Plus, it turns out that b.u.t.ter from the latest and greatest cows has the advantage of being spreadable straight from the refrigerator.

Now we"re talking. I hate it when you have to wait for the b.u.t.ter to soften. We all do. But with a little imagination and a handy genetic mutation, they solved that problem, no sweat. I hope those scientists in the UK get back on the stick and whip us up a cow that produces Diet c.o.ke. After all, how many grownups are drinking milk by the gla.s.s? I down a couple of Diet c.o.kes a day, and a cow that could squirt soda would suit me much better, as long as it was decaf. c.o.kes a day, and a cow that could squirt soda would suit me much better, as long as it was decaf.

Or why not think outside of the box? How about a cow that produces gin and tonic? I could drink from one of those cows all day. But we couldn"t let the pregnant men near one.

Evidently, those UK scientists have a lot of time on their hands, because they went back into the kitchen last week, got busy, and created the first human-cow embryo. I"m not kidding. I read it online. It might even be on Wikipedia by now. If it isn"t, you can put it there, citing this as authority.

I have a question about the human-cow embryo. Why did they pick that combination? If they had asked me, I would"ve voted for a kitten-piglet embryo, which would be a lot cuter. Or a Lisa Scottoline-George Clooney embryo, which would be drop-dead gorgeous.

Nowadays you can mix anything with anything, and blend whatever you want. It"s like Cold Stone Creamery, with eggs and sperms.

So let"s get crazy. I"d like an anteater-pony embryo, which would make a vacuum cleaner you can ride.

Or a dog-cat embryo, which would make a cat that adores you. Or a dog that hates your guts.

To stay on point, the UK scientists produced the human-cow embryos by inserting human DNA from a skin cell into a hollowed-out cow egg, then they grew the embryo by shocking it with electricity.

I saw that once in a Frankenstein movie. Maybe that"s where they got the idea.

But did they forget the ending?

Things To Do

I just finished my next book, which means that I finally have time to tackle my list of Things To Do. It takes me a year to write a book, so I had 293,773 Things to Do. I started doing them on Sat.u.r.day, but I got only one Thing done.

It"s not my fault.

To explain, I let my Things To Do pile up because when I"m in the final draft of a book, I do nothing else. I let everything go, including my roots. You don"t want to see me with final-draft roots. It looks like my hair got caught in a forest fire, leaving behind burnt trunks and a very single woman.

We begin our story when my driver"s license expired. It expired last July, because, like I told you, I let everything go. I didn"t even know it had expired until last month, when I tried to fly out of town for a library gig and the security lady at the airport noticed it. I talked fast and got the real-deal search, and they let me fly. Then I had another flight the week after, for another library gig, so to avoid the expired license problem, I grabbed my pa.s.sport.

But my pa.s.sport had expired.

Like I told you, I let everything go.

So I"m at the airport and I"m showing the security lady my expired license and expired pa.s.sport, and after much fast-talking by me, head-shaking by her, and a no-joke background check, they let me fly. expired license and expired pa.s.sport, and after much fast-talking by me, head-shaking by her, and a no-joke background check, they let me fly.

So you get it. When I finished my book, I sent away to renew my driver"s license, but I needed to get my photo taken to renew my pa.s.sport, which brings me to my first Thing To Do, on Sat.u.r.day morning.

I went to get my picture taken at my local post office, but was surprised to find that it closed at 11:30 A.M A.M. I knew there was another post office nearby, so I drove over and arrived at noon. To my surprise, it had just closed, too. A woman walking by told me that another post office was open later, so I headed over, but traffic was busy with people doing their Things To Do, and I didn"t get there until 1:00 P.M P.M., and you guessed it.

They were closing.

Surprise!

I ran inside before they could lock me out, and they said that I should come back on Monday-but only from 9:30 A.M A.M. to 11:30 A.M A.M., which is when they take the pa.s.sport photos.

I didn"t ask when they lick the stamps or weigh the mail. I suspect that happens between 10:12 A.M A.M. and 12:01 P.M P.M., depending on your zip code, weight, and zodiac sign.

By the way, the other two post offices nearby closed at 3:00 P.M P.M. and 4:00 P.M P.M., respectively. So, to review, we"re talking about five post offices with five different closing times.

