LALATOWN LIFE

Somehow, my YouTube algorithm has decided that I am getting divorced.

Fair enough.

I’ve watched a few Korean videos about divorce lately—not because I was conducting serious research, but because once you watch one lawyer calmly explaining divorce, YouTube apparently decides you would also like seventeen more lawyers explaining divorce.

And naturally, the algorithm eventually wandered from divorce to being single, and from being single to dating, matchmaking agencies, and people discussing what men supposedly look for in women.

A few days ago, one of those videos started playing.

What kind of women do men like?

I wasn’t particularly interested, but my phone was sitting there playing it out loud, so I listened.

Apparently, men like women who have a few gaps.

Women who aren’t good at everything.

Women who leave a little room for a man to step in and do something for them.

I started laughing.

Not a delicate little laugh.

I mean I actually burst out laughing.

Because apparently, I did not qualify for a single item on the list.

Somewhere along the way, I seem to have forgotten how to expect someone else to take care of things for me.

I wasn’t always like this.

Life just has a funny way of training you.

And then today, life decided to give me a practical demonstration.

Bongu was being strangely quiet.

Normally, if I’m out on the balcony, he wants to know exactly what I’m doing. He goes in. He comes out. He changes his mind. He goes back in.

Sometimes every ten minutes.

It can drive me crazy.

But today he disappeared.

And suddenly, the silence felt wrong.

I called him.

Nothing.

I searched the house.

Nothing.

Finally, I found him downstairs, sitting quietly on a chair.

I walked over to him.

And nearly fainted.

His face was swollen.

Really swollen.

One side of his muzzle had puffed up so much that his upper lip looked like someone had put a lid on his mouth.

Then I noticed his eye beginning to swell too.

My heart dropped straight through the floor.

And suddenly I remembered something.

A few hours earlier, Bongu had been outside playing with his ball and digging around in the dirt when he suddenly let out one sharp scream.

I called him over immediately and checked him.

He looked fine.

So, being the brilliant mother that I am, I apparently decided:

Excellent. Nothing happened.

I even took the poor child on another walk because he hadn’t pooped yet.

Now I was staring at his enormous face thinking,

You idiot. You absolute idiot.

I called the veterinary office.

No answer.

I left a message.

At that point, I wasn’t waiting around. His eye was swelling, his face looked ridiculous and terrifying at the same time, and I was already preparing myself to drive straight to the emergency vet.

I put Bongu in the car and headed down the mountain.

Naturally, this was the exact moment when the car in front of me decided to drive as if we had all the time in the world.

We did not have all the time in the world.

MY DOG’S FACE IS EXPANDING. PLEASE MOVE.

Somewhere along the way, the veterinary office called me back.

The instructions were delivered with a level of calm that I personally did not possess.

Give him one 25 mg adult Benadryl.

Watch him.

If he starts vomiting, has trouble walking, or has difficulty breathing, go straight to the ER.

They asked how he was behaving.

I said he had jumped into the car by himself.

“Oh, that’s good.”

Good?

GOOD?

Have you seen his face?

But apparently, yes. That was good.

So we went home.

I took one tiny pink Benadryl tablet, stuck it into a piece of cheese, and gave it to Bongu.

Then Bongu and I collapsed.

Completely.

He slept.

I slept.

We both looked like we had survived something much larger than one unidentified insect in the backyard.

When I woke up, his face was already much better.

And only then, once I knew he was okay, could I admit something slightly terrible:

With that enormous upper lip, he had looked ridiculously cute.

Like a cartoon dog who had been drawn incorrectly.

I had even taken a picture.

Because once your dog is no longer in immediate danger, apparently swollen-face photographs become family news.

And somewhere between the panic, the Benadryl, the cheese, and the nap, another thought had quietly arrived.

When I start the next part of my life—whether that ends up being in Puerto Rico or somewhere else—it will be me, Bongu, and Jjangu.

My little family.

If something happens, I will be the one who runs.

For a moment, that thought felt heavy.

And then, strangely, I laughed again.

Because really…

when wasn’t I?

Maybe that’s why that ridiculous matchmaking video made me laugh so hard.

I seem to have misplaced all my charming little gaps somewhere along the way.

But today Bongu needed me.

I ran.

He got his cheese.

His face came back.

And now I am seriously reconsidering my romantic idea of living in Puerto Rico without owning a car.

Apparently, today’s great lesson about independence is not particularly poetic.

It is this:

Maybe I should buy a small car.

Anyway.

I still don’t qualify as the kind of woman men supposedly like.

But Bongu is okay.

I’ll take it.