Setting communication there. There we go. Good afternoon. It is Saturday, February 22nd at 4:47 p.m. Um, I just got back from a late lunch with, uh, Molly Jong-Fast and our current Manhattan Borough President, Mark Levine, who I just think the world of. He's running for City Comptroller. And, um, the two of them have kind of circled one another on social media for a while and I thought I'd let's just get them together and let like, you know. So, we all got together. So, me, Mark... It was Mark, myself... No, let me use proper grammar here. It was Mark, Molly, and I. How do you say you say it? Um, and, uh, so, we had a great lunch at Cafe Luxembourg, which was by the way banging. The crowd... It was so crowded. Um, and I mean this in a good way. It's really nice to see on the Upper West Side on a Saturday. I used to work at Cafe Luxembourg like 100 years ago. I remember Saturdays being busy, but not like this. I don't know. Maybe I'm just remembering selectively. I don't remember, but it was busy. It was nice to see and super pleasant and we had a good time. Um, and also, my full-throated support, uh, of Mark's run for City Comptroller. Uh, in fact, let me give you a website. And then I'm going to share with you guys what's really going on. Um, the website is, I want to say... Yeah, votemarklevine.com. That's v-o-t-e marklevine.com. This is the post right here. There it is. Lunch with our staunch and stalwart Manhattan Borough President and soon-to-be City Comptroller, Mark Levine. And go to Mark... votemarklevine.com. Go there. I've donated to his campaign. You guys should, too. He's fantastic. I love Mark. He's one of those sort of rare birds. He's genuine. He's the real... He's the genuine article. He's the real deal. Um, and I went live earlier today on Instagram and shared with the people there and I'm going to share with you guys here. For those of you who don't know, I can see by the comments, um, uh, that, uh, my older dog, Smokey, I'm looking at him right now. He's on his bed on the living room floor. He's just... He's such an old man. He's not... Smokey's not sick. He's not... There's no cancer or anything. There's no illness. It's just old man stuff. So, his legs are giving out. Not interested in walking anymore. Not really... He used to eat so fast and now he's kind of lost interest in that. Um, dementia, like old dog dementia. Um, he's got the, you know, the film over his eyes, the cataracts. He can't really see. Can't really hear. And a lot of groaning. He's okay now. I think he's just very tired, but, uh, you know, when he's not sleeping, he's usually groaning. We just went out for a quick walk. And so, I, you know, I've been thinking about it for a long time and I finally made the decision about a week and a half ago and finally got around today to scheduling for him to cross the rainbow bridge and we're going to do that on, um, Monday. Um, about 48 hours from now. And, uh, I'm just kind of enjoying and taking in my last 48 hours with him. Thank you, Donna Maynard. Um, and I know that this is the right thing to do. I know that this is an act of love. I know that this is part of the, you know, this is part of the deal. This is the contract we sign when we take home a dog. Um, yeah, this is part of the journey. And so, I'm not doing it in a vet's office. We're not... I'm not taking him in. I'm paying the money and having someone, a vet, come here to do it, a euthanasia vet. Um, and I feel much better about that. Lenore's going to be here. We're going to do it in the bedroom. Um, probably, you know, put on some soft music or maybe nothing. I don't know. And just make it real quiet and peaceful and it's going to be... I'm just going to cuddle on the bed with him as he goes. That's going to be how we do it. That's how I want it done. And I want him to be comfortable in his home environment. Um, yeah. I mean, if you've got the means, I would strongly encourage anybody to do it at home. I mean, why stress your dog out? But earlier in the day, we're going to... I'm going to get him a cheeseburger. We're going to have ice cream, like, why not? It's going to be a good last day. Not a lot of walking cuz we don't do that. I'm going to go out and get the stuff. Um, but he's my boy, and I've had Smokey... I shared all this. Forgive me if you tuned in to, um, Instagram earlier today or saw that post, but, you know, I got Smokey when he was a baby. He was 12 weeks old, maybe, and he was probably about 13 lb. Um, I adopted him at an adoption event at my friend John Bartlett's store. John had a store at the time on, uh, 7th Avenue South, just below Charles Street. And that's where I met Smokey. That's where my journey with him began. I saw him on a truck and I thought... and this was a little over 15 years ago. This was in November of 2009. And I thought, 'Oh God, do I really want to do this?' I just turned 39 years old. Uh, it was the day of President Kennedy's assassination anniversary, the 22nd of November. And, God, I remember going to that store, to John's store, and he said, 'I'm having this adoption event. You should come and...' Just I thought I was just going to go down there and take pictures and put them on Facebook for John and kind of support my friend and his adoption event. I did not plan on coming home with a dog. That was not on my bingo card that day, honest to God. When I saw Smokey, he was just this little black puppy, black lab, uh, mix. He was just staring at me in his crate in the truck from North Shore Animal League and I thought, 'Oh god.' And I said, 'Can I see that one?' And they put him in my arms and he's so soft and fabulous and like lamby and wonderful and I took him home and turned my life upside down. But after getting sober, it was the best thing I ever did. Best thing I ever did. I mean, I'm as I'm talking to you, I'm looking right at him. He's 5 ft away from me on the floor in his bed. And, uh, yeah. I'm a big, uh, advocate for adoption and rescue. Smokey's a rescue dog. I, um, I've never learned... I never got the test. I never learned what he is. He's a black lab mix of