Relationships: Lucy the Dog Part IV

She's free.

Yesterday would have been to soon to let her go and tomorrow too late. She was done, her beautiful body broken beyond repair, its parts all worn out. I was not ready to let her go. In between wracking sobs, I kept telling her things I wanted her to have in her mind on her last day. Things I remembered about us -- when we lived together in our cabin in the woods and how we went to the beach every day. She was always the fastest dog on the beach.

Lucy was so well loved. Many vistors come to say goodbye. My beautiful neighbor Kaumudi did an impromptu puja ceremony to pass her to the next place, and to welcome fortune and goodness in her wake. The candles are still burning tonight for our sweet girl.

The mobile vet arrived in green scrubs. He was sweet and took his time and gave us room to nuzzle her fur and tell her our final words. I told Lucy that where she's going is one huge beach, with lots of stairways up to people's yards, and nobody cares if dogs come over. At this place, the squirrels are very slow and sometimes fall out of trees. There is as much ice cream as you want and you never have to fetch anything or take a bath. It's also home to her dog friends Fred and Chloe and Bilbo and Paolo, and my Dad, who could probably use a dog up there.

One injection relaxed her, the pain drifting out of her body. Another slowed her breathing. And she just stopped.

I would bet good money that she's the fastest dog on the beach again.

Relationships: Lucy the Dog Part III

Somewhere along the way, Cinco and Lucy became best friends.

My girl is shutting down. She ate a little ice cream today, and drank hardly any water. We went outside about 10 times, walking slowly, doing nothing. Two girls, just walking together. Going anywhere. Nowhere.

People are coming to say goodbye to her. She made a lot of friends, this dog. People tell me their stories and they tell me I'm doing the right thing and to be strong. I will be that person on the other side someday, offering my condolences to a raw, aching person like myself right now.

The vet will come tomorrow afternoon. I have learned the code for this type of visit is a "house call." He will administer a shot that will put her in the "twilight." Then a megadose of anesthesia. And she will drift out.

Cinco, her little Chihuahua brother, has become protector. He licks her constantly to make her better. He stands guard and won't let people get too close. In solidarity, he won't eat any food either. He won't leave her side. I take comfort in this. We are a pack.

I spend time curled up in a nest of pillows with her, breathing in the last of her doggie smell. Probably smells like gross old sick dog to everyone else. I reminded her today about the time she ate a whole Easter basket and pooped out pastel foil wrappers for two days after. About the time we flew on a seaplane to the Gulf Islands and I had told the pilot beforehand that she was a lap dog -- I didn't mention she'd take three people's laps though. About the times she'd been attacked by other dogs, and I jumped in to tear those bastards off her. That I would give any piece of blood or bone or flesh from myself to make her better.

When I look at her I think, "She's a perfectly good dog. She's just got all these things wrong with her. But other than that, she's a perfectly good dog."

If you think you have the best dog in the world, I am sorry. You are just wrong. You might have the best dog for your city or state or village or whatever, but Lucy is the best dog in the world. I know this truly. The best. The best. The best dog in the whole world, today, tonight and forever.

Relationships: Lucy the Dog Part II

I have three years' worth of favorite memories with my husband, and seven months' with my kid. For Lucy, I have 14 years of experience. It's not full of adventure and mishap. It's two friends who lived together and loved each other and went a lot of places. To me, my time with Lu is a novel, a movie, a Bible. She has taught me so many lessons. The most important: Assume everyone you meet will be your best friend, and chances are, they will.

Other times that shine in my Lucy mind:

• When I first got Lucy I was dating a guy who lived on a sailboat. I went down to visit him and Lucy was following me along the maze of marina docks to get to Jeff's boat. When I got there, I realized Lucy was no longer behind me. I backtracked. No Lucy. Then someone said, "is this your dog?" pointing to the water. Why yes, indeed it was. Lucy had somehow toppled over the side and was just dog paddling until I came to fish her out. She hated swimming after that.

• When she was a puppy I used to take her to work in my tiny office in Port Townsend. She would hang out while I wrote stories or matched couples for my dating service, and then we'd go play on the beach for a while. Once she was very, very uncharacteristically quiet and I turned around to see her chewing on my brand new Lord & Taylor chunky-heeled mary jane shoe. I was aghast. "Oh, Lucy," was all I could say, in a throaty, disappointed voice. She looked up, stopped in mid-chew, and never touched a shoe again.

