While out to dinner during a long weekend trip, my husband and I sat at a table overlooking the attached enclosed patio. The floor to ceiling windows separated us from another diner seated at a table out there. Mister Rain told me that he had a dog. A woman joined him later, the four of us dined together but apart.
While contemplating dessert, my husband stood up. I hadn’t seen it but the man sitting on the patio, now without his female companion, had been pointing at us throuh the window. “I think he wants to use the restroom and needs someone to watch the dog.” I could see Mister Rain approach the gentleman’s table and they had a short exchange before he returned to his seat across from me. “He wasn’t pointing at us. His wife was headed to the restroom and he was pointing to let her know where it is.”
When we left the restaurant a little later, my husband entered the patio to take some photos of the Christmas tree and train display set up there. I headed out to the car, parked directly in front of the pub. I could hear what was being said inside.
“Your dog is so well behaved,” Mister Rain said. “Thank you. He really is. I’m sorry again for pointing through the window at you,” the man replied. “Not a problem,” my husband assured him. “What Is his or her name?,” he asked.
“Archie,” the guy said. It took a beat or two before Mister Rain said, “That was the name of all three dogs we had when I was growing up. Archie 1, Archie 2 and Archie 3.” “I grew up in New Orleans,” the latest Archie dad said. “He’s named after Archie Manning.” My husband, of course, was wearing a Seahawks jacket vest, so their conversation moved to football.
As we drove back to our hotel, I thought about the boy who became the man behind the steering wheel next to me. It is not difficult for me to imagine him with the Archies of his youth based on how he has been with our two beaked boys, Cato and Piper. Archie 1 was around when the Seahawks joined the NFL in 1976. Forty-eight years later, Mister Rain was still wearing a Seahawks logo when he met another Archie. I feel bad that we can’t have a dog due to my allergies. But really, if you think about it, my husband was a bird lover long before he met me.
#sisterrain #alittlesightalotofheart #legallyblindtraveler #travel #archie #seahawks #aboyandhisdogsamanandhisbirds
