Friday's Child Is Loving And GivingAnd Waiting For You!

SUCCESS STORY

A PRINCE AMONG PRINCES!!!

This gorgeous spotted man was adopted earlier this year as a fuzzy little puppy -- my, how he's grown!

Social Tees just got this sweet email from his dad:

"Just wanted to give you a little update on my border collie Prince I adopted from you. I am so pleased to say that you guys have given me my best friend.

This dog is completely awesome. His personality is very sweet and friendly.  He plays great with other dogs and I keep him very social. He is a genius (sometimes smarter than me I think) so training is a breeze for him and he is always eager to play ball or with a disk. Sometimes he can be a pain but thats a border collie puppy for ya."

WAIT!!! NO!!!! IT CAN'T BE!!!!

BUT IT IS!!! IT'S LOTUS!!!!

A couple of weeks ago Lotus was rescued, a special Facebook page was set up to help her and other horrifically abused animals, and Friday's Child highlighted her.  She has barely any fur and gaping wounds all over her.

Look at her now.

Social Tees says: 

That's right, our girl Lotus! She was kind enough to give us a nice brisk stroll in this lovely warm October weather. Lotus was so jazzed to get out of her kennel for a while, she skipped down the street with the most adorable little strut. 

This girl's booty is happy! She walks super well on a leash and stops all over the place to soak up all of the smells the East Village has to offer... just like a normal dog. 

Her skin is still a bit crusty and sour smelling, and she's got some weight to gain, but her fur is starting to come in nicely. We walked along, shared some pizza crust, stopped here and there for petting sessions, and we can't wait to see her again tomorrow. Her pushed in little face and curled up tail are so irresistible!

PS -- THANK YOU to all of you wonderful supporters who have donated money toward her vet care and material donations via our Amazon wish list. We left her with some chew sticks today and boy was she thrilled. More pics to come!!!

SOCIAL TEES IN THE EAST VILLAGE!!!

Come Volunteer!!!

Come Visit!!!!

 Come On In!!!!!

 Social Tees 
325 East 5th Street, NY, NY 10003  
socialteesnyc.org 
www.facebook.com/SocialTeesAnimalRescue

When It Comes To The World Series, Plus ça Change, Plus C'est La Même Chose

We'd walk from newstand to bar to candy store to building lobbies to hardware store window with all the TVs on the same station, everybody's radio blasting the game, people crowding around....

The whole city became one big stadium.  

But then private TVs the size of a small island and the internet built a world filled with selfies and streets and restaurants filled with people whose idea of eye contact involved staring at a tiny screen.

Except...

When October comes and suddenly walking from candy store to bodega to bar to... crowds gather and the score is shared shouted over the din of the standing-room only crowd and texted into phones by caring friends who, still at work, watch the game over illegal streaming or listen through one of the last transistor radios being made.

Beneath Her Surface

The chance to peek below couldn't be missed.

Is that rope a safety rope for the guy down there, I ask the FIOS guys?

Nah. We don't like him that much.

The yellow tube, however, was blowing enough oxygen while they took turns looking for tree-trunks of cooper wrapped in melted lead.

They're getting rid of all the copper wires, the guys says.

15,000 telephone wires, 15,000 telephone calls, 15,000... all those phones calls, seventy years of phone calls.



I'm not giving up my copper wire, I tell them.

Me neither, says one of them.

Another trunk gets hauled up, all three guys hauling it up together.

It's so beautiful, I tell them.  Can I take another picture?

Sure.  Nobody is ever interested.  Usually, they just come over to complain to us their phone isn't working.

Cowboys or Redskins, one of them shouts to the other.

Royals, I tell the guy standing over the open pothole.

Probably Giants, he says.

Sunday Memories: Play Ball

I was always a Mets fan but never went to a game until a rich man I was working for as a housekeeper took me out to the ballpark.  We sat near third base and Lee Mazilli who was young and cute and nice, signed autographs for little kids.  NOBODY was there because it was the late 1970s and the Mets really sucked.