some kind, but small. Uh, his max weight was maybe around 35 lbs. And, uh, so he's pretty little as labs go. And, uh, but he's fabulous and I trained him myself with the help of, um, um, what is it? Puppies for Dummies, very helpful. And I read this great book by Alexandra Horowitz. She's a doctor animal behaviorist, I think, or something. Um, she wrote a great book, uh, called Inside of a Dog. And it was about... very enlightening and informative about how dogs perceive our world. Um, and she wrote this, you know, as a dog owner. She has a... had a rescue at the time, uh, uh, while she wrote the book and she's also a scientist, so it was like science mixed with love. It's called Inside of a Dog and her name is Alexandra Horowitz. She's written other dog... other books since. Um, but yeah, it was nice to read the science mixed with coming from a place of love. Um, but I still have his baby teeth, some of them. Dogs when they lose their puppy teeth, their milking teeth they're called. They're so sharp and tiny. Um, they usually just sort of swallow them and poop them out, but I have some of Smokey's in a little baggy. I have the little powder blue leather collar that he had on from the adoption truck. I still have that. I have his original tag, his adoption number. So, when they come to do the thing on Monday, he's going to get a paw... They're going to make a paw print, one. Um, and then I'm paying to have him individually aquamated. Um, no, not cremating him. They're not using fire. They do it with water now. I should look up the process. Um, no, uh, carbon footprint with this. Apparently, it's the future. And maybe I will get aqua cremated... aquamated. Um, anyway, and then I'll get his ashes week or so later in a box and, um, my plan is to like when I... when I... when... when then when Lenore goes and then if I have other dogs, like all their ashes I want mixed with mine and scattered like all of our ashes mixed in and I want them scattered in Central Park. Um, but Smokey's my guy. He's my boy. He's seen me at my best, my worst. He's witnessed all of it. Our dogs see us in every moment. Um, and so I'm just in a... you know, I'm really... I have to say I'm in a... all things considered a pretty good place about this. I came unglued a little bit earlier today. I'm going to do it again, I'm sure. I keep thinking to myself like, oh, there's only two more times I'm going to fill his food bowl. This is one of the last times I'm going to give him a treat. This is... I keep thinking this is one of the last times X, Y, and Z. This is one of the last times he's going to get a bully stick. Will be the last time. He used to love bully sticks. Now he's not really that interested in him anymore. I mean, this is like the joy is gone. Like it's time. Um, so yeah, I'm spending the extra money to have the vet come here. Uh, paid it in full in advance this morning. I feel good about it. Like I'm... money well spent as far as I'm concerned. And so when the deed is done, I want Lenore to be in the room. I want her to understand. I want us all to be in the bed together if we can be. And, um, Lenore's never one to sit still for long, but I want Lenore to witness it if that makes any sense. So that she has some kind of understanding of what's going on with her brother and that he's not coming back. I didn't want to go out to the vet, do it, and come back without him, and she'd just be a little... confuse her. I don't know. Like, maybe I'm overthinking it. I don't really care. I just... and maybe this is just for my comfort. I don't give a... Uh, but the time is now. Um, yeah. I could have done it weeks ago actually. I just probably held on a little too... I've known that this for a long time, I should say. I'm ready. I'm ready. Um, I don't want him to go. He's just about the best dog I could have ever had. He really is. Just about the best I could have ever asked for. I got really lucky with this dog. He's just, you know, he's real... I'm really lucky. He was just so easy and gentle and sweet and his smell. Love your dogs. Every day is precious. I am fortunate that I did recognize that that every day mattered and they're the best things in our lives. And the best thing in my life. I mean, if I had kids, I'd be singing a different song, I'm sure, but although I know some people who have kids often times like their dogs better than their children. Um, anyway, I just want to share that with everybody. Um, uh, and as I said on Instagram this morning, I just... you know, I've made... if you go far enough back in my YouTube channel, I did videos on my first few days with Smokey. 15 years ago. I tried to do like a daily update with him and I remember the first video I made with him. It was the day after. And, uh, maybe I... maybe I'll go look at it right now. I remember that day. I remember the light coming in in the apartment. I remember the t-shirt I was wearing. I was wearing boxer shorts. I had just come out of bed. It was my first morning with the dog. My first morning waking up with him. And I had to keep him inside cuz he didn't have all his shots. So, I had, you know, the wee-wee pads and hoping that he would pee on it and do the rest of his business on it. He's pretty good. Anyway. Um, that's enough of that. Thank you guys so much for, um, hanging out, indulging me, listening, and, um, for your nice comments, and I'll keep you posted. And, uh, if you do have a dog, love them. Be the... Be the person your dog thinks you are. Yeah. Be the person your dog thinks you are. And if you're thinking about getting a dog, it's the best. It's just the greatest thing. I wasn't planning on it. Either of them. I wasn't planning on... I wasn't planning on adopting Lenore. It was completely not on the itinerary that day. Like, that's just how I roll. Anyway. Thanks again, guys. Um, and as I said, I'll keep you posted and I really appreciate your hanging out and listening and your nice comments and indulging me and for your support. It really does matter and make a difference and I really appreciate it and I'll keep you guys posted. Thank you.
