Recovering

Kirby is recovering from a mean bite to the nose that he suffered this morning, from a little pit bull that lives in our building no less. I think being stuck out on the highway median while I inspected every hair on his head may have been the most disturbing part for him. He doesn't seem to have any lasting issues - a mere 3 minutes later, he was flinging himself head-first at another dog. A little dented, but having the run of the sofa makes it all better!

Raining

This week

I went on 38 dog walks
I talked to 7 homeless kids
I saw roughly 80 homeless kids
I read 1 book
I saw 1 crazy person in the subway
I ate 2 snowcones
And 2 people were shot outside our apartment
I'm thinking of sleeping through until the weekend, who needs Friday anyway?

Sometimes its just looking

Sometimes its looking at us

Sometimes we look at New York

Shmoozing

Kirbs and I went to the dog park up on Madison Ave today to shmooze with the fancy dogs. They have worse manners than the mutts down in Tompkins Square, but their park is way nicer. Soft gravel, better benches, a little dog fountain. Nice.

Not very glam, but certainly very sticky

During outreach today we walked around for three hours in the sauna that New York has become and only found one street kid. My guess is that the kids are smart enough to find some air conditioning on days like today. The one kid we did find wasn't in great shape.

15 is another nifty number, as is 48

The first is the average age that a kid hits the street. The second is the amount of time it takes for a teenage runaway to be solicited for sex. We are a society that eats its young, don't ever doubt it...

13

So, I'm sure some of you are wondering why this is a blog about street kids and dog walking, and I pretty much only ever talk about the dogs. In part, its because I can't talk about a lot of what I hear while doing outreach with homeless kids. Some of it is horrible, some of it is private, some of it is funny, some of it is just what every teenager talks about...
But someone asked me recently why I'm writing about street kids for my dissertation and I can answer that and the answer is 13.

Which is the number of homeless teenagers that die on the street, everyday of the year, in the United States, one of the most affluent countries on earth.

Plays well with others, sometimes

Today was a good dog walking day. Everyone was too hot for it to be otherwise.

I should listen, it would save me pain

The guy at the window said the stuff in the jar was hot, but I tried a big mouthful anyway.

George could talk me into anything really

Sharpies

When did it become illegal to sell sharpies to minors? We'll let a 16 year old drive a two ton vehicle on ice at night, but we don't trust them with a permanent marker. Good thing I'm over 18 or we'd never be able to put tons and tons of sharpies into the outreach bags that we give out to homeless teenagers. Whew. Disaster averted.

This is what I look like when I realize that I won't see my friend for a year and that China is still a long way away

China is a long way away

One of my best friends is ditching us all for China (and her new man). A few years ago, she visited me in Boulder, where it was snowing and she didn't own a winter coat, having gotten herself lost in Florida right after college. I wrapped her up in a coat that must have weighed at least 30lbs and that had probably sat in someone's actic for about 50 years before I bought it second hand for $15. Then I hauled her all over town. I'm sure she'll pay me back somehow when I go to visit her in China.

When is hundreds of pigeons too many pigeons?

When you're walking an excitable Kanan who likes to eat pigeons for lunch....

squeegee in action

One of the dogs that I walk is called Weegee after the famous police photographer of New York street scenes and crime scenes. This Weegee likes to create his own riots. He goes off like a paint mixer on random dogs that he doesn't like. Here he is in action - note the determined look in his little eye. He's out for blood. Blood I tell you!

Ghosts of New York

Here's a few ghosts of the old Lower East Side, before they started incarcerating people for graffiti.

Kristi's Island

I was explaining to a friend on the Upper West Side last night how Manhattan is really Gilligan's Island blown up really large. Half the people want to get off the island and spend a great amount of time talking about how to leave without actually ever leaving, while the other half want to stay forever because it shields them from the real world. Then Gilligan died today. Me and my stupid analogies.

Long weekend, with coffee

New York empties out for the long weekend, making it an ideal time to wander around and explore. Sunday morning was spent in an old diner on Lexington and 34th street, listening to old women ask for more carrot cake. For breakfast. I was more focused on my first cup of coffee however.

Replaced

Kirby can hardly believe that Mom only visited for 12 hours. Little does he know that he's been replaced by a real grandkid....

Deep sixed

I've ditched the office job after a mere three weeks of shuffling papers into neat little piles. Also, ten years of university has clearly killed any ability to correctly answer a phone. Which any of my friends could have told me, I suspect.