Sometime in the spring or summer of 2007 is when I first noticed her.  I was 27 at the time and it was the first time I had seen someone my age walking around my neighborhood.  It’s a cookie-cutter suburban housing development, like so many thousands that sprang up across America in the Fifties and Sixties: carved into what used to be a forest, houses of 4 or 5 different designs scattered amongst twisty streets that are laid out in no discernible pattern, no sidewalks.

She appeared to be of similar age to me and she had a waiflike and aloof appearance: like Liz Lemon when she’s not at work.  She wore well-worn hoodies and corduroy pants of varying shades of drab.  Her hair was long and brown, her glasses - thick and heavy - also brown, and she stumbled along the street and past my house - being tugged along by an adorable Chocolate Lab puppy: lanky, full of energy, and… brown.

Every morning around 7:45AM, as I would be getting into my car to leave for work, that dog would be yanking her along the street past my driveway.  There’s no doubt in my mind that if she were to strap on rollerblades or a hop on a skateboard, that puppy would have been fully content running around the neighborhood for hours, towing it’s equally-adorable owner along behind.  Even as summer turned to fall, and fall to winter, they would still be there every morning.  If nothing else - they were punctual, and she was clearly dedicated to making sure that puppy had a chance to expel a bunch of energy before the bulk of the day even began.

We never really communicated beyond a passing “Hello,” or “Good Morning!” but there was always a moment of awkwardness as we caught each-others eyes.  You know: that awkward feeling you get when you see someone consistently but you don’t really know them enough to converse.  Somedays I’d already be in the car and ready to back into the road as they moved past; there I’d wait patiently for them to clear as I’d catch a glimpse of them in my rear-view mirror.  Somedays I’d be picking up the newspaper.  Somedays I’d be hustling to brush inches of lake effect from my Subaru.  Yet, the one constant was that they’d be there, every morning.

I can’t remember specifically when I stopped seeing them, but it must have been sometime in March or April of 2008.  The mornings felt relatively empty without them.  We were total strangers, but after several months of seeing them I couldn’t help but feel like I knew her and the dog on more than just a passing-hello basis.  As time passed by, through the spring and summer, I would catch myself glancing up and down the street on occasion, checking to see if they were anywhere to be seen.  No luck.  They had seemingly vanished.  Perhaps they moved away, or maybe something terrible had happened to her or the dog?  Maybe the reason she wasn’t walking by anymore was because the dog was gone?  Whatever the reason, I was certainly curious and admittedly a bit sad - the kind of sadness you might feel when watching a Purina commercial about the ethical treatment of animals.

This past Wednesday morning, I saw them again.  There they were, walking past my driveway again, at roughly the same time - but a few things were different.  She still looked the same: brown glasses, brown hair, drab clothes.  The puppy had grown into its ears and it’s legs no longer flailed around wildly as it strolled down the street.  But the biggest difference provided a logical explanation for their 7 month sabbatical; there was a new addition to their team: a baby stroller - brown, of course.