Sadie

Kendall got a dog last weekend. As always when they visit my parents, Kendall and Matthew insisted on visiting Auntie Ellen, which mostly means coming to my apartment and climbing up and down my loft bed 20 or 30 times. Afterwards, we took Sadie for a walk in Central Park, five adults and two children and one 14-month-old cocker spaniel.

We stopped every half block or so to meet another dog, or just to talk to someone who wanted to know how old she was, how much did she weigh, and oh, look, how cute is that dog?

My mother told me I should have gotten a dog instead of my cats, and believe me, it's occured to me that it might be a better way of meeting people than any of the online dating services I've tried.

But then, after dinner, as we were walking up Amsterdam in search of ice cream, a woman asked if she could meet Sadie. "I ran after you for five blocks," she said, and pulled out her wallet to show us pictures of her own, recently deceased, cocker spaniel. It was a good 20 minutes before we could graciously extricate ourselves.

Meeting people through your dog, good. Meeting more crazy people, maybe not so good.