My mother e-mailed me tonight. I thought she was going to say something about the historic landmark of a First Tuesday of November, but she surprised me, as she often does.

Some background is necessary here in case you missed my earlier post about my mom and her thing for rescuing Tibetan Mastiffs. My family has always had dogs, and those dogs have pretty much always weighed 50 pounds or more. Currently, Yogi is my 100-pound lovebug and Tashi is my 80-pound grumbler. Last week my mom sent me an enthusiastic e-mail to check out a new addition to the American Tibetan Mastiff Association’s “Needing Homes” list. His name is Jack, and “Jack is a gigantic (he weighs about 150 pound and needs to gain 30+ pounds) older dog of uncertain parentage.”

It’s worth noting that my mom probably weighs 90 pounds.

Yogi once broke her hip. (By accident – He doesn’t know he’s not the size of a puppy anymore.)

And she wants a potentially 180-pound mutt.

We conversed about it over e-mail and in-person. I provided the voice of reason and repeated how she doesn’t have time for a third dog. Further, she’d need a special license to be companion to three dogs. I asked if she had time for all that paperwork. For all the acclimation and rehabilitation? Not to mention that Jack was stationed in the vaguely described “southeast,” and we’re definitely on the westernmost edge of the West Coast. Who is going to bring Jack to California when he “is too big to be flown (he cannot fit in a 700 crate)” – Who has the time for that? Certainly not her. She stayed silent, but apparently she found the time and the means to the end:

Jack is an English Mastiff.
He WILL be coming to live here.

Jack is already being brought to LA.
You and I need to drive down to LA to bring him home.
I’d really like your company for this venture.
It’ll give you a chance to bond with this giant.

I’m not going to turn down this trip. Or tell my mom not to adopt the dog. She’s actually fulfilling a fantasy of my own in getting this dog. And that fantasy is:

I want to own a bear.

Like, a huge, furry beast of a dog. I want a dog that can be my arm rest when she or he sits next to my chair. I want to give small babies doggy rides and fall asleep on my dog as if it were a couch. I don’t know what it is about big lummoxes of things, but I like them. Would Of Mice and Men be as memorable if there was no Lenny? I think I met my dream animal last night when I watched my first episode of Avatar.

Yes, Jack is going to be my “Appa.”

Yip, yip!

HOW CUTE AM I??

Pictures will come when we meet him. And then he and I will fly and swim around the world.