world peace versus doggie raincoat

This is Chicklet. Our cute terrier who does not like to go out in the rain. Yes, that is a bracelet made into a dog collar, we jewelry designers do these sort of things!



With torrential downpours forecast for tonight and tomorrow, I realized that our little pup had to have a raincoat, or there will be trouble when she's got to go. So, it was off to the Ritzy Canine, a super-cool dog emporium located in a beautiful town house in midtown manhattan.

Normally a quick trip, but I forgot that the U.N. is in session this week, and the diplomats are everywhere. You've never seen so many bulletproof cadillacs, and you can't imagine the traffic. But chicklet needed her raincoat, so we kept going. The people of New York have a love-hate relationship with the UN, but this week you get to see the diplomats in their finest native attire, and the place is all dressed up with flags and fountains, and it looks impressive.
42nd Street is mostly closed, so the motorcades can come and go, the rest of the streets are choked.

The Ritzy Canine was open, thankfully, even though it is on a street that the cops and secret service closed off to use as their staging area. Note to potential troublemakers- these guys had a lot of guns!!!
I made it through, and got a nice yellow slicker for chickie. A customer in the store loved my chunky monkey bracelet, I pointed her in the direction of Henri Bendel.
I walked back towards first avenue to get a taxi to take me home, and I passed this promenade across the street from the UN, filled with tourists taking pictures.

I joined them, and learned they all were waiting for the arrival of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. They tell me that he was in this limo, and that he was smiling and waving as the car went by (squinting through the viewfinder, all I saw was some guy behind the bulletproof glass). I hope they had a good meeting, and that they solved at least a few of the world's problems today.


So, our little chicklet got her new coat, made in Honduras, sold by a nice european woman and transported back home in a taxi driven by a man from Egypt. Funny, if it wasn't for the traffic I wouldn't have noticed anything different was going on today.

Buddhist monks, eskimos, men in kilts, we see these guys every day, even when the UN is not in session! This is New York, where people from all over the world live together all year long. I hope the diplomats take a look around, and see that, right here on the street, we are the united nations. Ciao.