Joni introduced the Mets into the family in 1986. That's when they won the World Series again.  "You went to China and left me here and there was nothing to watch on TV and baseball every day was spontaneous," she reminded me.

When the Mariner found out I was a Mets fan he was more thrilled with that than with my tolerance for long hours of writing apart from one another.

The Mets weren't in the Series this year, but the Giants were and they're National and so they're loved but it would be great if Kansas City won even though they were American League.  It had been a while.

However, much of the night, after the traditional Joni-back-in-NY-fried-chicken meal, was spent trying to explain the history and the game of baseball to El who only saw it in Austria when they broadcast the Bad News Bear. In German.

The following is actually dialogue:

Then the Giants left Brooklyn and the Dodgers got this canyon in L.A. so when the Mets came they took the orange and the blue...

We love the Mets

It's an abusive relationship

They're getting better.

Every year Ted says Next Year they're going to be better.

This year they were close to 500...

...talk to me when they get to 500...

....they were 4 games down from 500...

...500 is BAD!

Why was that a strike?

He can foul off.

I think that's a stupid rule.

500 is mediocre.

Now you have to tell her about sacrifice fly!

Ok in 1999...

NO!

But  this is great!

In 1999 the Brave were tormenting them and they had a hitter Robin Ventura and he had wrecked his legs he was the all time grandslam hitter and all they .... they call it the Grand Slam Single.....it's in the rule book as a ....

OH! That was almost a bunt we haven't talked about a bunt!

Whatever.

I said, what about that sorbet?

Now we're going to get into tag play verse forced play...

He slipped!

Because it's wet.  Because it was RAINING.

That's not raining. It's heavy misting.

Rain.  Raining.
 
Take Me Out To The Ball Game Take Me Out.... DO THE WAVE

I don't know where I am right now.

Finally, we all gave up and let Abbott & Costello explained it.

**
Related Posts:

Old School High Tech

Art And Life: A Love Story

Sunday Memories Of Stairway To Heaven

And Just Around The Other Corner

Who's On First

Friday's Child Is Loving And Giving And Just Worth It

 There's a reason Friday's Child

is now a part of Her New York

if only to say thank you.

Get your own chance to thank you!

Social Tees Got Tons Of Puppies!!

Puppies and kittens are up for adoption!!!! 

See who's ready for a forever home on our Petfinder page at www.petfinder.com/shelters/NY835.html and complete an adoption application at socialteesnyc.org!

SOCIAL TEES IN THE EAST VILLAGE!!!

Come Volunteer!!!

Come Visit!!!!

 Come On In!!!!!

 Social Tees 
325 East 5th Street, NY, NY 10003  
socialteesnyc.org 
www.facebook.com/SocialTeesAnimalRescue

Night Travels To Hope

It's dark, but not the kind of night that's the after-party.  It's autumn dark, perfect for a rare early dinner briskly walked to through cool wind. 

The days are getting shorter and the years, fewer.  But stepping into a fall evening, you just feel like promises will still be kept.

**
Related Posts:

Sunday Memories: In The Still, Night Travels

Before Global Warming There Was Autumn

The Welcoming Passage To Dear Friends

Tales From A Hard Day's Night: Mieux La Chance, Que L'Address (Better Luck Than Skill)

The Lights Of Autumn 

Autumn In New York

A Fearless And Moral Inventory

the black Mare ankle boots the shoemaker on 10th Street sold me in 1980something because no one ever picked them up

the black Otto Tootsi Plohound boots the roommate gave me in 1990somethingthat were cut to mid-calf

the black kitten heel, pointy toe knee-high leather boots bought new in Martinez, Argentina 2000something glimpsed from a moving train, spotting the exact pair wanted, figuring out how to use the Spanish-speaking ticket machine and getting to Martinez on my own and buying a new pair of boots for the first time in decades for about the same the Mare cost 20 years earlier.

