The Two Lucys

My dog Lucy isn't having the worst week in the world. She's been inside almost all the time because she's got a dark coat, and very little common sense, even for a dog. Left to her own devices, the old girl will lay sprawled on the hot concrete with the sun beating relentlessly down on her. It's been more than 100 degrees for the past week. She'd cook herself out there if we'd let her.

We think that before she became our dog and friend, she must have lived on the end of a chain on a cement patio. She had callouses on her elbows, a terrible, panicky response to being tied out even for a few minutes, and didn't seem to know what to make of grass. She never has developed a liking to lawns. If we throw toys across the yard for her, she'll skirt the turf, leaping onto it just long enough to pick up whatever might have landed in it, then jumping right off into the flowerbeds. She's not a fan of the outdoors in general, and she hates squirrels. All things being equal, she'd be happy to never have to go out there.

At some point early this year, she figured out how to get up into the lounge chairs and, well I guess you'd say she's lounging, although it looks damned uncomfortable. She's hard to photograph while lounging, because the minute she sees me at the door, she gets up and runs toward me because she so desperately wants to be on the right side of that glass.

Given the chance, Lucy would never leave her plush, cool bed. Here she is, relaxing with the other Lucy, the Lucy Bag. I started this bag a week and a half ago, and finished it a couple of hours ago. My friends, there were problems. The straps didn't shrink as much as they should have, possibly because I didn't see the importance of maintaining row gauge. The body felted beautifully, but the fully-felted short strap was so much too long that, instead of forming a neat collar around the long strap and the front of the bag, it just slid right over the whole thing and collapsed on the counter. Disgusted with myself and with what should have been a simple project, I pulled out the scissors. "Who's the boss of you? I AM THE BOSS OF YOU!!"

I cut the short strap from the body, cut off about seven inches of it, then stitched it back with more yarn and threw it back into the washer. That showed it, alright. The strap is now refelted to the body, and it's the right length. I stretched out the slightly overfelted body by weighing down a small mixing bowl in it and tugging the edges of the bag up to lengthen it. Worked like a charm. I blocked it by putting two three-pound fitness balls into the bottom. Who would have thought those squishy little hand weights would be good for anything?

It's a little more oblong than I think it was originally intended to be, but I like it this way. All that's left is to let it dry and I guess maybe shave it. It's a bit furry.

I like the Lucy bag because that's my name, and it smells like me when I stand out in the rain even though I have a doghouse and a patio cover and trees and stuff. - Lucy the Dog

Hello, the Woman? Would you like to see my tipped cow-dog impression? Hilarious, yes? Well, I suppose humor is subjective. After all, I'm not the fool who adopted that heifer, put a collar on it and called it 'dog'. - Buddy the Cat