SECOND NIGHT: SAN DIEGO

14 Years Ago – San Diego CA
SECOND NIGHT
We are in the living room watching an old re-run of Cheers when David yells out, “Woody!”
The puppy is racing around the couch at lightning speed. He has a subscription card from a magazine in his teeth, but he’s so small that he keeps stepping on the card. He is doing this all so fast that it sounds like a playing card stuck in a fan.
“Woody. Yes! What a perfect name! Like the original surfboards! Like Woody Harrelson! Like-“
“Wood!” David says.
“Yeah.”
“ ‘Woody!’ Hello, Woody. Do you like your new name?”

*

SAN DIEGO: FIRST NIGHT

San Diego, 14 years ago

FIRST NIGHT
“He’s a dog. Therefore he will sleep in his dog bed.”
I point to a folded towel on the floor.
David laughs as he dives onto the futon. “You call that a ‘bed’?”
“Well, yeah,” I say. It did look a little sad. I picked up the little pooch and just as I began to lower him onto his terry cloth mattress he nuzzled his nose into my chest.
David chuckled into his pillow. “Yeah, this is gonna last.”
“Now, now, little puppy,” I say. “Here’s your bed. Sweet dreams.” I set him down and crawled into bed.
“Eeeemeee-mew-eemeeee-“
I peer down and, in the moonlight, is the little guy, peering up at me.
“Meeemeeee, eeee, neeeee.”
To hell with it.
I scoop him up and he scampers all over us, mountains o’ blanket fun.
“Gee, that lasted long,” David says. “C’mere, buddy.”
“No, let him sleep near me!”
*

PRESENT DAY

*
The thing about Love is, it starts out easy, and then the hard part begins.
Today’s the hard part.
I was chopping up the chicken from the Wendy’s sandwich I just brought home for Woody. He has not eaten in two days, and I am frantic. He hobbles into the kitchen, on a mission for the door. “Okay, Buddy, you’re ready to go out already? Okay.”
I open up the door for him and he steps out and pees all over himself and then like a wilted daisy his head dips down to the ground, and I choke, “Nooooooooo,” as I scoop him up and hold him to my heart.
“Can you come home?” I am on the phone with David, holding Woody who is floppy as a rag doll but still alert, in my arms. “I- think- Woody’s… dying.”
“I’ll be right there,” David croaks.
***

MEDICINAL PURPOSES

We very quickly found out why Woody toppled over so much: his front left leg was considerably shorter than the rest, the toes of his paw fused together. "Looks like Michigan," David noted when I showed him Woody's "mitten."
Not that his "handicap" stopped him from making virtually anything - toes, subscription cards from magazines, fallen wrappers, pantyhose - a toy.
A toy to be shaken like shark chum and transported at lightning speeds around the apartment.

So, packing was fun.

Except for, uh... certain things one might want to remain, er...unshaken.

"Man, I know I had a little baggie of weed around here somewhere," David said, searching the living room on that last day.
"Well, " I called from the bedroom,"you'd better find it before Lady Aubrey's piggie little porker does. Then again, maybe it will find it and get the munchies so bad it'll eat itself to-"
Just then I heard it, a sound much like a salt shaker being shaken, its "shimmy-shimmy" sound echoing through the empty apartment.

"Uh-ohhhh," I muttered and ran into the living room.
A tiny white blur raced past me, the "Shimmy" sound louder and louder.

"Nnnnooooooooo!" David dashed past in a bent-at-the-waist position, his hands in a permanent scoop.
"Yyyowwww! Don't let him eat that! He could die! He could die!" I screamed, running after them.
"C'mere, buddy boy, let Daddy have it, c'mon...." David coaxed.
So the three of us were there racing around the apartment, Woody and the weed in the lead.
In a flash of insight I grabbed the feather duster and continued the mad dash as I called, "Oh, Woooody! Whatever you do, don't get this feather duster!"
I zoomed in the opposite direction and he leaped for the hot pink feathers just as the baggie left his tiny jaws.
David dove for it.
I shook the duster crazily.
"Pick it up! Pick it up!" I whispered savagely as I shook the feathers wildly at Woody who, thank God, was now going after the duster.
"Damn," David said, holding the baggie. "It's still in tact. Good Boy!" Woody left me and the duster and trotted over to David. "Good boy! Good boy! Man, I could use this on this road trip...."

San Diego: EVICTED

We left San Diego for 3 reasons:

(1) David wanted to buy a house so he could put his carpentry skills to profitable use and buy, fix up and sell it - an impossible dream in Southern California on a carpenter's and sometime temp/baker/artist's salaries....

(2) I had just seen Doc Hollywood, in which Michael J. Fox plays a Hollywood doctor who moves to and finds true love and a darling home in a quaint Midwestern town that looked sooooo cute! (Hey, I was, like, 23 and like many 23 year olds, not exactly dealing with a full 6-pack when it came to smart Life decisions, if you know what I mean)....