• She used to bark at and try to herd farm animals -- horses, cows, chickens. We once went to visit my friend The Pig Lady and her husband Dan, who raised potbelly pigs. Lucy was chasing around the pigs and freaking them out. Dan gave her a swat, which freaked me out. We loaded up into the truck and drove out for an impromptu camping trip in the woods near a stream. I cried half the way there. Lucy and I did a lot of hiking. She ate a lot of deer poop that trip.

• I once tied Lucy up outside a fancy tearoom in Victoria, went for a quick tour, and came out to find a bunch of Asian tourists crowding around her and taking her picture. I guess they'd never seen a Lucy before.

• When I started my Very Corporate Job at a Very Conservative Company we had a two-day offsite meeting at a fancy hotel. I didn't have anyone who could watch Lucy, so I brought her with me. She became part of the last-day's team-building exercise. This helped to establish that I was the slightly wacky creative person in the office, so that perhaps all rules would not apply.

• Once Lucy and I drove from Los Angeles to Washington's Olympic Peninsula for Thanksgiving. My genius plan was to make the return trip without stopping at a hotel for the night, just napping along the way. Which would have worked except for two things: It is cold as hell is hot in the Siskious in November, and when you turn off the engine, there is no heat. And also, that I am a human being that can't type an email, let alone drive a car, if I haven't had enough sleep. By 2 a.m. it became clear that my plan was a failure, but there were no hotels in sight. So I'd crank the heat until we were baking, pull over, cuddle together in the back of the Prius under my down blanket, and then get up and start all over when frostbite began to set in. During one of those times, we woke up to snapping cold to see that we'd parked under a shimmering Mt. Shasta, glimmering like a giant diamond in the pre-dawn cobalt sky. It was, to this day, the most amazing sight I have ever beheld. I'm so glad Lucy was there to share it.

Lucy is not doing well. She paces around until I let her out, then she strains to pee and poo, then meanders through the bushes in our courtyard until I come to get her. She lies on her bed and sleeps. I lie down next to her and we spoon and she shivers and I cry into her fur and feel her silky ears and try to imagine the moment when she is no longer warm and with us.

I do not know how to say goodbye.

Relationships: Lucy the Dog Part I

The first time I saw Lucy was in the spring of 1998. She was on a sliver of shoulder on a twisty road. One wrong step would have sent her down a sheer cliff to the frigid waters of Discovery Bay on Washington's Olympic Peninsula.

I slowed down to get a better look at this sleek, quick mutt, a cross between a beagle and a hound. Pretty. Redheaded. But there was no place to pull over for about a mile and when I finally did, I couldn't find any trace of her.

I'd had it in my mind I needed a dog, being an Annie Oakley type all alone in my cabin off the grid in the woods. I wanted a dog who would bark at strangers, retrieve endless tennis balls thrown on the beach, and warm the bed when the small cast-iron stove burned up all its wood.

A month later I went to the pound and lo, there was that same dog from the road. She'd been picked up a couple miles from where I'd seen her. They gave her a name -- Popcorn. For a really good reason. She was super spazzy and just wouldn't be still, jumping around the pen, trying to lift off and take flight when she was on a leash.

Nobody wanted her, she was cute but just too hyper. The pound folks kept her alive much longer than they were supposed to, hoping that someone in need of an uncouth, unschooled 9-month-old puppy with the deepest brown eyes you'd ever seen would need her. They'd waited for me.

I brought her home to my little cabin in the woods, and introduced her to the other residents, cats called Puck and Ajax. The first night we settled down by the fire with Cabernet and rawhide, and she happily drifted to sleep. In the morning I came down from my loft bed and woke her up. She jumped with a slight start, furiously wagged her tail, broke out into a huge doggie smile, and peed a little with excitement. It was, truly, the first day of the rest of our lives together.

I rastled with her wilddog stubborn mind, and we finally came to a compromise on obedience training. That anything she did at my command had to appear as if it were her own idea. She'd hear "come" or "sit" or whatever, look up into the air as if she were contemplating her next move, and then act in her own time. Eventually.

She never fetched one thing her whole life and greeted all strangers (even a burglar) as if she were running for mayor and could she please have their vote. She has always been the best spooner I know, however.

