Ginger just turned ten months old. We're getting a routine down.

She wakes up around 5-5:30 in the morning and plays with her toys until she can't take it anymore - about 4 minutes. Then she howls and growls and digs through her blankets. She runs to Joe's side of the bed and licks his knee then she races down the hall and dives on the floor. She rolls on her back and wiggles all over while she grunts and grrs, then she runs back to the bedroom and howls. We're supposed to ignore her - we reward the good. She whimpers and sits there staring at us while she mewls and whines. It's the saddest thing I've ever heard. She puts her desperate little head inches from mine and quakes for a pet, which is tough to ignore, so after fifteen minutes one of us, usually Joe, gets up.

As he walks down the hall Ginger chases him, then she flips herself over so she's belly up. Rub rub she wiggles. Rub again. He does. Her tail wags a hole through the rug she's so happy. She's not clocking to go down or wanting to eat. She just wants her pack awake with her.

Fifteen minutes later she's on her feet, dragging her bed around the living room. We feed her and by 6:15 one of us (usually Joe) takes her down. We either take her to the river for a nice walk and to a dog run there, or to a run we're members of. She chases a ball, catches it and brings it back, catches it and brings it back. Every four or five catches she jumps in the pool and gums the ball while she splashes around. Then she brings it to us to throw again.

At this point it's nearing 8:00 and we head home. She walks with the ball in her mouth and everyone wants to pet her, take her picture, coo over her. A guy who works in a parking garage once gave her a ball and now she peeks her head in every time we pass to see if he's around. He's as eager to see her and often comes out and pets her. He's part of her street crew now. To this dog, her crew matters.

Closer to home we sometimes pass a gaggle of thuggy teens. They're part of a local harm reduction program and most are homeless. The minute they see Ginger their jailhouse posings and angry stares vanish. Ginger Ginger they yell and she wags and rolls over so they can rub her belly. When they pet Ginger and smile I can see how young they really are. Ginger would sit with them forever, so it takes some coaxing to get her moving.

We get to our building and she dawdles up the stairs. Once we come into the apartment she sits. She drops the ball, we remove her collar and leash, and she gets a treat. She lays under the table while Joe and I have breakfast, and when we settle into work she wraps her paws around Joe's feet and sleeps for a few hours. Sometimes when she dreams she wags her tail in her sleep, which kills me. I'd love to see her sleep until 6:00, or even better, 6:30, but being out when the city is quiet means I hear the birds sing. It also means we have a happy dog. And seeing Ginger happy is infectious.

Remember that 1970's movie, 'Willard,' about the guy with two rats who ends up with an army of them trained for revenge? It did so well they made a sequel, 'Ben,' which ended with a single rat redemption (the other rats were killed by a flamethrower). With the amount of rats I'm sharing the sidewalk with, I may film a reality series called 'Sh*t Your Pants in New York!'

Rats are everywhere. On sidewalks, at the dog run, under cars, in empty lots. Neighbors get the New York Times delivered and the paper is delivered rolled like a tube, tossed at our building's front door. A month ago I saw a rat tail sticking out of the tube, the rat inside gorging away on who knows what. At dusk Ginger stands on point, obsessed with a loading dock across the street. Workers occasionally put garbage there and when they do it's a giant rat saloon, with slithery comings and goings and leaping and eating and frantic mating. There are even new garbage bags that are supposed to be vermin repellent and I frequently see them ravaged on the sidewalks, corners gnawed off, the chewed plastic added to the pile of trash the rats have pulled out to get to the good stuff.

I think it's all the construction mixed with new restaurants. The local newspaper has covered it a little, only in that Tribeca restaurant owners will now be fined if their trash isn't put away properly. What's going on down here is beyond a restaurant problem.

Ten years ago a friend lived on Broadway, in a loft built at the turn of the century. She put in a gorgeous new kitchen in that had a roll-out pantry built into the wall. She kept boxes of large dog cookies in the pantry and couldn't figure out why she was going through them so fast. One morning she saw that a rat had chewed a small hole in the bottom of the box. The rat strategically put the hole in a place where cookies wouldn't fall out, but could be dragged out one by one. They plan, these rats do. Seeing them out in the bright light of day is not normal. This new breed of rat will swagger in through the front door and tuck the dog cookie box under its little rat arm. Then it'll give you the finger while stealing your jewelry, and maybe even grab a book on it's little way out.

