I told my dog park friends that I'd be hiring a car to drive Doris and me from Chicago to Los Angeles for a weekend event, they protested.
"Three days in a car!" Bethany said as she put a hand on my arm, as alarmed as if I had announced my pet and i would be hitchhiking the route.
Another friend painted images of motels on the road: seedy travellers, moldy walls, and stained linens.
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Doris and I are early risers. The first walk of the day for my adopted 3-year -old Terrier/Jack Russell mix is 6 am. It is dark at the hour. There are security cameras on several buildings, a handful of other dog owners, morning exercisers, and autos.
I don't count on the cameras or other folk for protection. I have my own trio of angels.
According to the Torah, angels are messengers from God. But my specific angels -- my father, husband, and brother -- have in my imagination elected to swap that role and instead become my personal predawn bodyguards.
Read MoreThe house next door to the one that we were considering buying had been damaged in a fire. Its appearance was so harrowing that on the day of our tour, a film crew was using it to dramatize a rescue operation.
Our eyesore neighbor did not discourage Tommy and me; in fact we welcomed its haunted exterior because it measurably lowered the price of our potential home.
Read MoreI worry our friendship is in peril.
We are on the phone making plans for me to visit her new apartment 20 miles away from my place.
"I'll pick you up at the train station," she says, as enthusiastic as a sweetheart welcoming her GI home from military service.
But I have the opposite sentiment when I here those words: trepidation and guilt.
"Um, no," I say, I'll get a ride door to door."
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never afraid when I walk Doris at 6 o'clock in the morning.
Not counting the pup parents, who are typically pajama-clad young 'uns rushing their poodle mixes out the door, we are alone taking our first walk of the day.
Doris' nose is to the ground, tracing the scent of other breeds, while I applaud the rising sun that is making its grand entrance in the east.
My 3-year-old shelter dog prefers this time of the day; it is noiseless, and her tail -- typically pasted to her rear -- is high and freely waving. And although we are hardly an intimidating pair -- a tiny, 82-year-old owner and her under 30-pound pooch -- we each believe the other can battle any ne'er-do-well that might cross our path at this hushed hour.
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