New York!! New York!!

Cindy and I visited Teri and her family- Mark and Harry - last week in Manhattan. I’ll be writing about our visit in my next posting, but now I’m going to write about Willy and Harry. Willy is their dog and a very sweet dog he is. Harry is almost 13 but seems sometimes to be around 20. But then don’t most 20 year-old guys act about 12 most of the time? Harry has changed so much in the past few years that it’s hard to imagine him when he was young. If I lived closer I’d see the age progression, but I just see it in spurts a couple of times a year. I don’t see that much change in Willy. He’s still the same, sweet dog he always was.

Teri lives on the 39th floor of a big condo building directly across from the New York Stock Exchange. Normal people can’t walk on that block in front of it ever since 9/11 which changed so many things there and everywhere. They have security check points and NYPD all over the place, guarding our stocks or something like that. So that’s where Willy has to go poop which is not too good. But Teri takes him down the elevator early every morning and walks him around and he poops in front of the Exchange. I think a lot of us would like to take a dump on the Stock Exchange right about now.

I could never take Willy for a walk as he’s too strong for me to hold on his leash. So I would watch him go to the front door every day about 4pm, waiting for someone to come home and walk him. He’d stare at me and I’d spend much time apologizing to him for just sitting there and not helping him. Now I think Teri has hired someone to walk him at noon which will be nice for him and all the people having lunch at the tables on the sidewalk right across from the Exchange. I wish I could be there.

I spent time with Willy on the couch and on my bed. I also spent time with their four cats which are all different in their own way. The cats were all over the place. They were in Cindy’s and my bedroom on the bed, in the suitcases and in all the sacks of stuff we had, and they were also on the kitchen counters when I was trying to fix a piece of toast. It wasn’t safe to ever turn your back on them! I came home covered in dog and cat hair but I didn’t mind a bit. That’s the way it used to be all the time when I had pets. My box turtles didn’t shed, but I can’t get any turtles now or bullfrog tadpoles as it’s against the law or something. Whatever happened to the good old days when you could have box turtles and bull frogs? Those were the good times.

The last night of my visit, Harry, Willy and I watched L&O: SVU on my bed. That’s something we share. I think Willy slept through it. Harry is a lot like me in some ways much to the consternation of his dad. Several years ago, I introduced Harry to the wonders of spam. I didn’t get a chance to fix him any while I was there, but next time for sure. It was good to spend some time with him to make sure I’ve left my mark on him in some way. I think I have, and I love him a lot. In the above pictures, Willy is waiting by the door at 4pm and the other one is of Willy and Harry on the couch.