Please, sir, I want s'more

This morning, Eska and I had oatmeal for breakfast, and things got weird.

By "weird," I mean, of course, that I had a sudden trans-mammal revelation that will surely change my life.

I don't much like oatmeal and never have. I recently bought some to have handy on those mornings when I am out of either cereal or milk, thinking I'd give it another chance and let it "grow on me" (as has been known to happen). But halfway through my bowl, I remembered why I never liked it in the first place, and handed it over to Eska in what I thought would turn out to be a dismal, and ultimately failed experiment.

She LOVED it. Lapped it all up. Couldn't get enough.

Now, it's true that on the whole issue of nature vs. nurture, I have never known where to hang my hat. I used to be all "nature" before I got Eska, but having her, and watching her transformation from the cold, shrewd, aggressive, half-crazed pup she was to the "sweet and kind and gentle" (and soft and prutty and musha-musha (rhymes with kush)) pup-a-lup during her years with me has sort of changed my mind. Or in any event, I've reconsidered my position.

But this morning, watching her go at it, my first thought was that she must be part British. How else could I explain her particular fancy for porridge, and her overall general belief that she is, in fact, the queen of England?

And THAT's when I remembered that she totes, legitimately is: the border collie half of her, anyway.

(Let's momentarily forget that Eska eats just about everything with gusto, and let's also skip the part where we consider whether dietary habits particular to ethnicities (or breeds, in this case) are the product of genetic predetermination or adaptation to their immediate environment and just agree that Brits don't eat like Italians, and Italians don't eat like Moroccans, and Moroccans don't eat like Ugandans, and so on and so forth, and blah blah blah...)

It was one small step for nature, and one huge step for my brain in remembering the whole root of the debate to begin with. My undergrad self is completely unimpressed with me right now. But my grad-school, underground-solitary-existence-hermit-mode current self sings with joy. She dances, too.

For her next birthday, I am making Eska shortbread and serving it with a shot of vodka and some pickles.