These past couple weeks Lucy's had it rough. She has a tumor growing in her abdomen. It makes it hard for her to pee at her own will, which is humiliating to this dog who had been known to hold it for up to 10 hours on a sailing trip through the San Juan Islands. She has gloppy masses on her body that break open and ooze. Tonight she was on the leash and fell over on her side as her hind legs seized up.

I called the vet and asked what we should be doing, and she suggested a prescription for an anti-inflammatory that might help her swelling and curb the pain.

"One month's worth?" she asked.

"Make it two."

Please Be OK

For the past three days, the small, sweet dog who is the fourth member of our household has been curled up in a ball, in his crate. He's been given the comfiest pillow, and the choicest of bland foods (scrambled eggs, cottage cheese, chicken broth, plain white rice). He won't eat. He won't drink.

He's also been signaling with bile and blood that there is something terribly, terribly wrong with him. We had a Saturday late-night visit to the emergency vet (the second in three months -- the first was for Dog #1) and had hoped that something would pass, that it was a rawhide that went in the wrong way, or an "indiscretion," as they call it, with some kind of food. But maybe it's worse. Maybe it was a nail or something poisonous. We were kind of amused with the things that would turn up in his crate -- candles, bras, plants, matches, batteries, screws, pages of books. Now that seems totally horrifying.

Even curling up in bed with us -- his holy grail -- is of no comfort. He just wants the crate.

So Steve has taken him to the second vet for the serious look. The X-ray. The deeper dive. They are there now.

I remember reading an old Dear Abby about a woman who spent her marriage complaining about her husband's terrible snoring. When he died, she would have given anything to have him snoring next to her again.

Today, I wish that Cinco would jump up and down and squeal with delight when we come in the door. That he would be stealing and ripping apart my underwear. That he'd take a mischievous pee in front of the door right after we'd brought him back from a walk. That he would wriggle around in the down comforter with us on the couch, watching a movie, until he settles down and breathe slow sighs of peaceful sleep on my chest, his cold little nose buried in my armpit.

I want my little hell-raiser back.

Well, he's not retarded

From the second I saw him on May 1 of this year, I loved him, this little dog our neighbor found on the 5 freeway. Which is why we ended up calling him Cinco. I successfully found a new home for this flea-bitten, stranger-humping, indoor peeing little tornado of a beast. But we decided to keep him. Even though he was a little dog, and neither of us had any experience with little dogs. Big dogs, no prob. But little dogs? Different planet.

We dealt with the fleas and the humping. Still working on the indoor peeing. Which, if you have enough rags handy, isn't all that bad as he figures out that going inside is not just one of many options one has for relieving oneself. But the worst was the bolting. If he got lucky enough to slip outside, there he'd go. Taunting us. Teasing us. We'd go after him or ignore him. It's always an effort to lure him back in, sometimes with the help of a willing passerby. The last straw for me was an early-morning walk, and he slipped out of an unsecured harness, and gleefully ran right into an intersection. Where a lady driving large old sedan didn't see him. She rolled slowly and stared at me as I screamed, "Wait! Wait! Wait! Stop!" Which she finally did, with some look on her face like she wasn't sure if I was going to carjack her or what.

And Cinco ran some more. "Ha ha," he said. "You always give me cheese when I run loose. I feel like some cheese for breakfast. I will run some more. Sucka!"

That very day, haggard and deranged, I got myself on the Internet and found after a quick search, found the fabulous Ronen Tivoni, who happens to live a short six blocks down the street. He's Israeli. He's got wads and wads of training certificates. And he trains really important dogs. Dogs we cannot speak about.

Last Friday, Ronen arrived for a two-hour session and we worked with a nervous but excited Cinco to sit and stay. And we learned to ignore cries and pestering. And each week, we did a little bit of homework. When Ronen came this week and Cinco kept acing everything, much earlier than it takes most dogs. He  peed under my desk and sat and sat still and came when called and ate some more cheese.

Ronen told us, "Intelligence is not his issue. He has emotional problems."

Well, you would too if someone dumped you on the 5.

Wisdom of Dogs

There are so many, many things to write about. Impending nuptials. Another stellar year of camping on the Kern. Our scouting trip to Oregon, which was fun AND productive. What it's like to be a creative person in a corporate suck-up job. But no, today I will write about dogs and the metaphor.

Cinco is our new addition. A charming Chihuahua who is equal parts love and trouble. The tally so far of things he's destroyed: Two harnesses, two pillows, a leash, a nice leather flip flop, a dog bed, a BlackBerry charger and a rather pricey dog carrier that's supposed to be dog-proof (but it did get him there and back on the plane to Portland).