the black Timberlake quasi motorcycle boots, a bit too big, the neighbor gave me muchlatersomething

the two pairs of black waterproof, warm, winter La Canadianne boots bought on 14th Street-2-for-1 new  after destroying a pair of boots in the rain because an ex had bought them for me

the black pointy-pointy-pointy Italian leather $14.99 at Salvation Army before boycotting their stores because they gave so much money to anti-Gay actions

the black fake-leather knee high a friend gave me for work 

Not shown: 

the two pairs of black ankle boots kept at work, one from a thrift store some serious designer name that the guy wouldn't give me a break on the the price, and a pair from Italy bought at a street fair from this woman she just wasn't wearing them anymore but then running into me on the street the following week, saying she regretting selling them to me for $10 she should have given them another shot

and the brown pair of Adams Boots that are kinda motorcycle or cowboy boots with a buckle and they're the only brown boots I got.

Its clear that there is no possible reason, ever, until all these boots fall apart, that I need another pair ever.  

Unless of course, someone has a pair they're getting rid of or there's a sale.  Or they're red.

**
Related Posts:

Sunday Memories: Return To The Promise Land

Sunday Memories: Dead Shoes Walking

Sunday Memories: In The Still, Night Travels

3 a.m. at the airport

It is my favorite time no matter where I am.

Everything empties and brief moments suddenly stand alone.  There's enough space to see a possible future.

When moving into my apartment almost forty years ago it was at night, while roommates slept, that I would wander through the apartment and attempt to scrub it clean, fix its tatterness tidy it up.

Wishful thinking that when I woke up late for work the apartment might have metamorphosed into a home I kept seeing in a magazine or in a TV commercial.   I was always too tired to be disappointed.

But even if morning was disappointing, those night hours weren't.  There was space to dream.  There was quiet to hear my heart.  The world was infinite and I could go anywhere I wanted.


**
Related Posts:

In The Still Of The Night

In The Still Of The Night The Sound Of Silence

In The Still Of The Night The Sound Of Silence Revisited

Friday's Child Is Loving And Giving And FREED!!!!!! And Free too!

JAILBREAK IN THE EAST VILLAGE!!!!



Daisy, the diabetic dog highlighted in last week's Friday's Child had been sadly stuck in her cage for months at the vet.  BUT SHE'S NOW FREED AND IN A FOSTER HOME!!!

A huge THANK YOU to her amazing new foster mom for picking her up and welcoming her into her heart and home yesterday.

You can follow their adventures on Instagram via @ahomebtwnhomes.

Now let's find her forever family!!!! She's 8 years old, 15 lbs, a fluffy little Shih Tzu terrier mix, and very lovely.

Email samantha@socialteesnyc.org if you have questions!

"IF YOU LOVE SOMEONE SET THEM FREE" - Sting

Sleepy puppies Ginseng and Gia need a foster home ASAP!

These little girls are only 12 weeks old, 4 lbs each, very sweet and playful.

Pickup is at Social Tees, fostering lasts 2 to 4 weeks tops, email samantha@socialteesnyc.org if you can help!!!

THE GREATNESS OF A NATION CAN BE JUDGED BY THE WAY ITS ANIMALS ARE TREATED

MAHATMA GANDHI

SOCIAL TEES IS LAUNCHING A NEW FACEBOOK PAGE TO HIGHLIGHT PLIGHT OF ABUSED ANIMALS.  

IT'S CALLED SAVING LOTUS!!!

Lots of kittens, puppies, cats and dogs get abused - that's not just a word.  That's beatings, cigarettes burns, being kicked, not being given food, water, or shelter.  DAILY.

That word is a world that a lot of animals live in.  And Social Tees and other rescue groups go out, find these animals and bring them back into a different word and thus a different world.  Be part of it.  Click on the facebook link SAVING LOTUS and join in.

Meet Lotus

This is her looking a BILLION times better than when Social Tees took her off the kill-list and brought her to help.