Last week Joe was in front of our building with the dog, under an awning away from the sun. A homeless guy approached him, wearing clean clothes and a hospital wrist band, as if recently discharged. "I'm done," the guy said. "I've had it and I'm gonna kill someone. I want to go out with a bang." Joe stayed steady, his usual demeanor, though he went on alert. Was this guy going to try to kill him? Joe let the guy vent, he listened, and after a queasy ten minutes the guy walked off. Who knows if the guy stayed calm because Joe acknowledged him as a human being, or if he had other plans. All I cared about when I heard this was that the guy walked away.

The next two days we kept our eyes out and Joe did all the night and early morning walks. This is Soho so it's a constant stream of people, but Joe didn't see him and I didn't see anyone that fit his description. On the afternoon of the third day I was on our block with Ginger when a motorcycle took the corner, broadsided a SUV, and kept going. A bunch of people yelled after him - he caused damage - and I, not being steady like Joe, joined the group who yelled. Ten minutes later I was alone on the block and his motorcycle parked near me. He got off his bike - he was a big fella - and he slowly stalked toward me, carrying his helmet like a weapon. Now it was my turn to die. He was pissed and looked loaded, a dangerous combo, so I put a very concerned look on my face and asked if he was hurt from slamming into the car. All the air went out of him as his fury diffused, and though he eyed me distrustfully he started mumbling about coming back to leave a note. He approached a white van and glanced at me to see if I was watching, and I calmly pointed at a different SUV, the one he actually hit. He looked at the car, then sat on his motorcyle and stared off. I ambled out of their with Ginger.

Yesterday Joe and I were out for a very early morning walk with the dog and as we approached our neighborhood a very large man in a red shirt staggered toward us. "Let your pitbull bite me, c'mon, do it!" We both thought he was joking since we get that a lot then people bend down and hug her. This guy menacingly came at her and Joe walked her out of his radius and we continued on our walk. I was shaken but also felt relieved. Things happen in threes and that was our third run-in.

Our neighborhood has been changing for a while. A lot of homeless people sleep in the park nearby, on the school stairs, on the wide steel ledges in front of old cast iron loft buildings. Most of the homeless I see are gentle, beaten down, trying to get through the day. Some could be institutionalized for sure, but the rage on the street is something I haven't seen in many years. What's different today is our neighborhood isn't sliding down -- it's blowing up. Literally; buildings are coming down fast and a whole new skyline is going up.

Because of that skyline, the way light moves through my apartment is changing. On almost every block there's construction for new condos, co-ops, or gut building renovations. They advertise 'Home as it should be' and start around ten million dollars. Five million is cheap down here. Twenty-five million isn't unheard of. Out of town buyers are rampant, which means owners don't live here. In turn commercial rents are rocketing and the neighborhood infrastructure of laundromats, delis, hardware stores, basic goods, our hospital, are gone or nearly gone. They've been replaced by high-end restaurants, boutique hotels, tea shops, French bakeries.

The changes in the last year have been startling. Many of my regular spots have closed, spots in my landscape that made this city home. Joe's Dairy, Pearl Paint, the gas station and car wash on the corner, Sullivan Street Bakery, Cody's, OK Harris gallery and Loehmann's are just a few. A couple years back my lunch spot, Jerry's, moved ten blocks south, but closed this year when it couldn't survive the move. At night it's gotten loud with partiers screaming on the street at 4 a.m. Living here I'd hear hear tunnel traffic, but never people. Now there's noise day and night from construction cranes, pile drivers, jackhammers, clubbers, angry drivers who are angrier than they were a year ago, hotel doormen blowing whistles to hail cabs for guests. There's a constant hum now. Sleeping has gotten fractured.

I was out recently and ran into a DJ who's been around for 20 years. We were talking about how New York has changed and he commented that his New York doesn't exist anymore. I'm feeling this way, too. Everything changes, change is constant, but what's happening here -- maybe even in the world -- feels fundamental. Even culturally it's gone beige and corporate. In New York City! It's as if the most basic givens are no longer.

