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A note about Roo, and dogs -  Rousimoff is my dog's full given name. I named him after Andre Rousimoff, who you will remember as the professional wrestler Andre the Giant. Andre was my favorite wrestler as a kid, and he had a guest starring role in one of my all-time favorite movies, The Princess Bride. Like Andre, my Roo is a gentle giant. He may weigh ninety pounds and stand on his hind legs at just over five feet, but he is a huge teddy bear. I'm not sure exactly what breeds constitute his mix: his coloring and tail are all German shepherd; his head is unmistakably retriever; his spotted black tongue seems to indicate Chow. He has a very gentle disposition. Everyone who meets him remarks on how chill and calm and friendly he is, and I take great pride in that. Like all puppies and the people who adopt them, we went through our share of growing pains. Furniture lost to nascent teeth. Carpeting lost to untrained bowel and bladder. Patience lost to barks that signified I didn...

 Rain is drizzling down, dripping and dropping in dribs and drabs outside my window. A flat repetitive, arrhythmic plop announces the meeting of raindrop to aluminum railing. A soft smack of a kiss marries raindrop to tile. A gentle patter nurses Raindrop down the gullet of Flower. Today, the wet of the Caribbean has taken over. The Lighthouse Look Apartments sit on Lighthouse Lane, in the city of Atlantic Shores, in the parish of Christ Church, in the country of Barbados. Having graduated from quarantine at the Moonraker, Roo and I now find ourselves here. No spare surf shacks, these. Appliances are all modern, and nicer than the items I possessed back home. The internet is top shelf, and all U.S. content is available to stream. The shower has pressure. The beds have blankets. I have air conditioning and a free laundry room on-site. There is nothing here to want. Except to leave! As mentioned previously, Roo and I arrived just as the government announced a nation-wide lockdown. "...

I step out on to the patio after my first night at the Moonraker and I let my eyes adjust to the brightest sunlight I've ever experienced. I can't say "seen," because first of all, it's so bright you need to shut your eyes. You feel the sunlight, immediately warm on your skin, and then hotter and hotter as the seconds pass. And this will sound crazy, but the sunlight reveals aromas. Everything around me is warmed in the sun's rays, so plants and animals don't hide shyly like in the woodlands of the American northeast. Plants shed their leaves and pollen and excretions and dews. Animals leave their hair and waste and drool on the soft, tufted grass and trees. The picnic tables are spotted with the drillings of insects. My feet are tickled by the occasional passing gecko. Roo lazily makes his way out onto the grass and flops down in the heat. There are other dogs onsite here - permanent residents named Bella and Rex. Their attitude toward Roo is initially st...

If you fly to the Caribbean, and you taxi to the southern coast of Barbados, to a clutch of jungle and tall grass called Green Garden Bay, which rests its ass on the beaches of the Silver Sands, nestled along the shore where kites fly in the morning and sentences run on for days, you will find the Moonraker Beach Hotel. Well, I say hotel, but is that what the Moonraker is, really? Imagine a two-story motel you can't drive up to, painted in bright Caribbean primary colors, and all the doors open to the world. This is a spot for surfers and kite-surfers and foilers to enjoy a spare living space between bouts of fighting the wind and sea. Formerly, it was a hotel, that is true. But to save on a cleaning staff and a receptionist, the owner of the property decided to make these rooms into "apartments." He did what he could with what was left after selling anything that could fetch value. A propane tank to power the stove. Mattresses with sheets for you to sleep and square tile...

I arrive on the island of Barbados on February 6th, 2021. I am wearing a long-sleeve shirt and linen pants and a hat representing a basketball team from a city that's two years behind me. It is ridiculously hot and humid, weather made all the worse by my attire, and the fact that I am standing on the tarmac of the Grantley Adams International Airport, beneath the cooling engines of an A320. I am trying to make a phone call: the customs broker who has been working with me to ensure a safe arrival on the island for me and my dog is nowhere to be found. The last of my fellow passengers has boarded a bus that ferries them away to the customs and clearance office. And so now, I'm standing on the tarmac with my dog on his leash, flashing paperwork at a helpful but bewildered and overwhelmed man named Daryl, and I have no idea where to go next. I manage to get ahold of the man who is transporting Roo (my dog) to our quarantine hotel. Because animals have to go through one kind of clea...