Social Tees says:

Through this page, we plan to share the story of Lotus and we invite you to please follow along and help this abused dog heal.  Our goals are to raise awareness about and prevent animal abuse and neglect; to find out who did this to Lotus; to build a loving community around this dog; and to share her strides and progress as she experiences the kindness she never had and grows into the dog she was meant to be.

Lotus was found tied to a fire hydrant in the Bronx three weeks ago and taken to Animal Care & Control, but she was emotionally abandoned long before that by the severely neglectful owner who allowed her to literally waste away for years. Ironically, she was set free when she was left tied to that fire hydrant. That was the moment when her new life began.

We rescued Lotus shortly after she landed at the kill shelter (Animal Car & Control) in Harlem. Despite how hard we knew it would be to pull her through, we couldn’t bare to leave her there when we saw her cowering in her cage. Unbelievably, we were not allowed take her immediately, however, because Animal Care & Control protocol dictated that they were obligated to hold her for three days in case her owner showed up looking for her… We live in an extremely backward world if the person who did this to her would have been permitted to take her back had he or she come to claim ownership. 

When she was released from stray hold, we rushed over, scooped her up, and got her to a holistic veterinary specialist and our veterinarian with the help of a very compassionate animal-loving officer next door at the 9th Precinct. She was emaciated, most of her fur had fallen out, and her nails were so long that they curled in spirals under her toes, some stabbing the flesh of her pads and ankles. Her bones stuck out in ridges along her ribs, and her head felt like a skull covered in a thin layer of crusty leather. All of her skin was raw, moist, red, inflamed, hot, and stank of sourness and rotting flesh. Thick deep scabs covered her back, chest, and legs like fossilized slugs embedded on a wilted stem. The scabs that clung to her face above her nose pushed what little fur she had left there into her eyes, poking her fragile, irritated corneas. Her ears were full of a yellow crumbly buildup that fell like putrid sleet when she shook her head. Her legs wobbled and shook when she tried to walk because she had so little muscle strength. Though it was clear she wanted affection, she was in so much pain that she would wince at the gentlest touch. Miraculously, she still has so much faith in humans despite what she’s been through.

We have held off on sharing her story until we knew she was in the clear, and now is the time to introduce you to this truly special soul. 

This picture was taken when we first rescued her. Just wait until we post the next pics!! She’s had her matted scabby fur trimmed off, and she’s been bathed daily with soothing, medicated cleanser. Her nails were clipped, and she can walk without pain for the first time in years. Her eyes and ears are clearing up and no longer itch and burn. Her foul smell is fading away, and the first traces of fresh fur are beginning to grow back. She can now accept the physical affection she has so dearly needed — she adores being rubbed and scratched along her neck and all over her head, and she will cozy up into your lap on a blanket just happy to have human companionship.

Please join us as we watch her blossom!

Special thanks to Alan Perlman of Chey Dog Pet Photography for donating his time and energy to helping us document Lotus’s journey.

She's already been at the vet for a few weeks, so you can imagine what her medical bills might look like... If anyone wants to DONATE to help support her medical care, please do so here: http://socialteesnyc.org/donate/ THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!!!!

SOCIAL TEES IN THE EAST VILLAGE!!!

Come Volunteer!!!

Come Visit!!!!

 Come On In!!!!!

 Social Tees 
325 East 5th Street, NY, NY 10003  
socialteesnyc.org 
www.facebook.com/SocialTeesAnimalRescue

The Metaphor

There's this old slogan about the hallway.  Well, it's more about doors opening and closing.

When one door closes another opens.

But this is where the hallway comes in.  Sometimes we have to wait there before that other door opens.

There's really nothing to while you're stuck but ask for guidance of how to get to where you are going and how to sit while you wait.


**
Related Posts:

When One Door Closes And You're Headed To The Next Door Opening...

Spring Is In The Air Or At Least In The Hallway

Turn Around Bright Eye

The building is kinda impressive.  Lots of people take pictures of it as if to say Here I Am In New York.  I've taken pictures of the building, but mostly at night when it becomes a mirrored disco ball of all the buildings around it.  It's very pretty at night.

