feel bad about not finishing it, so i handed it off to ellis who gladly scarfed the rest down. as he finished my cup, this feeling of relief slowly washed over me.
/start of cheesy bit/
i feel dumb about getting lost in my own thoughts and working myself up to worry about parenthood when i know i've got something good here. ellis may not know it yet, but i believe he'd be a great father. he's got this easy way about him that draws the kids in. he's open, caring and goofy. and though he hasn't been all that close with his younger sister, i see how she looks up to him. the way he takes care of his fish is another sure-fire indication of his parenting skills. he makes sure they are fed well and on time, and he meticulously cleans his aquariums religiously. i should be so lucky as to still have him when that phase of my life rolls around. he really does bring balance to my life. while i approach situations with a carefree, live-in-the-moment, let's-cross-the-bridge-when-we-get-there type of reaction (which mostly results in me flailing around like a chicken with my head cut off if things come at me a bit too fast), he approaches every situation with a calm, well-prepared, and methodical manner. hopefully, ours is a future lethal parenting combination.
/end of cheesy bit/
i watch as he jumps off the ledge with the empty cups and soiled napkins to make his way to the trash bins a few feet away from where we were comfortably people-watching, the whole time thinking to myself, "well, at least we know who's got the diaper duty in this relationship."
--Pat Enriquez, New York
