In which Dish falls hard for a King Charles Cavalier with infuriatingly large, beautiful brown eyes.
“Love is a rapturous gift. Terribly inconvenient, though.” - Alexander (one of Dish’s favorite ex’s).
I met Alexander years ago, when the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York was still in business, and still a moderately cool place for people to host things. We were at a party on the hotel’s terrace on an unseasonably warm spring night. A night that held the promise of summer.
We had a brief but memorable conversation about Joan Didion (we had both recently watched Griffin Dunne’s documentary Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold — (he liked it more than I). A bit later, as I was heading for the door, he asked if he could take me out to dinner.
"Oh, thank you," I replied. "I’m hiding under a rock, though. Had a horrible break-up. You know, all that," I said sweeping my arm across the room toward the New York City skyline outside in a gesture meant to encapsulate the big messiness of life.
He responded by looking me up and down with exaggerated slowness. I was wearing a fitted black leather sheath dress, Manolo Blahnik stilettos and red lipstick.
"You. In that," he gestured quizzically, pointing up and down toward my outfit, "That’s your version of ‘hiding under a rock’?"
Over the next six months he occasionally called or sent a text. "How’s the rock?" he’d ask. "I imagine it’s getting dark under there."
When we finally had dinner, in late October, we fell hard for each other. We began an intense and exciting long-distance relationship that involved trains, planes and automobiles. We were both starting new jobs that required extensive travel (his global), and he also had kids with issues. We’d travel hours to catch each other for a dinner and a night, then part and do it again — often last minute — days or weeks later. It couldn’t last, but our hearts broke when we finally realized after a couple of exhausting, exhilarating years, that it wasn’t going to work.
Many years after our break-up while advising me over lunch on a potential lover (or - was he perhaps commenting on us?) he said "If you’re looking for something convenient, Dish, you’re not looking for love. Love is a rapturous gift. Terrifically inconvenient, though."
I thought of Alexander for the first time in a while last month as I drove away from Kingly Cavaliers with a five-month old puppy jerryrigged into the seatbelt on the passenger side next to me.
My beloved Belgian Malinois Rikki had died suddenly of liver cancer five months earlier and my Mother had been on me about getting another dog. "I’m not even considering another dog yet," I said to try to shut down the conversation. But she kept at it every few weeks.
I have primarily taken in rescue dogs, but my Mother had done the research and decided that I needed to focus at this stage on a breed with characteristics that easily fit into a lifestyle that included lots of travel, as well as staying as a guest with family and friends who already had dogs, or kids. So, small enough to fit under an airplane seat, congenial and not prone to bark. She’d decided on a King Charles Cavalier for me.
That’s why, a week before Thanksgiving, I was headed to Kingly Cavalier to be interviewed by Julie, the owner. If she deemed me suitable, she’d explained over the phone beforehand, I’d go on her waitlist and would likely end up with a puppy sometime in the summer or early fall. "That timing," I thought, “would be convenient. By then, I’d be ready for one.” The construction on my place would be done, I’d be in one place for a while and I’d clear my backyard of the infamous killer bufo frogs that plague South Florida, and other hazards. Plus, I’d be over Rikki, or at least more over Rikki.
That was my plan.
But I got to Kingly Cavalier early, while Julie was still doing playtime with about 10 puppies. One, clearly a few months older than the others, jiggled her little body up to mine and started batting her seductive, beautiful large brown eyes at me. She was the only black and tan puppy in the mix. Black and tan being, coincidentally, the coloring I most wanted.
Julie gently picked up the little puppy, bringing her over to the other side of the room. “I’m keeping this sweet little girl," she said. "She is a perfect example of the black-and-tan Cavalier, so I’m holding her back to breed her."
That was Julie’s plan.
But when she put her down, the puppy ran back over to me. Those imploring, beautiful large brown eyes were looking up, tail wagging vivaciously back and forth.
We fell hard for each other.
Next thing I knew, I’d written Julie a check for a ghastly amount that I don’t dare admit to and never thought I’d pay for a dog from a breeder, when there are perfectly lovable dogs needing homes at shelters. And Koko and I were heading to PetSmart for everything I could think of getting for her first few days at home: a bed, a kennel, a harness, leash, car seat, food, toys.
