Tag: Dog

I burst into tears. Love is hell.

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Tonight I see what looks to be a tick on the dog’s eyelid. I get a pair of tweezers from the bathroom and kneel to remove it. He looks at me askance but lies there in beatific patience. I smooth the fine yellow fur on his head, apply the tweezers to the tick, and clamp down. But it is not a tick—just a little black growth above his eye. A stream of blood trickles down his snout, and he doesn’t flinch. I gasp. He leans forward and licks my hand, to forgive me for hurting him, with blood in his fur. I burst into tears. Love is hell.

— Daniel Poppick, “The Copywriter: A Novel” (Scribner, February 3, 2026)

Notes:

  • Book: I Loved it. Not recommended / Cautiously recommended.
  • NY Times Book Review of “The Copywriter” here. Notable quote from review: “It’s simultaneously a quotidian task — it’s just another copywriting assignment — and also a monumental moral decision. In action, it may seem like a small choice, but in a vast and ugly universe, sometimes small choices are all we have.”

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

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1. Nobody’s thinking about you…

2. Make young friends….

4. Get a Dog…

6. Everyone’s in pain…

9. On regrets…

— Roger Rosenblatt, excerpts from his Top 10 in “How to Be a Happy 85-Year Old (Like Me)” (NY Times, April 13, 2025)

For a life so circumscribed, how is it that our bounties feel so limitless?

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[…] But Odie’s most favourite phrase in the whole world, the one that makes him delirious; that has him scrambling on my laptop (and deleting entire sections of writing); reaching ever higher to lick the kids; making his trademark bark-moan-beg sounds if we don’t quickly get our act together, is: “Walkie time!”

To offer to walk Odie is to taste pure happiness.

Every day, we walk Odie along the same paths. He eats the same food at the same time. We use the same words to the same effect. For a life so circumscribed, how is it that our bounties feel so limitless? In a life of ups and downs, perhaps it is the uncomplicated nature of the relationship that we have come to love. […]

He will begin a new year of receiving and giving joy in the same ways as the last four years.
It’s a simple life. And therein lies its beauty.

— Ranjana Srivastava, from “In a Life of Ups and Downs, we have come to cherish our dog’s uncomplicated love” (The Guardian, December 26, 2024). Ranjana Srivastava is an Australian oncologist, award-winning author and Fulbright scholar. Her latest book is called A Better Death

Exactly the scene at 2:42 a.m.

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Come outside, you laugh. You are
standing on the lawn holding
a bag of shit and the dog leash. You say
look, look at the moon. And I do.

— M. Soledad Caballero, from “When You Go Out to Walk the Dog” in “I Was a Bell“

Notes:

  • Poem Source: Read A Little Poetry
  • DK Photo: Waning Crescent Moon. 40% illumination. 62° F. 2:42 am. August 27, 2024. Darien, CT

Walking. With Free Bird.

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4:00 am. Friday morning. I’ve been watching the clock since 1:30 a.m, drifting in and out of light sleep.

“Racing thoughts. Reduced need for sleep. Exaggerated sense of self. Irritability…Obsessive rumination.” — Cory Richards

Wally, has been restless all night too, probably for biological reasons I’m sure. He refused to go outside before bed – it was drizzling. Our Wally, loves water, hates rain. Go Figure. He loves splashing in baby pools, clomping along shorelines and muck, and best of all, puddles. I watch him veer right and left on the park path, splashing through puddles from the overnight rains. Think toddler with big rubber boots.

And here we are, 1,557 consecutive (almost) days in a row on this daybreak walk at Cove Island Park. Like in a row.

Susan and Eric left on a road trip for Grandma’s birthday. Wally watched me leave for the park that same morning looking terrified: Not going to be left Home Alone again. No sir.

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