He was dreamy good on the plane ride, and in Oregon, tumbled about the farm with Holly's mutts, Trouble, a sweet ol' pit bull, and Gemini, who is a yellow lab kind of dog.

At home, he needs constant surveillance. He and Lucy have this odd ritual of switching food bowls in the middle of feeding, which usually means somebody doesn't get a full lunch or breakfast, as Cinco has a tiny bowl and Lucy's is regular.

So tonight, when we returned from a walk, I pulled out a baggie of food to put a little in their bowls. It scattered about the entire kitchen floor, due to a hole that had been chewed in the corner. And the dogs set about cleaning it up, each one moving around like a furry hoover. Dog bowl problem solved. Bring on the next one.

Dog Training - Self Study

Makes it much easier.

Cinco de Mayo

My neighbor found this puppy on the highway. Not around it, or on an exit ramp or something, but ON THE INTERSTATE 5 freeway. She is a dog angel, and because he is the last on a long list of rescues, she can't keep him. Right before she was going to let him go to the pound, we stepped in.

There's just something about those big brown eyes and huge floppy ears. He wore a red collar with a bell but no tag. Well fed, happy and loving ... he must be somebody's dog, we thought.

So we hit up Fido Finder and Craigslist. No response. The vet's office says he isn't microchipped. And why would he have a collar on with a bell but no tag? I'm becoming more convinced he was dumped on the side of the road.

All yesterday afternoon, we kept assuring each other that we wouldn't keep him. Even though his puppy antics kept us laughing for hours. He delights the neighborhood children and stared down a big pit bull in Petco. He needs house training. He has fleas. He has no name, except the temporary one we've given him to tide us all over until he finds his family -- Cinco.

We're working pretty hard to find him a new home, and getting him all spruced up. Today was a new collar and leash and a dose of Front Line. Tomorrow it's the vet for neutering and shots.

We want him to have the best possible start on his new little life. Somewhere else he can curl up like a baby on a lap and give tiny kisses. Somewhere else he can be happy and tangle himself up in a blanket. Somewhere he can sleep soundly with the oddest little puppy smile on his face. Because it would be crazy to take on a dog with a wedding and impeding adoption of a child and a move.

Right?

Day of Reckoning

There are several times a year when we take inventory. New Year's, for sure, to think about what didn't work the past year and what we'd like to manifest for the days to come. Birthdays, to reflect on where we've been and what we've learned. And of course, tax time. Where the hell did it all go?

Over the past few days I've been gathering numbers for my accountant, who has quite cleverly moved to some cheap plot of land in Texas or Utah or Colorado, I don't know, some state where they have cowboys. Yes, I had to plow through a lot of numbers. But I've come up with several realizations, that don't necessarily fall into a mathematical mindset.

1. I work harder than almost anyone I know. Karen and Rachel, my lifelong friends who are, respectively, an English professor and ER doc, probably best me on this. Elperks, a second AD in many movies and television shows you've seen and loved, pulls those looooooong days and nights. Amanda goes around the world to grab images that will change lives. OK. Maybe I don't work harder. But I do work a lot. Most of my waking hours.

2. I give a lot of presents and contribute to many charities. I hadn't realized that. $20 here and $100 there -- I'd imagine that it adds up after a while, and hopefully does some good.

3. I could probably do a couple of my own mani-pedis during the year.

4. I'm rethinking the cleverness of real estate. There are a lot of added costs that I won't see an ROI for, say, 15 years. What if I don't live that long? I think I was frigging CRAZY to do a kitchen remodel, frankly. But whatever. It's nice and there's no turning back now.

5. It would be nice to spend a calendar year lost on an island, trading coconuts and massages and English lessons for food and sunblock. No cash. Just services and goods. In fact, I think I'm going to pitch that.

6. My dog LuLuBelle? She's practically free except for the organic kibble she gets twice a day, and the occaisonal benign tumor removal. She's been the most stable element in my life for 12 years, and will be for 100 more. She is what I count on the most. There is no box for her on any IRS form.

A Dog's Life

This weekend I needed to get out of the house. It's about two weeks into chaos due to my kitchen remodeling, and at this late date, I am still insecure about my choice of countertop. I am closest to deciding on the granite that looks like early-morning television snow (if you are under 35, go ask your parents what this is), but I am still, ugh. I don't know. I had an anxiety dream about it last night.