But no matter what time of day it is the river is always beautiful.  It is a living painting.  It sings lieder and poems in the spring and heavy metal when it rains and Motown whenever it damn feels like it and while the guy was taking a picture of a lot of glass and concrete he missed out on what really was happening.

**
Related Posts:

An East River Runs Through It

Sunday Memories Encore: The God Of My Understanding

Sunday Memories of Chol Ha'Moed

Sukkots in Brooklyn
photo by Saskia Scheffer

It's Sukkot.  I always pronounced it Succhos. It's the festival for harvesting.

When the perfect wind started singing perfect songs about Autumn in New York, little huts would pop up all over the lower east side and that was normal. Just like going back to school.

Everybody ate in it, mostly by themselves a lot but sometimes with others.  Every once in a while I'd down to the quartchyard and slip into this dining room with the plastic table clothes and the wooden walls and the see-through roof and decorations that could have said Happy Sukkot, as if it were a birthday party.  But, as the 'not-quite-right' Jews, I never hung around long.  I was not welcomed unless of course Cindy or B. were around.

Still, I really never registered the rejection.  I just recognized home being dotted with these buildings, even outside of restaurants.

It was years later that a relative explained that our family name, Moed, was from this very time.

A great-great-great-great-great-great...  ok a very long ago grandfather was a learned rabbi.   And he studied something called Sukkot Chol HaMoed  (the days of the festival).  One day the Czar told all those who didn't believe in last names (the Jews) they had to have last names so that it would be easier to count us and then tax us.  So he sent his representatives to go into the ghettos and shtetl's to write everything down.

Mostly everyone picked a last name that was the word of their job: butcher, baker, or tailor.  When it was my many-great-grandfather's turn, the Czar-guy asked him, "What do you do?"

"I study Sukkot Chol HaMoed," he answered.

I don't know why we didn't become Sukkot. Or Chol.  Or even Ha.

No. We became Moed.

And I shoulda held my ground in those sukkots I wasn't always welcomed in. 

**
Related Posts:

Sunday Memories: In the Garden Of Eden There Are Stars Up Above

In Memory Of Cindy: In The Land Of the Quartchyard

Sunday Memories: From That Moment On, The World Was Different

In Honour Of Love That Blooms In Autumn

Friday's Child Is Loving And GivingAnd It's A New Year

IF IT'S FRIDAY,

IT'S FRIDAY'S CHILD!

Why, you might ask, does a blog that explores New York's disappearing landscape, family and home,

write about cats and dogs up for adoption?

Why indeed. 

Meet Jupiter.

Click here to find out.

Meanwhile, at Social Tees,  cats and dogs, kittens and puppies are just waiting to show you what real love is all about 
Just like one kitten did to me not so long ago.

 

BLISS OUT!!!!

CAN YOU BELIEVE BLISS 

THE PUPPY IS STILL UP FOR ADOPTION?

Take her home already!! Bliss is a Maltese/Jack Russell mix, 10 weeks, too adorable to even try to describe.  Interested in adding her to your family?

Complete an application at socialteesnyc.org!!

But not all puppies 

are cute and happy.  

This one needs your help

Daisy is about 8 years old, 16 lbs, and she is diabetic.  She is also great with other animals and very affectionate,

She has a golden soul but has been stuck in this cage at the vet for over a month because nobody will foster her... the veterinary staff tending to her has been more than wonderful, but despite their kindness and support, she has sunken into a sad place --she's become completely miserable.

She needs a specific diet and daily insulin shots. She would do best in a home with someone who has diabetic dog experience or serious patience and willingness to learn.  Social Tees will provide her food and any medical materials needed and our veterinarian will provide any advice, guidelines, and information you need. 


Social Tees is putting out a call tor help with this sweet dog.  So if you are reading this, help.  

Forward it to friends, post it on Facebook... make a call.... Maybe even think about fostering her yourself.

