“Don’t treat your dog like a person, or he’ll start treating you like a dog,” my grandfather told me once, when I was a child. I can’t remember what I was doing that provoked this warning, probably spoon-feeding one of our dogs, but I do recall hoping, praying, that his words were true. It was my dream to have a dog treat me like another dog. I’m a dog nut. I seem to have been born that way. I carry the fascination around with me the way my retriever-mix, Daphne, carries around an oversized stuffed animal.
Ann Leary, author of The Good House
Author of The Good House
My Life in Dogs
April 29, 2008 by Leave a Comment
A Review, A Reading, A Play
April 28, 2008 by Leave a Comment
Today I received a review of my book, Outtakes From a Marriage from Publisher’s Weekly, which said that I have “an eye for the comedy of manners of the rich and idle.” Well, thank you very much, PW. Now I’ll turn my eye on some of the less idle, like the participants in this past weekend’s Celebration of Young Writers in Washington, Connecticut. It’s an annual event in which famous actors and writers read the works of students ages 5-18. The readers have included Denis, Frank McCourt, Rose Styron, Mia Farrow, Peter Gallagher, Christine Baranski and many others. The event is a fundraiser for the After School Arts Program. Denis hosts the reading every year.
Tennis Whore
April 26, 2008 by Leave a Comment
I found tennis relatively late in life. I wanted exercise, that’s all, and one day, watching my son take a tennis lesson, I thought, now that looks like a good workout. I thought that since I was pushing forty I would probably never be good enough to play any real tennis but chasing the ball around the court for an hour or two a week might help me tone up a bit.
Bats vs Learys
April 24, 2008 by 3 Comments
I had Oprah on the other day. I just had it on, I wasn’t watching it. Anyway, as they cut away to a commercial, Oprah said, “Coming up, the words no mother wants to hear from her child…” This interested me because I had already heard the words no mother wants to hear from her child. These words are: “Mom, there’s a bat on your pajamas.”
This happened a few summers ago now, but I remember every minute of it like it was yesterday. It was early morning. I was sitting at our dining room table in my pajamas, talking on the phone and writing something down. When Devin came downstairs, I stood up for some reason, still nattering away, and she said, “Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!”
Travels With Mark
April 23, 2008 by 4 Comments
I love to take pictures while riding Mark. Here we are watching Devin ride Snoopy:
This one shows Mark’s mane at its most ridiculous. It looks like I’m riding a Pomeranian:
Mark is such a versatile horse. You can really take him anywhere. Here we are in Rome above the Spanish Steps:
Viewing the Coliseum:
Okay, I just installed Photoshop Elements and have found a new way to waste time. Now I’m trying to get a shot of Mark on the Red Carpet at last year’s Emmy Awards but I can’t figure out how to cut around his ears.
Mark the Horse
April 22, 2008 by 1 Comment
Meet Mark. I know he looks cuddly, and he is. If you’re not a horseperson, then yes, that is how a horse’s mane is supposed to look. If you are a horseperson, judge not, lest ye be judged. I don’t have time to mess with that mane right now. Mark will be sporting his mullet at least until my book comes out.
By the Cave’s Door
April 21, 2008 by 1 Comment
In 1871 a tunnel was blasted into a small mountain in Washington, CT, to make way for the proposed Shepaug Valley Railroad line. The engineering of the tunnel was overseen by a local explosives expert known as “Glycerin Jack.” I’m writing this in bed and so cannot start searching my house for the book that told me about Glycerin Jack, but I really should because there is another interesting fact about this important person in our town’s history. Apparently, the man passed a tapeworm that was something like thirty feet long (will fact-check length when I find the book). The local doctor kept the tapeworm in a formaldehyde solution in a jar on his desk and all the townspeople came to observe it.
Steep Rock Diaries
April 19, 2008 by 1 Comment
Last fall I began work on a new book and I ran into a little snare right at the beginning. I was describing the campus of a boarding school in September, in Connecticut, and I had all the trees aflame with bright russets and golds and somebody was raking leaves. It was still early in September when I was writing this and it dawned on me that the leaves might still be green well into October. I really had no idea. And I wasn’t quite sure when the first frost usually arrives. So I decided to start a journal to document the local flora and fauna as the seasons change.
Spring Cleaning
April 18, 2008 by 4 Comments
I’ve been cleaning my barn. I can’t stand housecleaning but I find great satisfaction cleaning my barn for some reason, and also cleaning my horses. Yesterday, I washed my horse Mark, and then when he dried and was still as wretched-looking as he was before his bath, I gave him a full body clip.
Just a Haunch
April 16, 2008 by Leave a Comment
When I saw Lulu after her hip surgery last Thursday, my first thought was that she was walking quite well for somebody with a new fake hip.
My second thought was, nice gam!.
Her coat is thick and wavy so I had no idea what beautiful musculature the dog possesses. I find that I keep staring at it, though.
I’m just admiring the conformation of an athletic animal, I keep telling myself. But there’s something disturbingly sexy about it. I think the exposed flank combined with the mohawk reminds me of that evil/sexy Last of the Mohicans guy.
