At the table at the end of the restaurant I see a couple, visibly in love, and between them a tiny dog that keeps sticking out its tongue and fluttering around. I had decided not to write anything today, a day of pause, a morning of pleasant inconcretions, but my intentions immediately went to waste.
I have a story, a three-way love story, right there in front of my eyes, and I can’t resist its charm. Raquel López, Jaume Moragas and Aspen. Three in harmony. Three souls connected by a complicit tenderness. They tell me that they live very close to this cafeteria, and that they often stop by here.
Raquel: “We like this, there is a relaxed, calm atmosphere. We had a drink, the two of us talked and played with the dog. It is a pet frendly place.”
He explains to me that it is essential for them to know places where they can be with Aspen: “If there is a place where they don’t let animals enter, we cross it off our list.”
Today they left the house with their puppy, they went to the park so he could do his business and run around freely, socializing with other dogs. And now they are here, having a good breakfast, without rushing. This is your sacred Sunday morning ritual.
Raquel is from Barcelona, a lawyer, and works in a major insurance company. Jaume is an engineer and works in a large automobile company. They have been together for eight years now. They signed up for a meetup, one of those applications in which, due to similar interests, different people sign up and share an activity. In his case it was an NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) masterclass.
She tells me, her eyes shine: “Jaume came up to me, asked for my phone number, we went for a drink and what had to come up came up.” The little dog is ten years old and is called Aspen, like the prestigious American ski resort. Raquel and a friend were looking for dog names on the internet and suddenly… Aspen.
It is a name with certain connotations of exclusivity, it is elegant, distinguished. And your toy Yorkshire terrier has those characteristics. The truth is that it is a true “toy”. It only weighs two kilos.
On Raquel’s birthday, her mother gave it to her, she gave it to her in a little box… A real little toy. “When I first saw Aspen I felt like I fell in love with him, instantly. “My heart skipped a beat.”
They met Jaume, they fell in love immediately and in just a couple of months they decided to move in together. She only made one condition for him to share a house: “Jaume, Aspen and I are two who come to live with you.” And she finished: “I present to you Aspen, my dog (dog son).”
Jaume had never lived with animals, but they immediately became close with his miniature Yorkshire. On May 24, they get married, after eight years of living together. They have been preparing everything with enthusiasm for a year, down to the smallest detail. It will be an intimate party, with family and close friends.
In the cafeteria I watch them, in front of their laptop, finishing the thousand procedures required for a trip like the one they are going to make, they leave just the day after the wedding.
They make a Fly
Jaume: “You have to coordinate everything to locate American pet frendly hotels and restaurants… In the United States there are not as many pet frendly places as in Europe. “We are studying how the three of us can go everywhere together.” They are going on a car route, the two of them and the dog.
Raquel: “Imagine traveling so many miles on a bus, with a lot of people… Poor Aspen.” They tell me that dogs as tiny as your Yorkshire Terrier live an average of up to 18 years. However, the largest ones live a maximum of 12 years.
Jaume: “Aspen is much smaller than a cat… Cats usually weigh between 6 and 8 kilos. Our little dog only reaches two kilos. It is like a bottle of water, it weighs and occupies the same amount.”
For her, Aspen is one of the loves of her life. She confesses to me that on some occasions when she has been bad, he has saved her from it, helping her to be better, to move forward.
I say goodbye to them, to all three of them, and Aspen continues to make impossible faces in the slow air of this Sunday morning. I’m going to get my coffee. It is cold. Tomorrow will be another day.