Tag: Dogs

  • ODDS and ENDS: Hair, Dogs, and My Website

    (My dog’s breath smells like shrimp…)

    I am a balding man. My brothers are balding men, and my father is a balding man as well. His father was bald, as was his father. As far as I can tell, men in my family have been bald. It’s just who we are, and I am fine with it. My uncle, who was my dad’s brother, told me to get a wife before I lose all my hair. I followed that advice, and my wife is good with a balding husband. And as my hair leaves the top of my head, I have started sprouting hair in my ears and nose. It is enough of an issue that I now have a trimmer specifically for those spots. Yet, I find myself wondering as I shave my ears and nose; why does my body grow new hair in my ears and nose? When I hit puberty, I started growing hair all over, EXCEPT for my ears and nose. So, what happened at 45 that caused my body to say, “Yeah, we need more hair at the nose and ears!” But what about keeping my brain warm? “I said EARS AND NOSE!”

    Is it odd that it costs more to board my dog for a week than it would for me to buy the dog her own airline ticket? I know that where we are going, there is no place for the dog to stay, but I feel like the dog boarding industry is pushing me to take the dog on the trip. Or they know that I’m in a situation and will pay whatever as long as my pet is taken care of.

    I’m thinking about updating my website. I am aware that this question might back fire on me, but anyone have any suggestion of how I should update/improve this site?

  • ODDS and ENDS: Baseball, Spring in NYC, and Walking the Dog

    (Insert Silly Comment Here)

    Baseball has started, and it’s early, but the Cubs have a losing record. They started off the season with a W, which was great, and then dropped three games. Eh… It’s the Cubs. Even when they do bad, they’re still fun to watch. That is, if you like punishing yourself. Right now, I’m just checking scores on my phone, and I follow the team on IG. I do have a far off cousin who is a Die Hard Cubbie, and she posts every day on Facebook with any developments on the team; good or bad, she reports it and has an opinion on it. That helps me stay apprised on the team. But… It is the Cubs. And even with the curse broken, they are still the Cubs. Well, here’s to hope, and hoping that it doesn’t kill me.

    I am always caught by surprise when Spring arrives in NYC. It seems like in the matter of one week, everything things blooms, buds, and pops up. There are daffodils everywhere, especially around the park entrances, and the handful of cherry trees we have in our neighborhood have exploded in flowers. And Spring always arrives right at that moment when I am fed up with winter and desperate for warmer weather. I know that this also signals that the “old man” version of me is beginning to emerge. Soon I will be comparing Springs, and making predictions of how hot Summer will be. And even if this is a cooler Summer, it still won’t be anything compared to that perfect Summer we had back in ’09. Yup, I’m becoming a very old man.

    I have to walk the dog. I like walking the dog, but it is still a chore. Also, my dog has a bad rep in the neighborhood. They call her “Murder Dog,” because she wants to murder every dog she sees. But my dog is great with people and kids. It’s just that she hates dogs.

  • Inevitable Being

    Walking the kid to school this morning, she told me that she didn’t want to get married when she grew up. What she wanted was two dogs, a cat, a rabbit, and that she would be a doctor. I told that sounded like a good idea; there are a lot of people out there who don’t get married, and are very happy.

    She asked me if I always wanted to get married.

    I said no, but when I met her mother, I changed my mind. That’s what happens when you meet important people, they make you think differently about things.

    Then the kid asked me if I had a girlfriend before mom.

    I did.

    Does mom know you had a girlfriend before her?

    She does.

    Did you kiss this girlfriend?

    I did.

    DOES MOM KNOW THAT!

    She does.

    Then the kid thought about this for a while, and then concluded, I’m glad you married mom because it’s weird to think I would have had a different mom.

    And I remember thinking the same thing when I was a kid talking to my parents about how they started dating. That if things didn’t work out between my parents, I would still have been born, but just to a different mother, or by chance a different father. But whatever the pairing, I would have come into existence.

    I kind’a assumed that this childish thought that I had about my birth was due to my catholic upbringing. Having been taught that my soul was eternal, and that I would always exist, it was just a matter of God grabbing me and throwing me down to Earth to be born. That God had a plan for me, and that my birth and parents were just a necessary step in the process of my existence.

    But for my daughter, we aren’t raising her with religion. (That is a blog for a different day.) We don’t shy away from conversations about God and religion, but she hasn’t been giving the stories of how God made her soul, and sent her down to mom’s womb. She’s been told the truth, that she is a creation of a little bit of mom, and a little bit of dad, and when it’s put together, it creates an original her, unlike anyone else in the world. Yet, she still believes that her existence is inevitable. That there was nothing that would stop her coming into being.

    This isn’t a surprising revelation, now that I think about it. Can anyone really think of a world where they weren’t in it?

    Just a sweet philosophical morning with the kid.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Dog Person, NYC, and The Sofa

    (Growing Equals Learning, and Vice Versa…)

    It dawned on me last night, as I was walking the dog around the neighborhood at 9pm, that I can’t go back to having a cat. I like cats, I have a soft spot for cats, and I love seeing bodega cats; they are my favorites. But I’m a dog person now. And it comes down to litter boxes. I prefer to have my animal friend relieve themselves on the street, or on occasion, in neighbor’s yard. I am totally fine with having green plastic bags on me to pick up poop. But the idea of having a box in my home that I have to clean excrement and clumping pee out of daily is a task that I never want to return to. This is not a knock against cats – it’s just that I don’t want to do that chore anymore. So, my lot is now thrown in with dogs.

    I still like living in New York. After everything that we have gone through these past three years, I still like this town. Wednesday and Thursday, I had to run errands all over Manhattan – from Harlem to the Battery, and I still find this place fascinating and thrilling, and dirty and gross, dangerous and wonderful. I fear that I might become one of those people who cannot function when away from the City. That I will be locked in a perpetual low-grade orbit of this place, never to break free.

    If my office is the couch, then I need a better couch.

  • Life with My Dog

    We have a little dog that is one tough coward. This dog is great with people and kids, and I have often made the joke that if I got mugged while walking her, the dog would roll over for the mugger. BUT, what makes the dog maddening is that she want to fight and kill any dog we encounter on the street. So, she tried to be a tough little dog.

    And then the rain comes, and she turns into the biggest little chicken. I know many dog are scared of thunder and fireworks, and our furry one is the same. Right now, thunderstorms are rolling through, and she is curled up with me, shivering, waiting for the weather to pass.

    I am taking full advantage of my scared dog. Normally, she is following my wife around the apartment because I guess the dog thinks she’s the alpha around here; Not that the dog is wrong. This means I don’t get a whole lot of snuggle time with the dog.

    Not that I am demanding that the dog spends her time with me. I am a cat person, so I feel like an animal and me should be more like roommates than family members. You know, I respect your space, your respect mine. But now and then, I would like the dog to curl up on my lap while I read. Not a big ask, but I feel it is manageable.

    The one thing I will say (as a person, a person in a relationship, and a person in a family) I don’t think I like the idea of living without an animal. There is something reassuring having a pet in the home, and taking her on vacations, and just another life at the end of the bed.