We had been throwing a ball at the dog run and as we leashed up to leave two of Ginger's friends came in. Things get a little wild with these two dogs, but Ginger hadn't had a good rumble in a couple of days so I stayed. It's all fun and games until someone starts crying, and on Wednesday that someone was me. As Ginger was barreling down the astroturf flanked by her mates she suddenly screamed and dropped onto her side. She laid there stone still, not moving.

It took me two seconds to reach her. The other owners quickly grabbed their dogs as I carefully looked her over. The astroturf gets slippery and it happened so fast I couldn't figure out what she hurt. I slowly checked each leg for a broken bone or something in her paw or anything that would tell me what happened. She didn't cry at all so I helped her to her feet and saw that whatever happened, it was her right leg. She was limping as I led her out of the run so we sat for a few minutes to settle. Joe was uptown and I couldn't call him for help, so I picked her up and carried her home.

I was a wreck, much more than she was. She's a compact forty pounds so I could walk okay with her, but had to stop a few times climbing the stairs. She was so calm. It didn't seem like anything was broken, but I wanted to get her home and get a good look at her. Instead I ended up taking her back out -- she had to pee as soon as we got home, and while we were outside Joe came home. Or really, I kept her down there since I knew he'd be home soon.

He carried her upstairs and she let him gently turn her this way and that. We iced her leg and she seemed okay, except she wouldn't put weight on it. We hoped it was a sprain, but our vet was closed so the next morning we went over before they opened and waited. Our vet took us immediately and it turned out it was a sprain, and now Ginger is on a pain killer, an anti-inflammatory and rest.

All Thursday she was mellow and quiet. Joe carried her up and down the stairs, and outside she wouldn't put weight on her leg but would occasionally test it. We carried her to a local garden where she could sit on a bench and get attention then Friday evening her banshee came out. She started racing around the apartment on three legs, she threw her toys in the air, she dragged her bed around the living room. Yesterday she woke up and was barely limping. When we wouldn't take her to the dog run she ripped her blanket off her bed and wrapped it around her head so she could furiously gnaw her way through it. We did take her on a slow walk, emphasis on slow, but no playing with dogs until we check in with the vet on Monday. This morning she was like a popped spring at 5:15 a.m. so Joe took her out with a ball to roll, not chase.

In the last couple of days she's gained a couple pounds between growing and no exercise. She loves being carried and now lifts her paw when she's done walking. Carry me to that squished rat. Bring me to the garden. Find me a chicken bone. Give me a cookie and make it artisanal. She's gone from sweet Ginger to insane Ginger, but it's still a relief to see her inching back to herself.

(top photo by Laura Smith)

Ginger has turned into a ball dog. At first she'd watch it sail past, then eventually she started trotting after it. She'd catch it and parade it around the dog run, showing it to everyone while she bounced it in her jaws. Once in a while she'd bring it back, but she'd usually plop down and shred it. Then we started training her.

We'd throw the ball, she'd chase it, we'd bribe her back with a treat. Drop we'd say and pretty quickly she got it. When she'd drop it Joe would give her a treat then immediately throw it. She'd chase it, bring it back, get a treat, chase it. Pretty soon she started bringing it back and dropping it at our feet on her own, treat or no treat. Within a week we had a ball dog.

Chaos can break out at the dog run and she'll ignore it if we're throwing a ball. Her best friends come lomping onto the run and if she's chasing, she doesn't care. She'll go until she drops, so we'll end it long before she's ready to. Or we'll end it if we want her to play. She's a thief so we have to watch her with toys that aren't hers, but one of the runs supplies piles of balls so if another dog intercepts hers there's always another close by. Early mornings we get into a throwing and chasing rhythm that's a kind of meditation. It's a great way to start the day.

When we leave the run, if she looks like she doesn't want to move I'll give her a ball to carry. She wags the whole way home with it in her mouth, showing it off to dogs and humans alike. I'll take it from her at the end of our block then use it to bribe her up the stairs. When we get home I trade her a treat for the ball and it goes on top of the fridge until we go out again later. This dog loves her routine and happily, we do, too.

