Elegy for Sandy

 

A car service is a distinctly New York City outer borough thing.  Cheaper than a Yellow Cab, and often cheaper than Uber, a car service is the cheapest and easiest way to get somewhere the Metropolitan Transit Authority doesn’t go.  In order to use a car service, you call them.  The dispatcher answers and assigns a driver to pick you up.

 

About 15 years ago I got priced out of Manhattan and moved to Brooklyn. Shortly thereafter my partner and I adopted Augie, a beagle/Brittany mix whom we rescued from Animal Care and Control.  We tried a series of daycare places, and finally lucked out with Paws in Paradise on Fifth Avenue. 

 

A car service is the easiest way to transport a medium-sized dog who weighs too much to take on the subway in a crate.  At our current car service we usually got one of three drivers.  One of them was Sandy.  He started driving us years ago, and during Covid-19 nearly every weekday.  Sandy was of average height, barrel-chested, wire-rimmed glasses, shaggy gray hair and a walrus mustache.  He was a few years older than me.  Like me, Sandy was divorced, an anti-racist Democrat and had lived in New York for a long time. 

 

Over the years, Sandy and I became close. Some mornings I’d wait for his car, thinking of what I needed to tell him.  Sandy always had a treat for Augie, and Augie always had a tail wag for him.  They actually grew quite attached to each other.  Sandy and I talked about our families, our health and politics.  We both had had all different kinds of jobs; Sandy had originally studied to be a social worker, then went into the restaurant business and wound up managing a parking garage on the west side of in Manhattan.  When we traveled, Sandy would pick my partner and I up from the airport and know to drive us straight to Paws in Paradise so we could pick up Augie.  After one long flight, Sandy picked us up with Burger King burgers because he thought we’d be hungry.  He always gave Augie a special Christmas treat.  One year, Sandy even gave gifts to my partner and me. 

 

In June 2021, Augie and Sandy both got diagnosed with cancer.  I worried about both of them.  Sandy went through multiple hospitalizations and endless tests.  Augie became unable to breath on his own anymore, and we had to put him down at the end of October.  When I had to tell Sandy, his eyes were brimming with tears.  “You see, since we both got diagnosed at the same time, Augie was my cancer buddy.  I needed him,” Sandy said.  He couldn’t talk about Augie anymore, he got too upset.  Sandy Seeman died last month.  It feels so strange not to be able to tell him things anymore, and that he won’t grow to love our new dog, Buddy.  I haven’t been able to find any kind of memorial for Sandy. So I wanted to write one of my own.  We miss him.            

Aaron Copland

I know that Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn. I am confused by the fact that the Aaron Copland School of Music is at Queens College. But I never knew exactly where he was born until Sunday. The "Living In" feature was about Prospect Heights (where I spend some time because my sister lives there). It turns out that Copland lived over his parents' store at 630 Washington Avenue, near Atlantic. I wonder if there's a plaque?
Link to the Times feature above.

My Dog

Technically he’s our dog, but I think of Augie as mine, as I’m sure my boyfriend does, too. It’s been a month since we picked him up from Animal Control in Brooklyn. We met Augie at an adoption event in the basement of St. Andrew’s Church in Bay Ridge. He stood out from the other dogs- he didn’t yap, he wasn’t freaked out. Augie was friendly, calm and remarkably self-possessed for a puppy. When being confronted with the reality of adopting a dog, after years of talking about it, we hemmed and hawed and hesitated. But finally decided we had to take him. I couldn’t understand how anyone could have given up such a wonderful puppy and dumped him at a kill shelter. The form we got from the city said he was given up because he was “too big” (he’s still not 30 pounds).

So in a month, we’ve learned things about Augie. I’ve had dogs before, but he has his own characteristics. He’s a little obsessed with paper products as a food group, particularly used Kleenex and paper towels. He likes naps, running and crawling under cars. He does tend to gnaw on things (he’s teething something awful), but is always open to the suggestion of chewing on a toy instead of the power cord for my Macbook. Augie likes vegetables, and seltzer (he likes sticking his nose in my glass). He is not perfectly trained (hates his crate, and has already destroyed one), but coming along pretty well for seven months old. Augie’s very sweet-natured, playful and smart.

It’s been a huge change in my day-to-day routine. I’ve met more neighbors since we got Augie than I have the year and a half I’ve lived in Gowanus. I haven’t yet been tempted to sleep in instead of walking him, which for me is a lot. I’m becoming more careful about what I leave in his reach: he ate a Pentel pen last week, and got blue ink on his muzzle and all over his tongue.

Considering what Augie’s fate could have been, he’s very lucky. But then again, so are we.

pup

My boyfriend and I just adopted a basset/beagle mix puppy. This is called a Bagel (which seems wrong). We got him from an adoption fair at St. Andrew's Roman Catholic Church in Bay Ridge. He is getting fixed, and coming home with us tomorrow night. We're thinking of calling him Augie, because his pound name (Milo) is not him.