Fostering starts as soon as humanly possible. 
 
samantha@socialteesnyc.org

SOCIAL TEES IN THE EAST VILLAGE!!!

Come Volunteer!!!

Come Visit!!!!

 Come On In!!!!!

 Social Tees 
325 East 5th Street, NY, NY 10003  
socialteesnyc.org 
www.facebook.com/SocialTeesAnimalRescue

Another Moment Of The Difference

It is just a 2-cup cup.

But 35 years ago, it was not.  It was a horrifying mistake.

I was working in someone's kitchen as someone's help and dropped the cup and chipped the handle.

In my world, nothing came from new.  You got whatever you needed or thought you might need from a friend or the sidewalk or a thrift store that, never in its wildest dreams, would ever become a consignment shop.

But, here, in another person's home, where clearly everything was much better than I owned, I had broken something not mine and that obviously didn't come from the street or a friend or a thrift store.  This lady bought new stuff.

The next day I went out and bought, new, a replacement 2-cup cup for my employer and took the old broken one home, wrapped up the chipped handle with black electrical tape and used it for the next three-plus decades.

Some time ago, moving things around, the cup fell onto the floor, chipping the sprout completely. off.

That broken cup lived on my desk for months.  I kept staring at the black electrical tape on the handle and the piece of broken glass sprout and wondered why, in all these years, I had never gotten a new one.  Money has not been as tight as when I worked as help, so it wasn't about affording it.  After all, I never thought twice about buying a cheap airline ticket to the possibility of being loved.

There are somethings that fall into that space of "you don't spend money on that." Which in Florence land was just about everything.  Except maybe airline tickets.

I still haven't bought a new one.  Well.  Maybe someone will give me their old one, or leave one out on the sidewalk or I'll find one in some thrift store that isn't interested in being anything except a place where people like me look for things they need.

**
Related Posts:

Sunday Memories: Upstairs, Downstairs

Sunday Memories: The Difference

Sunday Memories: Even The Cat Was Found On The Street

The Old Bag

Goldie, quite happy being in the bag

Florence's satchel finally came down from high cupboards.  When you need a ladder to get to stuff, it's easy to forget a person's life is packed away up there.

This bag is archaic compared to how travel is done these days.  No wheels.  No shoulder strap.  No knapsack.  Just a satchel.  Used briefly in later years to cross the East River or the Hudson for nights spent not in her bed.

When she was young, she hitchhiked up and down the eastern seaboard, well definitely to Washington D.C. or so she told me.  Just said to Sophie one day she was heading out and would be back soon.

Where those days less dangerous, or did young girls just say less?

And, in early marriage, she and my father biked long and hard all over the place, definitely to Philadelphia.

But her first plane ride was when she was way past 60.

And she never left the country.  Not even to Canada.  Just San Francisco and North Carolina.  And during a turbulent reunion with her first love, to New Rochelle.  This was one of the bags she carried.

The need to stay home greater than any curiosity about other places, the old satchel eventually got put to use doing other things.

Like secreting away papers and pictures and letters and magazines and scraps of paper and hidden thoughts that were a full portrait of her life, her goals, her daily duties as an artist.  Even if no one else knew about it.

I look at a lot of catalogs these days, an old habit left over from my childhood love for Sears & Roebuck's .   So many of these glossies aren't selling me functional Keds.  Instead, they are selling the look of a life well lived.
 
And so much of it looks like how Florence lived.

She may not have traveled to a lot a places, but she went far.

And she had a great bag.

 **
Related Posts:

Home Sweet Home Is In The Bag

A Woman's Bed Where She Lies And Tells Poems

Another Sunday Memory, Another Mother's Day

Sunday Memories: On The Road

Sunday Memories Of Love's Labours Lost: Walking the Walk, Walking The Talk

A Labor Of Love

Sunday Memories: The Arrival of Summer From Sears & Roebuck's

Sunday Memories Of New Years To Come

Stuck with an old fashion cold, a favorite encore to begin the New Year right.

