Musical Chairs

Hey, you in MY BED Crawford!

BIG DEAL! We can share this bed! Then we can cuddle like this!
I dunno, is not big nuff...you taking up too much space cat!
Fine, I sit in your bed then! How you like it?
Hrumph, you big baby.

Mommy's Chair is big enough for everybody!

Dog by the River

I Love Lucy, and her Jaws of Steel

It began with my action figures, Chewbacca, Princess Leia, Baby Spice and then Scary. Incriminating legs, heads and glittery body bits sprawled across my living room floor.

OK I figured, I am an adult, what do I need plastic action figures for? I pried the left over hunks of plastic from her jaws and got a good laugh a few days later when I found Leia's disembodied head rolling under the couch.

I did not think my favorite orange Woolen Mills hat was as funny. Or my brand new pair of Keds, or the striped socks my mother brought me from Sweden. But when I came home to discover a chewed up ink pen, an ink-splotched beloved chair and a floor full of smudgy black paw prints, well, that was the last straw.

Not only does Lucy have dozens of fresh yummy bones to chew on, she has dozens of yummy chew toys. I try to rotate them so each one is new and exciting. She gets a long walk every day, dog park action, and loads of backyard time.

Not that any of this ever tires her out, she is like the Duracell Bunny and the Tasmanian Devil rolled into one. This girl's battery just never slows down.

Is she bored, resentful, petulant or do her jaws have a life of their own? Since I can't afford a dog psychic, I will just have to continue teeth-proofing my house and arriving home with baited breath:

"Lucy, you got some 'xplaining to do."

Lucy and Crawford

Lucy LOVES the snow. She is ambivalent about her fancy HOT PINK handmade sweater from Soho. It gives me such pleasure to watch her bouncing through the snowdrifts.

GO LUCY GO!


Crawford may not enjoy the snow so much (I know, I tried it) but he sure does love his birdie. At the end of the video Lucy's yawn translates to, "My turn!"

Simpsons R Us

Hmmm...something looks mighty familiar here...
Burns: [admiring Santa's Little Helper]
Why, here's a fellow.
Wiry. Fast. Firm, proud buttocks.
Reminds me of me.
Homer: Oh. Well, I won't be lonely.
I can always cuddle with the dog.
[cuddles Santa's Little Helper] Mmm.
At least everyone knows I'm smarter than you!

If Lucy is Santa's Little Helper, then that makes Crawford Snowball I.

Homer: Oh, Marge, but...we've needed a new air conditioner for years! And our stop-gap solution is getting cranky!

[Snowball, in the corner, is fanning a giant ice cube with a fan tied to her tail. She meows angrily.]

Let's investigate:

In various episodes, Santa's Little Helper can be seen chewing on the newspaper and other objects in the Simpson's household (sometimes ignored or tolerated by the family), tearing up the furniture, digging holes in the backyard and eating food from the living room table.

That sounds about right....

Snowball, a white female cat who died and only briefly appeared in a flashback in the series, but has been mentioned numerous times.
Like most cats, Snowball enjoyed playing with yarn, petting, and coughing up large chunks of her own fur.

Could be...
Marge: This is the best gift of all, Homer.
Homer: It is?
Marge: Yes, something to share our love - and frighten prowlers.
Bart: And if he runs away, he'll be easy to catch.Yep, it's a match and I getta be Homer and Marge rolled into one. Thanks for the pic and the wedding gown Molly!

Will this blog get renamed The Lucy and Crawford Show?
Chances are good...

Sock Madness

All for me! All for me!
OH BOY!


Eye do not zink zo yew slobbering canine!


Zese socks belong to moi, zee superior feline,
Monsieur Pawford Himself, zee Mayor of Clawfordville!


Und don't even TRY to steal my
cashmere und merino wool yew beast!


Hrumph.
Still gots my Darn Tuffs!

Where's Lucy?

How do you find your dog when she blends so perfectly into the landscape?
We can't wait for snow.
The day after we took these adorable pictures and traversed many foreign woods, Lucy had runny diarrhea all over the kitchen floor - twice.

Ah, dog love. You can pick up their steaming hot liquid poo and still love them to death.

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend:
and inside a dog, it's too dark to read."

- Groucho Marx

Dog-roach

People often ask me what Lucy is. Besides being a real champion Cuddle Bug and a blue ribbon Wiggle Butt, there are many breed possibilities: a whippet, beagle, hound, shepherd, rottweiler mix of some kind is possible.

I've considered making up a breed for her like a Whipnugget. Sound plausible? The Whipnugget is a very hard to breed dog with magic teeth that is shipped in from Tasmania to the fortunate few.

So far, her most full blown breed characteristics seem to be of the whippet variety such as:

Interestingly, some whippets are subject to "excessive greeting disorder". This unique greeting ritual is characterized by wild displays of exuberance - bounding, jumping, howling, barking, etc. - when their owners return from long absences of 10 minutes or more. This can be a problem with very young children in the house as they may easily be knocked over.

My "poor man's racehorse" loves to run like a bullet and sleeps the rest of the day so she seems quite whippet-ish. Not to mention her cockroach sleeping position which Wikipedia claims is common to sighthounds.

Aww, I never thought I could love a cockroach so much!

My Little Dog

My little dog - a heartbeat at my feet.
~Edith Wharton
To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden,
where doing nothing was not boring
- it was peace.
~Milan Kundera
I like a bit of mongrel myself, whether it's a man or a dog;
they're the best for everyday.
~George Bernard Shaw
I think dogs are the most amazing creatures;
they give unconditional love.
For me they are the role model for being alive.
~Gilda Radner