my parents' dog

Living 2 hours from home with no car, I did not expect to make frequent trips home. But I have been traveling home fairly often lately. There are countless reasons why I like to visit home. My parents are each crazy in their separate ways. They welcome my own personal craziness with open arms. The house is big enough for me to be there without throwing anyone's game. Not that my parents are easily thrown. They have always been the sort to live and let live. One example- this one dredges up a few hard feelings with Jessica- is the time when Mom bought a new pick-up truck the day before Jessica's wedding. Since the wedding was held at my parents' house, Mom's absence at the precise moment when 20 dozen roses arrived via FedEx was duly noted. Now that Jessica has recently forgiven her for it, the whole episode serves as an appropriate example of my parents' uncanny ability to do their own thing.

I never thought I would say this- but I visit home in part to see my parents' dog. Its name is Muggles. It is certifiably looney tunes. I remember the moment I fell for Muggles. I was home for four weeks between moving from NYC to Minneapolis. My mom started school the week before I moved to Minneapolis, so she began waking up at the crack of dawn to get ready for work. When she left, she brought the dog into my bedroom and laid Muggles next to me. Muggles slept like a little angel by my side until I finally rolled out of bed. When I finally woke up, she just stared at me with her big bulgy eyes, looking for some kind of clue as to what she should do next. She's a heartbreaker. Not perfect, by any means. But such an endearing blend of lunacy and sweetness. Bad story but 100% true.

One of Muggles' favorite things to do is play on swings. She does this completely unprovoked. She will charge the dangling end of our rope swing and gain enough momentum to propel herself clear off the ground. She has lost a tooth doing so. Most of the time she undertakes this, there is no one around to witness it. We know because whenever we cannot find Muggles, we sneak to the backyard and find her there. Muggles is a French bulldog. She sleeps most of the day, then goes a.w.o.l on the rope swing. She also likes to battle the swingset.


Muggles is the only dog I know that eats whatever someone gives her. You could be eating a pickle and she'd eat the second half. That's a bad example because she loves pickles. Same with green apples. Vewy cwazy. That's what she thinks she is. Because she also has that knack for making people speak in babytalk. Humiliating but 100% true.

Sometimes I worry that a movie will be made about Muggles and her adventures and they will have someone like John Goodman do the voicework. Or even worse, Danny DeVito. The same way whoever spoke for Wilbur on the original Charlotte's Web ruined the whole movie. If Muggles ever tends towards advocacy, I'll make her the posterchild for Animals Against Bad Animal Voicework. There are things I feel more strongly about than bad animal voicework, but right now I can't think of any.