So I packed up into the car for a vacation designed around LuLuBelle, the beagly mutt. Dog-friendly hotel. Hound-lovin' beaches. Porches for pooches. We drove up the coast to San Luis Obispo.

After looking after Lucy for 12 years or so, she still makes me laugh every day. And there are some things I learned from her in the past 72 hours.

Such as:

1. Act like you are running for mayor, all the time. Expect that everyone will love you. 99 percent of the time, people will. The remaining 1 percent, they will be a little bit afraid. That's not such a bad thing.
2. A nap is always better after a long hard run on the beach.
3. Insist on the long hard run on the beach.
4. Who's the loser? The dog who chases the ball, or the person that keeps throwing it, saying, "get it, get it, get it! Who's getting the ball? It's my ball. My ball." I'd say the latter. Especially when you decline to chase the ball.
5. There is nothing more perfect than a restaurant in Morro Bay that lets the dog hang out on the deck, listening to a folky singer warble kd lang tunes, while the people eat barbecued oysters and drink brown beer, watching the sun go down. Nothing in the world.

Good news and bad news

The same picture every tourist takes crossing Abbey Road. I don't care.

The good news! I got my camera back! It's a testament to the lovely people at British Airways and the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX. I don't care what you say about them, they're OK by me.

The bad news: I cracked my Go-Go's Greatest Hits CD.

I'm not ready to come home

... except I miss Lucy, my dog. Especially today, when we rode bikes around the countryside and rambled around John Constable country. We watched lambs gambol in the field behind Loz's house, and made fun of the ducks. It is truly Hobbitville here in Suffolk, in the southeast of England. Lu would have loved it. Don't tell her.

One of the great things about being 40licious, however, is that you have friends from, oh, 30 years ago who will take care of your dog. Joanna and Stephanie have tag-teamed looking after Lucy during this trip, and Steph featured her in the I Speak Film blog. Check it out!

Sure, She's a Shicksa ...

Shu Shu the camel makes my Prius Look Like a Hummer

But it seems there just isn't enough hummous in Israel for me.

Last night we beat it out of gritty, hot, complicated Tel Aviv and arrived at the Dead Sea. We stayed with a friend in a nearby kibbutz. Then this morning we awoke, early, 4-wheeled it to the "shore" (think rocky desert lunar scape) and soaked in hot springs, slapped mud all over ourselves, and floated in the water. As I lay on the beach, my torso in the stream of supersalty hot water rushing from the pool, with my legs out toward the cooler sea water, it felt that there has to be some kind of sin cleansing through all this. How could there not be? I mean, like, if I had any sins to eradicate in the first place.

This is truly an amazing trip on so many levels. Seriously, if anyone wants to come to Israel, I know a couple great tour guides.

I Don't Know Why You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

One of the things that happens by the time you get to be 40licious is that you get really good at stuff. Work, your racquetball technique, knowing when to walk away from a roulette table when you've still got a pile of chips.

But you also get to be good at things that aren't so nice. Like withstanding the blow that someone you love has died.

I have lost entirely too many people in my life (well, maybe "lost" isn't the right word. I just don't know where they are, though I suspect they are somewhere close).

I know the drill. The call. The "I have some sad news" on the other end of the phone. The "Oh no!" that wells up from deep within my belly. The helplessness of it all. Retracing our last steps together and regretting that I never sent that recipe/picture/book I promised. Regretting that I didn't have a few more moments to express my deep love and gratitude. Regretting that I didn't get a chance to say a proper goodbye, and that words spoken through tears out into the ether will have to do.

I wish that was something I didn't know how to do.

My friends and collaborators, Don and Adam, have just put down their 16-year-old cat and learned, in the same week, that their lovely little terrier has a plum-sized tumor on her heart. They are are watching her go, slowly.

I've never let Lucy, my 12-year-old beagly mutt (who is in excellent health and very puppylike, still) sleep on the bed. When my ex-boyfriend moved out, she had a temporary pass to come up there so that I could have a warm and friendly body next to me.

Recently, I've been trying to get her to go back to her own perfectly good bed on the floor next to mine. And then I think about Don and Adam's lovely little Louise, and that time for all of us is limited and with an undefined shelf life.

And I invite Lucy up to sleep with me. For just one more night.