Poodle Patrol Edition
Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of the Sunday Bagel. Here is this week’s dispatch from being on Poodle Patrol.
^ Watch this video of Teddy doing his backyard sweep of the property every morning.
This has been a lazy weekend for me as I house and dog sit for my family. Removed from my routines and my usual patterns, I have no choice but to sleep in, skip workouts and watch local news before bed.
Lucie is a 17 year old mini-poodle from my sister’s family who has basically just one faculty left: the appetite for food. If it weren’t for her ability to show up the second you open her can of beef and barley, there would be few options left for her.
Looking after her yesterday, I was on edge as she pooped in the kitchen four times before finally settling down.
Three diaper washes later, I went to the music store for my ritual every time I house-sit here: I like to rent a new piece of gear to coincide with being in a new environment.
Three Ideas from My Notebooks
1. All we really have here is our method, which is our theory of work and life. Every day is a chance to test out our method.
2. Underneath every difficult life event is some nugget of a breakthrough. If you are quick to react and feel like you’ve been wronged all the time, you will miss that golden nugget sitting right in front of you.
3. If you find the city overwhelming, put your mind in the countryside. Pretend you live in a small town with 10 other people. In this small town, there is no need to impress people or be a part of anything greater than just showing up for coffee and a 2-egg breakfast on the weekend.
Book Review: The Sympathizer
It took me 7 months to finish this Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Vietnam War by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Many nights it sat by my bedside, getting one or two pages in there at most.
So if you can’t tell, I am horrible at reading and finishing fiction. However, in this book, I was opened to a slice of life that affected our parent’s generation more than any other world event: The effects of a long war that led to no winners.
It would pair well with Ken Burn’s documentary series on the subject, however The Sympathizer takes you first-hand into a character who is torn between two political movements. And in the end, he probably could’ve done well with neither of these movements interfering with his life.
There are definitely a lot of funny moments in this book, mixed with scenes of torture and psychological abuse. This is not your typical beach read.
If you want to skip reading this book, you will soon be able to watch it as a movie on HBO.
Another great bagel find care of Missy:
Wishing you a great week ahead,
Elliott
oops. I originally wrote that Lucie doesn't look like an old girl to me. Oh yeah. It's not Lucie. It's Teddy!
Doh!