That moment in time

My afternoon was pleasantly unremarkable by the standards of most people, but for me it was a very special time. Perhaps the stars had aligned: I happened to be working from home today, on an unseasonably warm January day (~ 69 degrees in the sun) and I happened to be reading a heartwarming book about love and wine Love by the Glass: Tasting Notes from a Marriage while taking a very late lunchbreak in our backyard. And my feet were being warmed by our lab Sammie while our sun worshipping dachshund Masala snoozed on her little bed right next to me.



It felt like spring had sprung early: the birds were chirping loudly enough to drown out the traffic outside, the sky was a brilliant cloudless periwinkle, and the callas that had just come into bloom were being ravished by a couple of butterflies. And the best part of all was that my two favorite girls were curled up side by side at my feet. Sammie and Masala are not known for their affinity for each other and it is a rare sight to see them sleeping close enough to touch! I desperately wanted to take a photo to preserve this tableau for posterity, but I knew that getting up to get the camera would ruin the moment. My only choice was to record it in my mind's eye.



And that's when it hit me - this was one of life's most perfect moments - the kind you wish you could bottle and preserve forever. And although I am lucky enough to have experienced a few of those moments with my amazing Sweetie, I cannot say I have ever wanted to freeze time while I was alone (minus other humans that is). And here I was today, experiencing a perfect moment of profoundly peaceful solitude, literally in my own backyard. True self-contentment. It was an enlightening and quietly empowering moment, and I have my dogs to thank for it.

Did I just hear you say Canine Pilates?

"Did I just hear you say Canine Pilates?" Yes, that was my reaction last week when Masala (my 13 year old wirehaired dachshund diva extraordinaire pictured here) went to see the Doggy Orthopedist. As many of you know, Masala is the "mini" love of my life, what some might call my soul dog.

She is a client of Dr Andrew Sams, http://andrewsamsclinic.com/who is not only an extraordinary doctor, but also a nice guy. He checked her out, pronounced her in fine shape and attributed her slowing down to her age. And he had a solution to the slight problem with her spine (after all she is a doxie!) - rest and then rehab. Resting we had done for the last 6-8 weeks, and now it was time for rehab.

So off we went -- to see Sarah Johnson, his rehab specialist. Sarah has a Masters in Canine Rehab and used to be a a pilates teacher in a previous life. And she is the one that suggested doing Pilates and related exercises with Masala to build up her core. Now, I have been trying to build up my core as well, so I thought "hurray, we can do this together", and had visions of rebonding over sweaty sessions at the Pilates Studio. I even had quasi-matching outfits picked out for us.

The reality thankfully (and I can just hear my husband thanking the 330,000 Indian Gods that he does not even believe in!) turned out to be a little bit different. It was determined that Masala is too little (she is only 9 lbs, and her legs are barely 3 inches tall) to do most of the exercises on the "Canine Pilates DVD" that Sarah has put together. Same with the equipment in her exercise studio. Necessity being the mother of invention, we had to improvise. First Masala was made to walk around on exercise mats of different thicknesses and densities, and with different levels of squishiness. Then she had to walk all over, and balance herself on, a wobble-board http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000G0ON2U, fitness disks of different heights

http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Fitness-Balance-Disc-Rock/dp/B000OENSWY, and lastly the BOSU https://www.bosu.com/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=bosu/story.html.

(Disclaimer: I am not connected to the sale of these in any way :))

Funny, my butt hardly fits on the BOSU, and here she was walking around on it! And whereas I can barely balance myself on any of these objects, Masala walked around on them like Nadia Comaneci on the balance beams. She pranced around like she belonged there and had been practising as long as Nadia.

We concluded the session with a nice relaxing massage for Masala as Sarah showed me how to do this at home. And guess what, just like me, Masala is only able to partially relax on the massage table. As she worked on Masala, Sarah told me "Wow, this little one has some really well muscled hamstrings!" Ummm, swell! I have been trying to build up my hamstrings forever, but they are still puny shrivelled little twigs, while my quads have begun to look more like miniature tree trunks. And Masala has nice hamstrings without even trying? But then nobody ever said life was fair, did they?