Since you’ll be seeing a lot of her…this is Lucy, the great love of my life.
268 Results for: lucy
Who’s A Good Boy?!
My rug died.
Or, rather: Archie killed my rug.
It's OK, I obviously expected it; potty training has not historically been my forte with either canines or humans. Very fortunately, the particular rug that Archie killed was a simple jute rug that I didn't expect to last very long, and that had pretty much been beaten to death already. But this room really needs a rug; it just looks so ungrounded without one.
Blinded
On Thursday evening - four days ago - I got in a car crash. It was bad. It was also my fault.
I was driving through the middle of nowhere, headed North along the coast, on my way to be with a friend in crisis. The sun was at that point just above the horizon when it's blazing directly into your eyes, and you have to flick the visor from side to side to side with one hand while you steer with the other just to see the pavement ahead of you.
I didn't expect a stop sign anywhere along that particular stretch of road, empty as it seemed. I wasn't looking out for one, but even if I had been I was blinded, and I wouldn't have spotted it. So when one suddenly appeared, I drove straight through it at 40 miles per hour. A man turning from the opposite lane hit me directly on the driver's side door (it's called a "T-bone"; I know terms like this now) and my car and I went flying off the road into a field, where we crashed through wheat and dirt and narrowly missed telephone poles, and finally came to a stop.
Talk To Me About Rescue Dogs?
My tiny Ewok
It's been two months since we lost our girl, and it's getting close to the time when I feel ready to bring another dog into our family. I needed a minute to recuperate after Lucy died - emotionally, of course, but I also needed a second to breathe, because the last few months of her life were...a lot. Besides the logistical work - vet appointments, messes to be cleaned - I worried about her all the time. I'd wake up in the middle of the night to check her breathing, or terrify myself imagining the worst when she didn't run up to greet me at the door when I came home (which, towards the end, she never did).
I was exhausted from the sheer volume of care she required - that on top of the care required by the other living things in my household - and honestly? I wanted to rest. But now my kids are starting to mention wanting another dog, and not just that: They've taken on a bunch of pet-related responsibilities (scooping the litterbox is one of them, thank Jesus) to try to convince me that they'll help out with the walking and training and such, and I want to reward their efforts.
A Holiday Bottle Spell For Your BFFs
Tarot contributor Jessica creates a spell for you and your best friends to celebrate each other and remind you that grand, lifelong love comes in all forms.
Three ladies, glasses raised, dancing together…You don’t need me to tell you that there’s a party going on here. The Three of Cups is a picture of celebration, of communion. This is a card about sharing joy with friends.
Let’s go a little bit deeper. Cups are the suit of emotion, and in Tarot, groups of three represent a firm foundation. So the friends we see in this card aren’t just casual acquaintances; they’re your squad. They’re the friends who empower you to be your best self. And they’re the friends who are with you even when you’re maybe being…not totally your best self.
The holiday season is full of celebrations - one might even say "overfull." There are work parties. There are family get-togethers. If you’re a parent, you may be looking at a calendar stuffed with classroom parties and choir concerts and dance recitals. These communal gatherings can be delightful, but they can also be draining. There’s a big difference between compulsory socializing and reconnecting with soul friends. The Three of Cups wants you to make time to spend with people who fill your cup rather than drain it.
My Sweet Girl, Goodbye.
This is the first picture of Lucy I ever posted here.
Lucy’s first name was Rosie; I don’t know if I ever told you that. She came to me as a surprise: A girl who my back-then boyfriend and I were friends with had bought a teacup shih tzu with one blue eye and one brown eye for some unconscionable amount of money at a Malibu pet shop. And then that girl decided to go to London and maybe not ever come back, and so she gave the dog - Rosie - to us. I didn’t know this; what happened was that my boyfriend decided to surprise me, so one day in the fall of 2005 I was sitting at my kitchen table doing whatever, and the door opened, and I saw my boyfriend's nine-year-old daughter standing there. She kneeled down on the floor and parted her curled hands, and this fist-sized ball of white fluff came speeding towards me. And that was it, I was in love. I liked the name Rosie but I wanted her to be my own, and so I named her Lucy. I don't remember why I picked that name, but from then on that's who she was.
My dad happened to be staying at my house that day, and when I ran to tell him about Lucy he'd barely even look at her, so annoyed was he that I’d gotten a dog (too much responsibility, why would you do that, et cetera). But later that afternoon I had to go out for some appointment or another, and so against his protests I left her with him - literally just dumped her on his lap, said “I’ll be back in a bit,” and left. When I returned a few hours later, I walked in to find my father and my new puppy snuggled up on the couch, gazing into each others' eyes.
The Choices We Make
I'm moving. Again.
Not quite so far this time - and with considerably less drama, thank god.
But no matter how you slice it, moving an entire household filled with assorted children, pets, and board games requiring the wrangling of 10,000 extremely small pieces (I hate you, Risk) all by yourself...it's exhausting. I am exhausted. And excited, because this move is a good one for virtually everyone involved (except maybe Lucy, who DNGAF where she is, because she is very busy napping).
Apparently We Make Our Own Dog Food Now
These days, Lucy is simultaneously adorable and heartbreaking: She's slowed down a lot in the last few months, and sort of hops rather than walks. Plus she no longer tolerates grooming - I can give her baths and brush her a little, but that's about it - so her lifelong transformation into an actual muppet is nearing completion. (If you're worried about her being able to see past that aggressive bang situation she has going on, please recall that she is in possession of a grand total of one eye, and that said remaining eye is, alas, completely blind.)
Related Read: The Many Lives Of Lucy
She seems happy enough, though. She hops from napping spot to sleeping spot to napping spot, and spends most days snuggled up against my left thigh, basking in the warmth emanating from my laptop and snoring audibly. But I think it's safe to say she's officially an old lady now. Which...I mean...I'm okay, I get it, but still. I want so badly for this stage of her life to be one where she gets to relax in her rocker with a nice warm blanket over her legs and watch the seagulls.
Still There
I've had many summers that felt like little jewelboxes of time, sweet and slow - the one we spent living in temporary housing while we waited for our daughter to be born comes to mind - but there was one that was wonderful in a completely different way than all the others.
It was the summer after Kendrick and I moved from our tiny Hell's Kitchen place to our slightly-less-tiny Upper East Side apartment. The summer that I quit my office job, and started writing for a living (well, that was the plan, in any case). The summer that we were working out how to be married and wondering how in the world we were going to pay our rent and trying to figure out what we wanted to be when we grew up...but it was so exciting. The sheer possibility of it all. We were children standing on the edge of adulthood, thinking about jumping.
We had a little crew that summer. Stephen and Dave, of course - we had rooftop cocktails with them most nights, Lucy whizzing in circles around us while we watched the setting sun light up all that silver paint. Francesca was living in the city then, just a few blocks away, and a few of Kendrick's other friends from college lived at various points along the 6 line. We'd all go out to terrible bars and drink terrible drinks and stay up far too late, because we were still so young, and it still felt like bad choices were a life imperative.
In Which I Subdue An Aggressive Dog…With My Rebecca Minkoff Purse
Me, as drawn by Jacqueline Bisset for Carrying On
Well THAT was a morning.
So you know how I've been having all these Big Life Realizations lately? One of them is that I need to refocus this site to be less about *me* - essentially because I've started to realize that I want to be peaceful, and happy. Which means having less drama in my life. But which also, alas, leaves me with fewer stories to tell.