Tale of tall and tail of dog
Feb. 1st, 2008 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogToday is full of bittersweet for me.
As I end a week when a dear friend has been mourning the sudden loss of her cat (sympathies to Sarah but also apologies for not saying anything earlier- your photo from today was brilliant and tearjerking all at once), my memories are drawn back to where my day started and ended on this day in 2001.
It began, following an overnight spent I Forget Where, at a very dull deposition in lower Manhattan. Upper lower Manhattan, to be precise:
This souvenir is all I have of my one business visit to the Twin Towers, seven years ago today. I'd been there before in less official clothes, of course. On the weekend in '86 when I proposed to Eleanor, we stayed at what was then known as the Vista International, the hotel between the Towers, and we had drinks at Windows on the World. Some years before that, high school friends and I visited the top of the South Tower, taking in the autograph left by Phillipe Petit after his 1974 tightrope walk between the two buildings. Both of those earlier visits (and any others I can't remember) all predated the first bombing attempt on the structures in 1993, and by the time of my visit, security required all entrants to be photographed and scanned before they could go about their business.
I do not remember being overly impressed at the time by the buildings, the view or the security; courthouses had been doing such things for years by then, and besides, since the Towers had never become a particularly fashionable address (they housed far more public agencies than Class A tenants), I may have even wondered a bit what the fuss was all about. Seven and a half months later, of course, my mind changed. It first was drawn, in those horrid moments, to whether my hosts on the 52nd floor had all made it out alive; I learned a few days later that they had. As I recall it, 2/1 was as crisp and clear a day as 9/11 would be, and it was as ordinary a day as any to follow up until that fateful morning, when nothing would be ordinary anymore.
I finished my deposing of a tugboat captain and headed back home, for the part of that day where the sweet has blessedly overcome the bitter memories of that morning.
----
While I'd been away, our family had grown. I'd seen the picture, and was in agreement with the adoption, of our first-ever dog, who would be joining the three-cat menagerie we then had. However, I had not had the chance to meet her at the pound, either before or for the doing of the deed. I arrived home around 5 that afternoon to an empty house; Eleanor was working almost every night back then, and Em, a third-grader at the time, had been bussed to after-school care and required me to pick her up by 6.
Emily had already met the dog, who arrived the night before, but for whatever reason, I made the decision to go Home Alone first and greet our new companion. We knew she'd been a stray, and that she was very much on the skittish side, but she bonded quickly with both wife and child and now, it was my turn.
In hindsight, this might not have been the best of moves. Male visitors to this house have not fared well with her over the years, particularly ones with deep voices; we suspect she suffered neglect (or worse) at the hands (or worse) of some guy in the first nine months of her life, and I may have been risking life or limb by coming into her new territory unannounced.
Still, she'd been there all day. I'm sure she knew my scent by then. Best of all for my prospects, I proceeded immediately to where we'd decided to keep her kibble and my greeting was at the other end of a full food bowl.
We got along just fine. Seven years later, I'm her best friend and she's probably more dependent on me (and my fellow humans here) than anyone else under this roof, regardless of paw count.
Because she came to the pound as a stray, we can't be sure of her age, but they guessed she was around 9 months at the time, which means she'll turn 8 sometime this spring. She's still skittish around strangers, but with me and the other five life forms in this house, she's best friends forever and the most beautiful and loyal of companions. Considering the oddities of our beginnings, celebrated today, it's turned out to be a long and beautiful friendship, one which has outlived many moments good and bad, and three of her feline siblings.
Happy anniversary, Tasha:)
As I end a week when a dear friend has been mourning the sudden loss of her cat (sympathies to Sarah but also apologies for not saying anything earlier- your photo from today was brilliant and tearjerking all at once), my memories are drawn back to where my day started and ended on this day in 2001.
It began, following an overnight spent I Forget Where, at a very dull deposition in lower Manhattan. Upper lower Manhattan, to be precise:
This souvenir is all I have of my one business visit to the Twin Towers, seven years ago today. I'd been there before in less official clothes, of course. On the weekend in '86 when I proposed to Eleanor, we stayed at what was then known as the Vista International, the hotel between the Towers, and we had drinks at Windows on the World. Some years before that, high school friends and I visited the top of the South Tower, taking in the autograph left by Phillipe Petit after his 1974 tightrope walk between the two buildings. Both of those earlier visits (and any others I can't remember) all predated the first bombing attempt on the structures in 1993, and by the time of my visit, security required all entrants to be photographed and scanned before they could go about their business.
I do not remember being overly impressed at the time by the buildings, the view or the security; courthouses had been doing such things for years by then, and besides, since the Towers had never become a particularly fashionable address (they housed far more public agencies than Class A tenants), I may have even wondered a bit what the fuss was all about. Seven and a half months later, of course, my mind changed. It first was drawn, in those horrid moments, to whether my hosts on the 52nd floor had all made it out alive; I learned a few days later that they had. As I recall it, 2/1 was as crisp and clear a day as 9/11 would be, and it was as ordinary a day as any to follow up until that fateful morning, when nothing would be ordinary anymore.
I finished my deposing of a tugboat captain and headed back home, for the part of that day where the sweet has blessedly overcome the bitter memories of that morning.
----
While I'd been away, our family had grown. I'd seen the picture, and was in agreement with the adoption, of our first-ever dog, who would be joining the three-cat menagerie we then had. However, I had not had the chance to meet her at the pound, either before or for the doing of the deed. I arrived home around 5 that afternoon to an empty house; Eleanor was working almost every night back then, and Em, a third-grader at the time, had been bussed to after-school care and required me to pick her up by 6.
Emily had already met the dog, who arrived the night before, but for whatever reason, I made the decision to go Home Alone first and greet our new companion. We knew she'd been a stray, and that she was very much on the skittish side, but she bonded quickly with both wife and child and now, it was my turn.
In hindsight, this might not have been the best of moves. Male visitors to this house have not fared well with her over the years, particularly ones with deep voices; we suspect she suffered neglect (or worse) at the hands (or worse) of some guy in the first nine months of her life, and I may have been risking life or limb by coming into her new territory unannounced.
Still, she'd been there all day. I'm sure she knew my scent by then. Best of all for my prospects, I proceeded immediately to where we'd decided to keep her kibble and my greeting was at the other end of a full food bowl.
We got along just fine. Seven years later, I'm her best friend and she's probably more dependent on me (and my fellow humans here) than anyone else under this roof, regardless of paw count.
Because she came to the pound as a stray, we can't be sure of her age, but they guessed she was around 9 months at the time, which means she'll turn 8 sometime this spring. She's still skittish around strangers, but with me and the other five life forms in this house, she's best friends forever and the most beautiful and loyal of companions. Considering the oddities of our beginnings, celebrated today, it's turned out to be a long and beautiful friendship, one which has outlived many moments good and bad, and three of her feline siblings.
Happy anniversary, Tasha:)
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Happy Gotchya Day, Tasha
Date: 2008-02-02 03:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-04 04:11 am (UTC)