Oh, yes, and...

(3) We were evicted.



Somehow our landlady, a wealthy Manhattan widow with a Madonna-style British accent I'll call Lady Aubrey, found out that we had a dog. So, for a one and one-half pound puppy we named Woody (after the long surfboards and Woody Harrelson's character on "Cheers" - not what you're thinking, oh nasty one) we were homeless.



We decided to head to Michigan, David's home state, since his brother was a realtor there with some dirt cheap properties we could buy. Yay.

Two days before we were ready to leave, Lady Aubrey showed up on our deck step with her morbidly obese Shitzu, Mish Mash.

"I've come to rent the flat out myself," she said cheerily. It was hard not to slap her, standing there all happy and phony with her dog. "The agency simply cannot be trusted," she chirped, referring to the rental agent we signed our lease with.

I stood in the doorway, holding Woody, barely a palm full of pooch, and stared at the blubber-fur she apparently didn't call "a dog." It sneezed at me.

"But...you have... a dog," was all I could say.

"Oh, no, this is Mish Mash! And who's that little thing?"

Thing?

"Woody."

"WOODY!!" she shrieked. "My ex-husband's name was Woody!"

"Good thing we're leaving," I muttered.

"Mish Mash and I will move into your flat straight away," she said. Cut the phony accent, even Woody knows you're probably from New Jersey, I am thinking.

"After we leave, you mean," I said.

"Naturally! Mish Mash doesn't care for other dogs."

I looked down at Mish-Mashed-In-Face just as he lifted his leg and peed, right there on the porch. Urine drizzled down with split-splotch sounds onto the first floor residents' patio.

"Good boy, Mish Mash!" She applauded.

I still can't believe this.

"But you're evicting us for having a dog," I said.

"Well, I don't allow them," she said simply.

I look down at Mish Mash, noisily cleaning his privates with a freakishly long tongue.

"Well, then," was all I could say.

"Tally ho!" she waved and hefted up Blubber Boy.



We were gone by nightfall.

********

Back to the Beach : First Day

San Diego, CA
14 years ago

"What is THAT?!"
I greet David at the door, holding my poof-o-joy.
I gently set the puppy down on the plush carpet. He wags a cottontail and looks waaaaaay up at David ... and rolls over.
"Hey, hey, buddy," David says, crouching down. The little pup covers his big, calloused hand on kisses and pats his arm with thumb-sized paws.
"I thought we weren't going to get a dog yet?" David asks, smiling. The puppy scampers away and looks back at David. Wags. Rolls over and back up. Play.

"Isn't he the cutest dog, ever?" I gush.

"God, he's small," he says, still smiling.

"Bob's friend says he's the runt of the litter - part Maltese, part Toy Poodle, and part something else. Maybe. I don't know. And I don't care!"

And now we are both sprawled out on the rug giggling like little kids as the puppy pats David on the nose with the tiniest dog paws I have ever seen.

***

Welcome to the Sunshine State

Delray Beach, Florida
Present Day

"We're moving to Florida!"

My sister, Jen, is on the phone, telling me this. I am sitting in the living room, next to Woody, who has just upchucked his breakfast for the third time. Congestive heart failure does weird things to the swallowing mechanism... at least that is what the vet here tells me.

"Oh, good." I stroke Woody's side. He is spent, but he always comes around again. We play together every night as we've always done and then we watch TV together or he sits next to me while I draw pictures. Lately the TV time and the drawing time have increased while the playtime gets shorter and shorter. He gets too tired and starts to cough.

"-just an hour north of Tampa. Are you listening?" She's still talking.
"Oh, yeah, an hour south of Tampa."
Tampa's on the west coast of Florida; we live in Delray Beach, on the Atlantic ocean side of the state -a move we jokingly made 'so that Woody can retire to a sunny climate.'Oh, yeah, and a little thing called Work.

"An hour NORTH of Tampa."

"Oh. Yeah," I say.

"And the house is great. Like my dream house with a pool and the kitchen is OK but eventually we'll redo it, so when are you coming to visit?"

"Um. I don't know. Why don't you move into the house first?" I ask, watching Woody's little chest rise and fall.

"About a month, give or take, we have a moving company and we should be there sometime next week and -"

"Hey, Jen? Can I-?" My eyes are suddenly filling with tears and I feel like I'm choking. Woody raises his head slightly and looks at me, concerned.

"What's the matter?!"

"It's...Woody...he's not...doing so well."

"Oh." There is a pause, and then she says, "And here I am going on and on about my stupid dream house."

My sister knows all about this. When our family dog, a tiny Yorkie named Tammi, was dying, Jen held her, rocking and crying, for three days.

"It's...not...stupid. I'm...happy for you!" I say, and start bawling.

"Hey. Have a good cry. Spend time with your boy. Call me later if you want."

"'kay. Bye," I croak.

Click.

***