November 25, 2014

White Dog looked down from the arm of the chair. "Coffee head!" she sneered. She was ignored, so she repeated her taunt a little louder. "Stop! you are being a brat," I chastised her.

The truth was that Zsofia WAS a coffee head. Just like she is most mornings.

YoYoMa started the White Dog Morning Coffee Club when he joined us years ago. At first it was just he and I sharing my first cup of half coffee, half heavy cream of the day. He has always taken just three slurps and is done. Then Quinn, mostly out of jealousy, joined the Club and demanded longer sips as he came to savor the rich creamy taste. And then Oso delicately lapped at the cup mostly for the brotherly solidarity of the ritual; often his little tongue never even touched liquid. None of the girls was ever interested and the boys were ok with that.

These days it is Yo and I; some mornings Sachi joins us. Taiko comes over to sniff the cup each morning and turns his head away in rejection. It is a special moment between my Big Boy and I as we hover together over my "Eskie Mom" mug. He can be a kind of sloppy drinker whose big deep slurps splash onto my little area rug. Over time I came to realize he did this on purpose because when his drinks are done, he sinks to his belly and snoofles up the drops from the rug.

Zsofia is intensely curious about our habit. She managed to get a drink once by shoving her head under my arm and plunging her snout fully into the cup. Zso wants to join the club.

"You are too young to drink coffee," I have told her. "You are just a baby. We will discuss coffee drinking when you are a grownup." This does not make her happy. So she hovers and stalks and maneuvers trying to sneak in a taste.

She has found a weak point in the system that sometimes grants her a few drops if she is quick enough...she scrunches down and lowers her head so that she is positioned under the cup when Yo takes his slurpy drink. If she has done her physics correctly SHE wins the drops that fall to the area rug...a miscalculation results in a darker shade of White Dog with mocha spots all over her ears and back of her head. Thus, WD's moniker.

YoYoMa is a good brother and has tried to show her how to try to get the drops off of her head and into her mouth by grooming her head and face like a cat does, but has given up because she is hopelessly four-months old.

HER solution is to shake her entire body vigorously and then roll allover the carpet.