There are two little beagles Ricky and I have been running into lately on our “destination” walks at Southport Harbor. They’re brother and sister, seven years old, and a lot smaller than Ricky. (The two of them are the 13-inch breed of beagle; Ricky is the 15-inch.) The boy is lean; the girl is . . . pleasantly plump.
The second time we saw them, their owner, a British-accented gentleman, said, “Well hello, Ricky.” Ohmygod, I thought, what the heck were his dogs’ names? And how did he remember Ricky?
He told me the football connection — Ricky was named by my son after Dolphins running back Ricky Williams — helped him, and he nicely reminded me that his two were Maggie and Dutch. Maggie and Dutch, I repeated to myself. How was I going to remember that? Maggie and Dutch, Maggie and Dutch . . . Starsky and Hutch!
Actually, I don’t know why this memory lapse bothered me — or surprised me. Earlier that same day I’d spent the morning looking for my MasterCard before realizing I’d left it at Cycle Dynamics the day before when I was buying a new odometer. And the search was made that much harder owing to the fact that I’d left my glasses at Southport Racquet Club after a spin class. And all this was less than one week after Carol and I invited our friends Leslie and Mike to join us and use our extra tickets to see American Idiot on Broadway — both of us having totally forgotten that we’d already invited our friends Rick and Susan! I really thought that was remarkable. Senior moments? This was a whole senior week!
Bu at least now I know the names of those two little beagles. Yeah. You know, Ricky’s friends. That we see at Southport Harbor — all the time. The names the nice guy told me. You know . . . Starsky and Hutch . . .
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