March 3 - Woof (but British)

When your early-riser mom comes to visit, expect to have a full day completed before 11am. Last night we were in bed, post skin care routines, retainers in, books out by 8:30pm. This morning we were on the golf course, tee-ing off for our 9 holes, by 7:30am.

A twosome with a 7:30am tee time is a bit of a wildcard. The other 2 people at 7:30am could just not show up (the ideal), they could be really intense golfers (the nightmare), or, as we discovered, they could be a pair of 18 and 16 year old brothers who are just looking to have a nice morning together (our reality). Honestly, I couldn’t have imagined a better outcome than these two kids. They were quick players, but not intense. Quiet, but not unfriendly. They commented on our good shots, but refrained from teasing us too much on our duffs. It was, after all, the first round of golf of the season for all of us.

One of my mom’s favorite parts of our Chicago weekend so far is the amount of ‘beautiful’ dogs. Seriously, the woman comments on dogs approximately 10x more than she comments on people. I believe ‘Wow, Larkin, the dogs here are just beautiful’ has come out of her mouth 5+ times.

We didn’t have much down time waiting on the t-box - for the most part, pace of play was impressive. But during one of our moments of waiting on the group of four in front of us, my mom started up the convo with one of her favorite topics. “So, I’ve been loving all the dogs here. Do you two own a dog?”

Both boys lit up.

“We have a British golden retriever!”

Now, I have heard of all sorts of different labs. American labs, English labs. Usually it has to do with the shape of their face. But a golden retriever, as far as I knew, was a golden retriever. And I have gotten most of my dog knowledge from my mom, so it was safe to say that her brain was working through this new information in the exact same way.

“What does it, bark in an accent? Bahk bahk?”

The two kids looked at each other. Now it was my turn to read their minds, and I’m pretty sure it was something along the lines of Is this lady serious??

“Uhh, not quite.” The older one quickly stepped in to save his brother and educate my mother. “The ‘British’ of it all means she has white fur instead of the typical yellow of golden retrievers.”

“Oh my gosh.” Mom turned to me, now. “So Jen has a British golden retriever. We’ve been saying Hazel wrong for years! Oh, she’s going to love this!”

Later today, we stopped for coffee and bumped into my friend and her boyfriend and were telling them about our golf crew and their British golden retriever.

“What does it, have a Hockney accent?” Sam asked.

He and my mother were (obviously) fast friends.