Originally posted Tuesday, October 7, 2008


I go to Little Gdynia to meet Doc for a meal.

Faye is there with her grandson. Her husband, Leslie is now gone a year at least. That means she'll be able to say kaddish at the services next week for him. All I see is that day he boasted how she was the smartest math teacher in the world as she gently put his arm into his jacket. They both survived the war and the camps but met each other here in New York when they came to start a new life, a new year.

Faye is now drained, her eyes watery. She may be facing 90 but she can't quite see it. Her grandson talks animatedly to her, like he is trying to live six lives for her so she isn't so damn lonely dieing without the man she loves.

I go over to say Good Yontiv. The grandson tells me he now is in Los Angeles. No, not the TV business. His girlfriend got into rabbinical school. Thank G-d, I say. Faye beams.

Five men yell and laugh in the back. The Right this, the Left that, Stalinism and....

Doc skips in. Pierogis and kielbasi and little cups of soup. Sour cream, sauteed onions, I have a chocolate egg cream. Talk pours out faster than delicious rain from another season, mothers and lovers and hopes and grief and hunger and peace and dreams. Desire.

For a new year for a new year for a new year.

The men all laugh and voices rise into chords from a Schoenberg symphony. Suddenly a glass breaks on the tile floor.

"Mazel Tov!" we shout to them.

"What!? Now you're married!?" one shouts back.

"No! You're married." we retort.

Faye's grandson is waving to me from the door. I jump up, a kiss on Faye's cheek. She says, pointing to him, kvelling like crazy, "This is my grandson." I don't say I know you told me. I just grin a billion smiles for her so maybe the joy evaporates her permanent tears. I feel my own eyes soften with age each second.

Doc makes me laugh just when I'm swallowing mushroom barley. We talk about all the meals we ate on Yom Kippur. I win. Two years ago from the 35th Street Chinese bakery a pork bun for breakfast before I realized I was eating tref on the holiest of the holies. She's runner up because she made dinner reservations this year for right after the fasting begins.

Since it's between Rosh Hoshanna and Yom Kippur, we don't count the kielbasi.

The men, windbreakser, comfy shoes, relaxed pants, those faces we know in our fathers our uncles our neighbors our lives.

One says, "you sure we're not married?"

"You are," we say. "But to him..." pointing to his old friend.

"Oy! him!?"

"What? You thought you were going to be happy?"

"Wasn't the first two times...."

"Good night, girls," they call to us, leaving with little bags of dessert or dinner.

"Good night, Good Yontiv, shona tova, a happy new year..."

A new year a new year a new year...

Friday's Child Is Loving And GivingAnd Ready To Make Home A Home

IF IT'S FRIDAY, 

IT'S FRIDAY'S CHILD!

Why, you might ask, does a blog that explores New York's disappearing landscape, family and home, 

write about cats and dogs up for adoption?

Why indeed. 
Meet Jupiter.
  

Click here to find out.

Meanwhile, at Social Tees 

 cats and dogs, 

kittens and puppies

are just waiting to show you  

what real love is all about 

Just like one kitten did to me 

not so long ago.

 

GOING HOME!!!!

Captain, 10 weeks old just got adopted!!!

 WANTS TO GO HOME!!!!

Harley, a sweet-as-peaches southern belle, just arrived in the big city and is ready for her closeup. This girl is 4 years old, 23 lbs, and has a very friendly and mellow disposition. She's great with other dogs and cats and such a little love bug, friendly with all people. She is fully housebroken and has great manners, too! Adores playing tug of war an even enjoys bath time. 

Interested in adopting? Complete an application at www.socialteesnyc.org!

READY TO GO HOME!!!

PLEASE HELP THIS SPECIAL SENIOR IN LOS ANGELES!!!

Social Tees team landed in Los Angeles Tuesday and met this hearbreakingly gentle soul at the kill shelter.  

Bubbles was scheduled to be put to sleep yesterday morning, but they got her out of there and are now on a mission to let her live the rest of her days in the comfort she deserves. 

