Adventures in Florence

We had an interesting evening last night to say the least. Koda, Sammy and I had a couple of unexpected visitors. Cristy’s air was out at home so her giant person of a doggie, Toby needed to stay at the condo due to his age and breathing problems (poor guy.) I prepared Koda and Sammy, telling them that Toby is just another dog and that he has no intentions of eating and/or stomping them. They seemed to understand but when Toby came in the condo he was breathing so loudly that he awoke the downstairs old man ghost (more on that later.) Needless to say Koda was not thrilled to let Toby smell her butt, so she hid under my legs (Ok, so she hid under Cristy’s legs but I like to pretend that she still loves me best.) Sammy slowly flattened herself further and further into the blanket on top of the chair, I assume attempting to go unseen…it worked for a while…

Once Toby stopped breathing like a freight train (mostly accomplished through him laying his belly flat on the cold floor, frog leg style) we settled in to watch Pretty Little Liars, I mean…CNN, we watched the news or something less embarrassing like that. On a side note, Toby eventually gets frustrated with having to breathe like that so he makes a giant huffy sigh which sends slobber in fourteen different directions. It’s really, um, cute…

After a well played round of PlayStation Jeopardy (seriously, Cristy, tell a girl the rules first next time,) it was time to take Koda and Toby out for their last potty break before bed. Grab leashes, grab dogs, barrel downstairs, dogs use the bathroom like good puppies so it’s time to go back in, and as I go to unlock the door, I realized….no keys. Brain was working overtime trying to think of options. Neighbor Harriet could let me in. Sure, its midnight but she locks herself out all the time. Buzzed her with a quick little buzz, not sure why, maybe it wasn’t as bad as buzzing for a long time. Might just jolt her out of her sleep rather than slowly annoying her into consciousness. Well, yeah that didn’t work so I buzzed a little longer the next time, and then again and again one more time. So about this time a very calm Cristy had taken Toby around back to check and see if we might be able to scale the balcony. And by “we” I mean Cristy because everyone knows what would happen to me if I tried to climb that thing. I’m thinking two fractured legs and a broken tail bone to start with. While she was scoping out the rock climbing situation, I was mulling over other options. Garage door opener is in my car!! Car is locked. Window beside the door, I could open it and reach through the screen….window is locked.

At this point the deck seemed to be the only option, so I followed Cristy around back. Calm as ever (even though her sugar was dropping and we had no food/juice, blood sugar meter, cell phones, etc.) she tried to see if she could jump up and grab the deck to pull herself up. It was just out of her reach, so I searched neighbors’ patios for appropriate furniture to give her a boost. Of course all I could find was a stool that probably couldn’t support a flower pot and two mesh spinning lawn chairs. Apprehensively I began to carry one of the spinning chairs over, picturing Cristy jumping from the chair, spinning in the air, then landing back with her foot piercing through the mesh, broken leg and barking dogs, and me helplessly standing there crying.

Suddenly I heard Cristy’s voice through the darkness “why don’t we just go in their door?” Could it be? The downstairs neighbors have moved to North Carolina, leaving an abandoned condo underneath mine. Their sliding door was open! All that had to be done was go in their condo, through the hallway and then back up to my door! Of course this left the burning question of how someone could pack up and move to another State and not bother to lock their ground floor sliding door which left access for every homeless person and rapist in the tri-state area to party in our hallway.

Standing on my deck in wonderment at our luck that we didn’t have to sleep in the gazebo by the pool with two dogs and only froggy lake water to drink, we came to the conclusion that the old man ghost who lived downstairs must have opened the door for us. I know he is there because he still throws tennis balls up to my deck when Koda drops them off, just the way he did when he was alive. Seriously, watch for me on Ghost Hunters. Oh and also if there is a show called “People Who do Dumb Stuff and Somehow Find Ways to Get Out of It,” then watch for me on there, as well.