Smart dog
I haven’t even been in Chicago a week but it’s as though we never left. Scratch that — some things have changed. The bars here are gloriously smoke-free, the Sedgwick L stop is now really nice (as in, there is only an 80 percent chance that you will be mugged, instead of absolute certainty, or at least if you are mugged, it will be against the backdrop of a pretty urban mural on the train platform) and, well, hm. That’s about it. I have been loving every minute of it, though and wondering why we would ever have left in the first place. It feels like waking up from a bad dream. It wasn’t a nightmare, and it was interesting enough, but I sure am glad to be awake now.
I’m going back to Nashville today. No, seriously. The movers come tomorrow morning, and we have a few loose ends to tie up there. You know, the usual things: canceling utilities, selling off appliances, renting a Haz-Mat suit so I can take down the wreath with the poop nest … ugh, it was smelling pretty funky when we left last week. What are the odds that there are no dead baby birds in there? Barf.
So I’m packing a carry-on suitcase in the bedroom, and Molly is watching me nervously. I ask her if she wants to go for a walk, and she goes her usual amount of nuts and then sits by the back door. But the back door, which leads to the garage, means “go for a ride,” and the front door is what we open to “go for a walk.” Molly knows this, but I think nothing of it at this point.
Once we’re outside, she runs right up to a parked SUV and sits by the passenger door, waiting to be let in. And it is only then that I realize: She saw me packing the suitcase, so she thinks its time to go for a ride.
Rob got his job in Nashville just a few weeks after we brought Molly home with us. In the six months that followed, she and I would make the drive between Chicago and Nashville and back again more than a handful of times to visit Rob and house-hunt in Nashville. And even since Molly and I moved to Nashville officially, she has been with me on several trips back up to Chicago.
But I’m flying this time, so she can’t come with me. And I swear she knows this, because she proceeded to sit down in front of every single SUV we passed (not the cars, mind, you, but the SUVs, which look like our Honda CR-V). And when we got to the end of the block and turned around, she practically pulled my arm out dragging me all the way home. Poor dog wants to come with me!
Or maybe she’s just afraid of being left alone with Rob for two days (and I don’t blame her — I’m not sure he even knows where we keep her food). Who knows. I can’t read her mind, but apparently she can read mine. I swear she goes ballistic if I even THINK about taking her to the dog park. It’s totally wild.
