Marvelous Mia

A Food Aquisition Artist

My nephew, whom I have had the pleasure of visiting for the past 4 days, is a pretty talented individual. One of his talents is photography, and yesterday I went with him to photograph a wedding. This wedding was at a lovely adobe house adjacent to a winery in Escondido, California. The whole experience was awesome, and the homeowners were absolutely smashing folks, but there was one sentient being that made a lasting impression.

Meet Mia:

When I walked through the front door this floofy gray beast met me with no small amount of canine enthusiasm. She leapt up with spring-like force and precision and kissed me right in the lips. A little overfamiliar of a greeting, but I've met her kind before. One thing I noticed right out of the gate was that Miss Mia was a quiet sort. Thing two noticed was the large amount of intelligence radiating from her lively brown eyes.

Right away I was promptly informed that, "Mia has a problem with food."

I emitted sounds of mirth for Mia picked that moment to set her ears up and cocked her blue Merle head at an innocent "who, me?"angle.

Wedding prep things were beginning to commence around us in the harried celebratory tornado that accompanies such events. I was enveloped into the familial fold and soon found myself immersed fully into all manner of wedding prep. It was as I was folding a coral colored linen napkin that I heard the words: "The cake and cupcakes are here."

A short while later the groom's mother and I had artfully arranged the cake and 96 coral, lavender, and white frosted cupcakes on a cake tower. It was a buttercream banquet. That there was also a land shark lurking on the edge of the cake decorated reef did not escape my notice.

Every time a human would divert their attention Mia could be spied trotting nonchalantly by the table. She would tip her head to one side and smoothly slide her muzzle down the table. That maneuver was designed to test the waters. If no one scolded her during the test maneuver, she would come back by for another pass. This time, halfway through she would leap up, place one paw on the table, and seize a cupcake so quickly that the whole operation made me think of Hollywood representations of a pickpocket gang in action.

Mia also made her way through the selections of the taco bar, by winding her way through the tables in the wedding reception pavilion, plucking unsuspecting tacos from their absent or distracted owner's plates. One man was laughing so hard at her antics that I started to become concerned about his oxygen levels.

Apologies for the blur, there is always movement by the one that wears that well-groomed fur.

Like the Hatch chili salsa that we were served, Mia had become too bold. Such a cornucopia of available culinary delights must have increased her bravado to the point that she had no choice but to indulge without care. That, or she's just a pig dog with no boundaries or impulse control. Either way, my fluffy friend was tied up in the kitchen for the remainder of the wedding.

It was there that I was entertained with tales of Mia's commitment to food liberation. Indeed, there was few plates too well watched that she couldn't concoct a food-freeing plan. My favorite anecdote was her ability to come up between a child's legs, pop their plate with her nose, and smoothly snatch whatever food she had launched from said plate in one fluid motion. This was no hyper, uncontrollable canine, she was Ocean's Eleven version of comestible thievery. Her antics made an already enjoyable atmosphere positively spectacular with additional amusement.

And as always, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's buttercream smeared and dog hair covered iPhone