She is a 12-pound beagle mix, was adopted out as a puppy 12 years ago from the very same shelter.  She is 13 years old now and was dumped because her owner had no time for her and neighbors were complaining she was left lying outside alone for 12 hours a day. 

It is too sad to imagine that once-loved pets are left to languish and then abandoned to die in such a traumatic way just because they have gotten old. Social Tees is now working on GIVING THIS GIRL THE EXTRA SPECIAL CARE she should have been getting all along. 

They need to get her geriatric veterinary care including blood work and a full dental, and they need a place for her to stay! They are hoping to place her in a forever home in the Los Angeles area asap, but will fly her back to NYC when they leave if they haven't found just the right spot for her.

PLEASE HELP contribute to her care via  their fundraiser here https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/asRrf/ab/615Sw0? and please email samantha@socialteesnyc.org if you are in the LA area and can foster or want to adopt Bubbles.

ALREADY HOME!!!

A bit over a year ago we got Goldie from Social Tees.  And life got getter.

THANK YOU SOCIAL TEES!!!

DON'T YOU LOVE

THESE FABULOUS PHOTOS???

Visit Alan's dog photography collection at www.cheydogphotography.com and/or shoot him an email at alan@cheydogphotography.com. He'd be psyched to hear form you!

SOCIAL TEES IN THE EAST VILLAGE!!!

Come Volunteer!!!

Come Visit!!!!

 Come On In!!!!!

 Social Tees 
325 East 5th Street, NY, NY 10003  
socialteesnyc.org 
www.facebook.com/SocialTeesAnimalRescue

Yizkor (Remember) For Florence

Florence

 It's hard to keep track exactly when she died.

First day of Rosh Hoshonah for sure but every year that date changes.

September 30th.

But sometimes I think no it was October 1st because that's when I finally wrote everything down.

I don't miss her every day.  When her birthday comes around I remember it because it's right after Thanksgiving or before, and that holiday seemed invite a lot of unusual events.

But there are little things that startle me into a brief confusion over her absence.

Like when I hear an ambulance siren in the middle of the night from outside my bedroom window.  I am suddenly in that ambulance barreling my mother to her death, furious at the EMT who won't let me sit with her and staring into the empty, dark streets and then realizing that siren I hear is from the ambulance I'm sitting in.

When I understood that no one would ever hold my hand the way she did.

Or that moment on the F train.

And just the other day, I tied my scarf around my neck like she did and for a second I felt all the millions of time she rakishly made her scarves dashing and daring, with hopes that love would invite her into her hopes and dreams.

I often feel I should be mourning Florence's death the way I often felt I should fall in love with whoever gave me a Valentine's Day card.  There was just all this TV expectation that rose up. 

But that's not what happened.  The day would arrive and I would have to remember what day it was exactly and ....

No.  That's not what happened or happens.  What I grieve is that the woman I became after her death was much more capable of loving her that the child I was before she died.  I could have really loved my mother in a way that truly reached her.

And for that I grieve.

Now reaching mid-way through my fifth decade, I've been to enough memorials to know that at some point, someone will say, "his or her spirit lives on in us" and then something about how we should go out and live as he or she did. 

But, I don't know if anyone really does that.

Tonight, glancing back over my shoulder at the last couple of months and maybe even the last year, though, I realized I had been living as Florence did.  A ferocious attack on each day to bring forth the fullest expression of life, from dragging myself early in the morning to the pen and page, to storming up avenues to get to where I have to go.  I even swim at the same pool she did.

There is an unshakeable determination that I will not let age or despair thwart me.

That is truly reciting Yizkor for my mother. 


**
Related Posts:

"Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Line"

Famous Last Words On That Fateful Day

Sunday Memories: Thanks Winning

Migratory Patterns

Sunday Memories: Higher Ground

May God Remember This Sunday Memory Of A New York And A New Year

To Continue On

Visit To The Hospital: Part Two

Sometimes You Can Go Home Again