Growth spurts are tough on her. Mixed with today's humidity she's barely moving. Kitchen to eat, living room to sleep, downstairs to pee, back up to conk out.

This morning was hectic hectic hectic

by eight a.m. we hit the greenmarket and I wrap

three birthday presents for a seven year old who I love very much and

then we have to cook and eat and clean up what we ate and shower

shower you're getting bread and I'll shower first before we head out

Okay Joe says but be quick since I don't want to be late and I thought

if I had an axe an axe an axe had a nice sharp axe I

might swing it am I ever late?

We drive over the Williamsburg Bridge

Joe is driving and I am in the passenger seat not aware I'm --

How's your brake? he asks Your brake brake brake?

I'm slamming my foot on my imaginary brake every time a

motherfuuuu-oh my God - the truck the taxi it's veering into our -

I'm going to die

close my eye

s oh my

I see a sign

it says Take Turns Meandering

that's a weird sign for the Long Island Expressway

and I realize it says Take Turns Merging

a sign a sign a sign!

I swing my feet and pfffft I'm good

One of my favorite Saturday Night Live skits was when John Larroquette played a recently deceased guy and Dana Carvey played the angel he meets when he goes to heaven. The angel asks the deceased guy "Anything you want to know?" and after a bit of conversation the deceased guy asks "What's the grossest thing I ever ate?" The angel quickly says "You don't want to know." The deceased guy says, "Okay, what's the 200th grossest thing?" and the angel replies "That would be some butterscotch pudding that had a dead earwig in it."

The dog has gotten so much better with vacuuming the street, but occasionally she'll grab something off the sidewalk before I can kick it out of the way. Sometimes I don't know what I'm fishing out of her mouth and last week I wrangled a flattened and stiff bird part from between her teeth. (There was a beak, a head and a bit of something else.) A fellow dog owner referred to it as a 'bird chip' and for the record that bird chip barely makes the top ten things I've fished out of the dog's mouth. The week before she got her jaws around a massive cockroach, also dead, and that makes the bottom of the top ten because a cockroach beats a bird chip any day in terms of not wanting to touch.

After 9/11 our neighborhood changed in many ways and one that's been long lasting is the kind of wildlife and vermin we now have. One of my close high school friends was a flight attendant on the first plane through the towers and ten days after they fell, when I was packing to go to her memorial, my phone rang with "Has the infestation reached you yet?" The caller lived eleven blocks south of me and they were being overrun with cockroaches. Right as they asked a giant waterbug lumbered across my living room floor and I panicked. It made sense - the vermin had to go somewhere. Bizarrely, I had crickets right after the towers fell, the most beautiful, sleek black crickets that tweeted comfort for two days then went silent. Crickets were okay, but cockroaches weren't and I left for my friend's memorial unsure of what I'd come back to.

What I came back to was getting mugged at knifepoint by a transvestite who was better dressed than me, but no cockroaches. Seagulls, rats the size of cats, doves, a hawk and a praying mantis moved onto the block and stayed. Praying mantis look like floating fairies when they fly and though they're the rarest thing I still occasionally see one. Last night the dog ate a ladybug, which I love, so I'll have to keep my eyes out for Tinkerbell, should she fly by.

For six months this dog was silent, then two weeks ago she heard a sound in the hall and bam! She was at the door with rogrogrog. We stared at her in wonder, like Dr. Zira did at George Taylor in PLANET OF THE APES when he growls Get your paws off me you filthy ape and she realizes It speaks! Two weeks later we're not at It doesn't shut up! but we do have a solid watch dog.

I use 'watch dog' loosely. An egg carton in the kitchen got a growl and a woof and yesterday she dove on her bed in the living room and leapt off it just as fast, like it was about to snap it jaws around her. She glared at it with a grrwoof then she head butted it for a solid minute before plopping down behind me and conking out. She likes to lay down behind me while I work - I'm on a deadline which is why I'm posting mostly about the dog - and suddenly she'll be up and across the living room, with wargwargwarg out the window. We're quite a few stories up so she can't see the street below, but she'll sit and stare across to New Jersey, or a block away at scaffolding on Renwick Street, or at a construction crane on Hudson Street and woof and grunt and pfft. Argargarg.

