Out with the Old, In with the New

It was a busy morning, what with one neighbor moving out, taking Vinnie, his Miniature Pincher, and his loud, obnoxious girlfriend with him, and another family moving into the neighboring apartment. The parking lot was a mess of trucks and people carrying boxes, colliding on the stairs, and being as polite as moving allowed. Duncan, however, spent much of the day on the patio enjoying the impossibly blue skies and the warmth of the sunshine, his face poking through the railings to monitor the goings-on below. Unlike his papa, who, like most writers, prefers to be a casual observer rather than a participant, Duncan likes to be involved in everything, be it his business or not. And so I had the benefit of listening to him whine most of the day, and when he was inside, watch him pace from window to window to see what all the ruckus was about.

It was when we went on our afternoon walk that he decided he'd had enough with watching. We were returning from a nice game of fetch in the park and he was off-leash as he always is when we walk back up The Run. Normally he follows me closely as we near home but when I paused to talk to Chris, who was departing for Florida, Duncan ambled into his garage. I cut our conversation short and chased after him only to discover the garage empty. Chris invited me upstairs to check for him there but Duncan was nowhere to be found. The door into the breeezeway was wide open and it was only when I heard the giggling of small children downstairs and outside that I realized what had happened. He'd gone up Chris' stairs, out the door, into the neighboring apartment, presumably to welcome the new family, had followed the children downstairs and was now in their garage. So back down the stairs I went and humbly apologized to the family, who had gathered around their new, friendly neighbor, who had already claimed one of their dog's tennis balls. One of the little boys, hugging him and petting his back, was already pleading with his parents: "Can we keep him? Can we keep him?"

If he wasn't so cute I might have considered it. Silly boy.