KEEPING HAPPY, HAPPY

As I spend my days more and more on satisfying my creative and personal interest, I’ve come to realize that I’ve become a close companion of my dog, Happy.

She has developed the habit of looking at me with sad eyes and leaving me with a sense of guilt, as only a true companion would. Being a dog has not slowed or hampered her ability to act like a woman and feed me with the need to keep her happy.

When I’m in my studio, Happy climbs the staircase and sits next to me as I work or peruse the internet, seeking her customary place on the blue rug, her place, sitting like a lion outside the temple called the New York Public Library and sleeps until either I get up to leave or she senses its time to make dinner, therefore I must get her lettuce.

Lately I’ve been wont to take her for little forays in the afternoon, where she can discover a new world, pee in a new place or just drop little packages of expression along the way, but like any terrorist k-nine, preferably on a neighbors lawn, causing a great struggle between man and beast to keep her in the street.

Having conversed with her numerous times, I‘ve come to the conclusion that we need to re-establish our relationship as she looks at me with rapt attention, quizzically tilting her head to one side then slinking off to sleep on what I just said. At one time she would come to me and enjoin me to participate in some tug of war, maybe a little ball playing, or a rousing game of: “Catch me if you can.”

My fear is my little cocker spaniel companion is depressed, and in need of a little umph in her life, something to get her excited. I’m afraid that she’s not really giving a darn about who walks by the house anymore, although she sits halfway up the staircase and looks out the upper part of the door to see who is going by. When I lived in the city, my neighbors who lived across the street would sit at their 3rd floor bedroom windows and look out to watch the world go by, a quasi police action of neighborhood patrol. Happy is like those neighbors, but now Happy is deaf, very deaf, and maybe that’s why we are so compatible lately.

In spite of all that I have said so far about the dog, she still has that great sense of smell, and if I am anywhere near the refrigerator, will suddenly appear under foot, on her hind legs looking at me to make a mistake and drop some food in her direction.

Friday’s she and TLW (The Little Woman) have to have their pizza, but Happy will run about and eagerly await the crust from either me or TLW, staring intently until she is in our heads jumping up on our consciousness seeking what she thinks is hers.