First time in a pool, following her favorite dog in.

Her favorite dog is a Rottweiler who lives downstairs. They're a few months apart in age and about 75 pounds apart in weight. They go at it when they see each other; the Rottweiler loves to chew my dog's ears and my dog loves to chew his chin.

Both dogs are breeds that are perceived to be tough and both dogs are the exact opposite. On Saturday we took them to a dog run together and though they'd play with all the other dogs they kept running back to us for a pet, for reassurance, to stand between our legs and watch the action. They're both big babies, which is probably why we love them so.

Dealing with people on the street has been something I didn't anticipate. This dog wags her tail at everyone, loves kids, has a great air about her and is a beauty. When we're out people stop us constantly to ask about her and to pet her. Kids who are terrified of dogs want to touch her, adults who have had bad dog experiences want her to be their initiation back into dogville. It's great, she loves it, but I'm still getting used to it.

When we first got her I'd take her out early with my teeth unbrushed, hair in a messy ponytail, wearing dog slobbered clothes. We'd get stopped and I'd be covering my mouth to answer questions or talk shop about the dog. Now I brush my teeth, put on lipstick and try to have my hair in some kind of shape before I take her out. Thank god for vanity.

The Soho Grand put in a dog run for the neighborhood dogs and guests. It's very pretty, more for owners than dogs. The grass at a week old had patches that had been dug up and eaten and the large polished pebbles are hard on a dog's running feet. We go there at least once a day for a sniffathon: the top photo is the dog meeting her first fly; sniffing the pebbles; facing off with a Starling; sniffing a rock on the grass the bird was on. Neighborhood dogs are starting to find it so we'll even get a romp in, but mostly it's for climbing on benches and smelling everything.

Thanks to all the comments and those of you subscribing. It's great, actually. Thank you, too, to the reader that mentioned a photo loading issue. We tried to find the issue and everything is loading on this end, so perhaps there was an outside issue that day.

Waiting to be lifted out of the tub.

On Tuesday I met a friend uptown and she took me through Shakespeare's Garden in Central Park. What a beauty that garden is. There were Robins everywhere and I mentioned that I don't see them often downtown.

On Wednesday I was walking the dog and she dove for something on the sidewalk. It was a dead baby Robin, not yet 2 inches long, almost featureless. I pulled the dog away, we kept walking, and I started seeing blue egg shell pieces on almost every block. Maybe Robins like all the scaffolding, maybe they like the eaves, maybe old predators are gone or all the recent construction has shaken everything up. We're Starlings, Pigeons, Sparrows, the occasional hawk or rogue Yellow or Red Finch, but rarely Robins.

Thursday and Friday I saw another dead baby Robin, same on Saturday. Walking the dog home this morning from the park I saw another, but it was more fully developed. It's beak was yellow, it's body plumper. I don't know if a nest mate is kicking these birds to the ground or if they're falling. I've never seen a baby Robin that close, but I'd rather watch them develop live versus, well, dead. Any naturalists out there who can fill me in on why Robins now?

The dog chewed the nose off her favorite stuffy and pulled the head stuffing out. Then she dumped it in my lap and said Fix it. I stuffed the stuffing back in and sewed the nose closed and 4 seconds later she was throwing it up in the air and had a mouth full of stuffing. This time I pulled the head stuffing out and sewed the monkey into Pumpkinhead. She loves it just as much as she did when Monkey had a face and if I was writing a kid's movie there'd be a sweet lesson here.

On Tuesday we took a walk through the center of Soho, something I avoid with the dog because of crowds. It was early and quiet -- Tuesday must be fly home day for tourists -- and many shops had their doors wide open. Some even put out water bowls for dogs, which mine sniffs with snobbish scorn. The welcoming doors, however, beckon and I had to drag her by every shop as she strained to go in. Finally I asked an eyeglass store if the dog could come in and the salespeople yelled Yes! Yes! A bowl of treats appeared and everyone clamored to give her a cookie. It hit me that my dog knew this, that all stores have treats. Which meant we treat-whored our way from the eyeglass store to home and got here just in time for lunch.