(photo by Bill Carney)

We were walking home together from the dog run and Goofy 1 and Goofy 2 ran up school steps and wouldn't budge. Cookie? Cookie? Cookie? Ginger can see the world from that perch and something she saw turned her into Yoda. Hammy Relic nudged her, nervous. What have you done with my Ginger?

(photos by Joe Villari)

Despite the weather warming up we've had a few chilly mornings. Coming in from a quick walk on one of those mornings Ginger trotted into the living room and wrangled herself under and into her blanket, until she was perfectly wrapped. I said, "What are you doing cutie?" She stuck her tongue out at me, like duh, what do you think I'm doing.

By the time she demanded breakfast it had warmed up, so Joe took her to the run. It was quiet, but she lucked out with a stick.

Ginger did her usual at 6 a.m., i.e. whining in her bed for a pet on the head. She's not allowed on the furniture so we put her bed right next to ours and if I reach over and scratch her head she curls right up and chews on something. She's lazy when she wakes up and needs a push to get going before we can get her collar on and get her down the stairs. This morning Joe got up and walked down the hall, through the living room and into the kitchen, but she wouldn't follow him in. She sat on her bed looking at me, willing me up so all of us could to head to the kitchen. As a pack.

I rolled away from her stare, not wanting to budge. I could feel her beady eyes on the back of my head and she knew it; she attacked her bed and the carpet, knowing one of us would tell her to knock it off. Joe came in to do that and she happily followed him into the kitchen, now that she had gotten attention.

I rolled back over and looked down the hall into the living room, which is my favorite view in the apartment: a modern pink and brown runner gives way to gray and lavender and lucite and muted beige and pink. The walls are Cream Silk, technically white, but as the light moves around the room the walls change from soft white to cream to a light yellow that makes the whole room glow.

It's so calming to look at I started drifting off, then I saw Ginger bolt through the living room with Joe behind her. Seconds later she bolted the other way with him at her heels. I closed my eyes and suddenly heard a pit bull at a full gallop barreling toward me. An instant later I felt paws and a wet nose on my head—Ginger had leapt into bed. She was scrambling for Joe's side of it just as he tackled her.

The no furniture rule is one I reluctantly adhere to because Joe feels adamant about it. I loved Ginger diving in next to me, though she is getting big. It'd be tough to sleep with her snoring and digging and stretching and grunting and dreaming and kicking the way she does. I work on Joe to let her on the couch -- he hasn't budged an inch but neither have I in my desire -- but it's probably okay that she sleeps in her own bed. At the dog parks the conversation sometimes roams to who lets their dog sleep in their bed and who doesn't and anyone with a dog over thirty pounds almost always wishes they hadn't started letting the dog have free reign. Not because their dog wants to now drive the car or play Candyland, but dogs have no boundaries. If the dog wants to sleep on your head or give you a face full of ass, s/he's going to whether you're there or not. Any thoughts on this? Where does your dog sleep?

We're finally starting to get a routine down. Ginger goes out early and does her business, comes back in and reluctantly lounges for a little while, then eats and is out the door by 6:45. She pulls whomever has her across Sixth Ave. and down West Broadway until she gets to the Soho Grand Hotel.

The Soho Grand has a private dog run for guests and has given us and other neighbors a key to it. Almost every morning the same crew shows up: Ginger, Relic, Tufo and Pico. If we try to take Ginger to a different dog run in the morning she lays flat on the sidewalk and digs in. This dog loves her routine, and since I do, too, I'm good not having to think about where to take her as the sun is coming up.

Pico is a Portuguese Water Dog about her age and tomorrow will be their last romp, at least for now. Pico is moving to California and will be missed as much by Ginger as me. He's a kook of a dog, all paws and limbs and goofiness, and Ginger loves getting nutty with him since he plays as hard as she does.