My life wasn’t set up for a puppy. It was mid November and I was heading out of town in a few days to host Thanksgiving in New York, and then for a series of stops through the holidays that included parties in Florida, staying with a friend in Boston, then joining family for Christmas in New Hampshire. I had a day to get Koko into a vet, rebook my flights onto legs that still had an allotment for a pet, head back to PetSmart for a dog coat, and rethink my housing and party plans.
Puppies like structure, and providing them the same daily routine accelerates good behavior and training. Koko has flown round-trip with me six times, stayed in five different places and also been to overnight camp once.
That probably explains why her training is not going smoothly.
The very first naughty thing she did was bring a stick back with her from the park, jump on a dining room chair and start to play on top of my new black marble Saarinen dining room table. She scratched it.
When I picked her up off the table and put her on my lap she snuggled in lovingly, looking up at me with those apologetic, large beautiful brown eyes. Then she rolled over so I could rub her belly to make her feel better. She had intuitively realized I was upset about the table, so she was also upset. Obviously, I thought, I should soothe her.
Things have continued in a similar vein.
Three days ago, experiencing a rare ten-minute span without interruption, I thought to myself, "Why is it so quiet?" And then, "Where’s Koko?"
She had nudged the back screen door open. A black iron railing separates a section of my yard from a neighbor’s and there’s a sort of “dead alley” there that my neighbor told me weeks ago was attracting vermin. I hadn’t realized it until I found Koko, but my neighbor had placed a large animal trap with tempting but poisonous bait in it — the claw of the trap was dangerously poised to release a menacing clamp on the poor animal’s head once they bit the bait.
Koko’s little nose was an inch from the killer trap, sniffing the bait.
She momentarily looked up at me with those infuriating, large beautiful brown eyes, only to immediately refocus on the bait. "KOKO, NO!" I screamed, though it’s not clear why. It’s fair to say that she hasn’t learned the meaning of “NO” yet, but in my trauma state I had momentarily forgotten that.
I had seconds to act, but the railing was too high for me to climb over, and she was too far for me to reach. I spotted a rock and tossed it at her to move her back from the trap. My junior high softball skills paid off because I hit her, which hurt me more than it hurt her, I’m sure, but she backed off, confused. As she began to tentatively edge back toward the trap, I saw a long stick and trapped her against a wall, eventually shimmying her toward me. Then I grabbed her and dragged her under the rail.
It sounds ridiculous, but it felt harrowing. I wasn’t sure I was going to save her.
And then there was last night. She woke me up at 2:30am. That’s her signal, so I got her all "suited up" for the cold rain and took her outside to do her business. Koko doesn’t like going outside when it’s raining. She doesn’t like getting wet, doesn’t like the wet grass under her precious little paws. We walked and walked (and walked) until we were both shivering violently from the wet cold.
Finally giving up after 45 minutes, we went back inside. I was feeling defeated. She was feeling elated for some reason. As soon as I relieved her of her harness she looked up at me with those manipulative, large beautiful brown eyes, squatted and relieved herself on my brand new carpet.
I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since I brought Koko home three months ago. Which might explain my brain fog this afternoon. My nephew Patrick is visiting and was spending the afternoon dialing into work calls from my study. That’s where Koko’s "condo" is. As I was headed out to run a few errands, I zipped her into the condo and said to him, "I’m just going to put her in here so she doesn’t bother you while you’re working."
What was I thinking?
As soon as I got to the back of the grocery line I got a text from him.
"Koko was causing a big fuss in her condo. Then it got quiet 😬"
"Oh fuck," I responded.
"Just got off call. Can’t find her."
"Check yard IMMEDIATELY 😬," I replied. (Like everyone else in his generation, he finds calls annoying or I would have phoned.)
"Will 😬," he wrote.
I was haunted by visions of her little head in a clamp, those terrifying, beautiful large brown eyes looking up at me, as she gently let out her last breath. And then, after a terrifyingly long few minutes, he sent this:
"All gd."
"R U almost done w errands tho?" he wrote.
“Love,” as Alexander says, “is a rapturous gift. Terribly inconvenient, though.”
The Crush Letter
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