Florida Surprise

Bouviers Forever

Karen and Me

Jim, the Gnome

Us Escorted By Molly and Quincy

A Brace of Bouviers

Last weekend, we went to Longwood, Florida to surprise my good friend Karen on her birthday. We'd been very spoiled by international flights and weren't used to the relative crudeness of the domestic version. No food, no movies, no music and lots of jockeying to get your carry-on into a spot in the overhead. Nasty, brutish and short. We were also late, and the time added was seat time. Oh well.

Jim picked us up and we sat in Orlando traffic for an hour so he texted Karen every 10 minutes to update the ETA. She thought they were going out for dinner. Once we arrived, we sneaked up to the front door as Jim drove to the garage. We rang the bell, but Karen wouldn't answer the bell because she was loving a dog. More about dogs later.

It was truly a surprise. We walked across the room to greet her and she nearly fell over, crying with happiness. It's nice to be loved. Jim had planned a nice dinner and dessert and we had a great time talking about the good old days. The dog days in Brooklyn.

Jim and Karen were our neighbors in Fort Greene. They moved into their half-finished townhouse the same icy February day as we moved into our completely renovated one. We became fast friends. They had a bouvier de flandres called Jeep. We'd never heard of the breed before but became enamored of it as we got to know Jeep. Karen and Jim decided to breed Jeep the following year and we took one of the pups whom we named Esprit des Amis, Spree for short. It snowballed from there. We've had 5 bouvs since then, Jim and Karen, 4. They still have 2 rescue bouvs, which naturally made us want to go out and rescue or buy one. This will happen in time, in the summer when we can properly train a new dog up in the country.

This is turning into a dog post.

We didn't do much all weekend. We did a little grocery shopping, went for walks, sat around the pool. The weather was perfect. We caught an early flight Monday and were back in NYC by 10 am. Marty went to work and I came home to rest from my long weekend of doing nothing but rest.