About an hour and a half in we leave the run, usually with Relic, and Ginger drags us to another hotel, The James, to get a cookie. She's thirty-five pounds of muscle and her paws are all fast motion as she tries to tear up the pavement to get there. The neighborhood dogs go so crazy for The James's cookies I went online and dug around until I found them. Given Ginger is going through a phase where she suddenly decides she doesn't want to walk and lays down on the sidewalk, in a dirt pile, in the middle of Sixth Ave., I pull a piece of one of these cookies out and wave it and she's up and moving.

She's coming along great, but she's growing so fast she's having a hard time making it down the stairs without dribbling urine. It doesn't matter if we take her down every two hours; we get to the foyer and whomever has her buzzes the other to come on down with vinegar and paper towels. We thought it might be a UTI and it turned out she had the start of one, and after two weeks of antibiotics the dribbling didn't go away yet the UTI did. Pit bulls are solid and it's a lot of weight to grow into, so we're hoping this is a growth issue and not something bigger.

The other habit I'm looking forward to her growing out of is her 5 a.m. wake-up. She doesn't want to go out, she just needs reassurance we're still there. I'll flop an arm over the bed and pat her head and she'll curl up and go back to sleep, with my hand if I'll let her. This dog is a real toucher: when I take her downstairs she'll often have her nose in my knee; she sits on my feet or leans against me when we're outside; she sleeps under Joe's feet when he's working and under mine when he's out; and at night if we're on the couch streaming something she'll curl up around his foot or wrap her paws around his ankle. She's quirky in how insecure she is and how bold, but maybe we're all that way.

The first swear I ever said out loud was "Lake Titicaca." I was five and had gone to the Stop & Shop with my mother and sister. The Stop & Shop had a wall of vending machines filled with candy or prizes and our mother had given us each a five dimes and two quarters to entertain ourselves with while she food shopped.

My sister immediately went for the candy and fed dimes into one machine after the other while she stuffed candy into her mouth. I was discreet, targeting the prize machines, which were a quarter. There were eight prize machines and I didn't have enough money to play all of them so I took my time casing each machine.

The first one I fed had a bubble ring near the top and my patience worked: I got the ring. It had a fake stones around the edge and a bubble in the middle with a doll in it and the best was you could open the bubble. The doll was neat looking and I all that, but I wanted the ring for all the stuff I could put in that bubble and carry around with me, like marbles or rocks or a small ring I had that didn't fit me. A ring in a ring made more sense than a doll in a ring.

The next machine had a joke book near the top and I wanted it. I fed my last quarter in and got a pin with a sticker back instead. I tossed it over my shoulder while I fished dimes from my pocket. It took the rest of my dimes but I got the joke book.

My sister was still cramming candy into her mouth while I read the first joke out loud. I don't remember the question but the answer was Lake Titicaca. I snickered, then started laughing uncontrollably. Titi sounded like a swear and caca was something I once did in my snow suit. When you put the words together they had to mean something bad. Now I had a ring that could hold a ring and a dirty joke book and I turned to my sister flush with success. "Lake Titicaca," I said and started howling it was so funny. "Shit up," she said and went back to feeding her dimes into the candy machines. Last I remember was our mother giving me a fruit roll up to shit the hell up while she dragged us out of the store.

"Shit up" was what I wanted to say to the DMV guy I got this morning when I went to exchange my Mass. license for a New York State license. I've been meaning to exchange it for over twenty years but it seemed much easier to do it in Mass. when I'd go up for a visit. My license had expired and I was coming up on the date where New York would no longer recognize it as valid and if I wanted to avoid a road test it was time to make the switch.

The DMV had changed a lot since the last time I considered changing my license. You can now go online and make an appointment, which I did, and was so happy to see that I only had to wait for fifteen minutes before I was called up to the window. I had all the proper documents but had missed that my middle name wasn't on my passport yet its initial was on my license and SS card. The guy I was dealing needed to see my birth certificate, which meant I had to go back home and get it. That document doesn't have my name on it so when I got back to the DMV and got called up again all my paperwork had to get special approval. It did and what's great is when it's time to renew I can do it via mail.

Our little Ginger was sleeping when I came home so I fed her then took her back to the dog run that Joe had her at for an hour this morning. That Rottweiler is her best friend and he lets her steal his ball right out of his mouth. No shit up will ever go on between those two.