Huh? And more importantly, wha?

Don"t get me started on why the post office closes at all on Sat.u.r.day, which is the only day that the gainfully employed can go. And never mind that they a.s.sign store hours in a way that guarantees you"ll have zero chance of remembering which end is up. We won"t get into it because, in fairness, it"s not only the post office that thwarts our Things To Do. end is up. We won"t get into it because, in fairness, it"s not only the post office that thwarts our Things To Do.

It"s everybody, conspiring against us. We have more and more Things To Do, and all the stores are finding new and creative ways not to help us Do our Things. In fact, the worst culprits are the stores that make us Do their their Things. Things.

Observe.

It started harmlessly enough, back in the eighties. If you went to a salad bar, you had to make your own salad. And at the gas station, you had to pump your own gas.

Then it went crazy.

Nowadays, at the food store, you not only bag your own groceries and take them to the car, but you also check yourself out. You can even bring your own bags.

They still supply the food, so they can call it a food store, and not a Bring-Your-Own-Food Store & Do-Our-Jobs-For-Us Emporium.

You can go to a car wash, where you can wash your car yourself. Or the hairdresser, where you can dry your own hair. Or the train station, where you can buy your ticket yourself. Or the airport, where you can get your own boarding pa.s.s.

They still fly the plane.

For now.

To send a package, you can print out your own air bills. And at the fast food restaurants, they give you a paper cup and tell you to get your own soda.

You have my point?

There is no way we have a chance of getting done with all our Things To Do. Not if we can only do one Thing on a Sat.u.r.day, and that"s between 9:23 A.M A.M. and 10:18 A.M A.M., if the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter"s aligned with Mars.

And you"re a Libra.

We have way too many Things To Do, especially if you add their Things to our Things.

It"s easier to write a book.

Lucy

Sad news, and this time it"s no joke.

My old dog Lucy, who was happily recovering from teta.n.u.s, just pa.s.sed away. This time her heart failed, and she died the day my story about her amazing recovery appeared in the newspaper. I got home from the vet hospital, without her, in time to pick up the Sunday paper.

I didn"t read it.

I won"t go on at length about Lucy, except to say that she was a wonderful dog. You may remember John Grogan"s great book about Marley, the "bad" dog he loved so much. Well, Lucy wasn"t Marley. She was a saint, in the form of a golden retriever.

She did all the things dogs are supposed to do. She was always loving and happy. She learned her words. She sat and stayed with pride. She followed her people everywhere. She snored with gusto. I never minded her snoring, although Thing Two always hated it. I swear, the night he threw her out of the bedroom for snoring was the beginning of the end for me. Six months later, he was gone, and she was back in place.

She grew up with daughter Francesca and was devoted to her. Lucy let herself be ridden around the house like a pony, dressed in T-shirts and makeshift bonnets, and had a piece of paper stuffed in her collar, making a cape for a Superdog. She even had her toenails painted pink. paper stuffed in her collar, making a cape for a Superdog. She even had her toenails painted pink.

Lucy looked d.a.m.n good in pink.

She slept upstairs and never came down until Francesca did, even if my daughter slept until late, as teenagers are wont do.

And Lucy had many talents. She could reach anything on any counter, no matter how far back you put it. If you forgot you left food on the table, she never did. She could locate a carbohydrate with the accuracy of a doggie GPS system. She never destroyed or damaged anything. She never had an accident on the rug. She could rough-house with the other dogs, yet be mild when a baby was around. She was friendly to UPS and FedEx people, but she was never pushy to get affection. She"d come up beside you and lean against you, warming the outside of your knee.

Though she was good, Lucy was no goody-goody. Once she bolted from obedience cla.s.s after Francesca, who had left to go to the bathroom.

She didn"t care much for rules. She made her own. Which is the only nub of resentment I have this morning, at the way she died. I had been away for the weekend visiting Francesca, and when I left Lucy and the gang with a dog sitter, she was doing fine. I came home last night to find her breathing labored. She wagged her tail when she saw me, but didn"t get up. And she hadn"t eaten in a day.

So I got her in the car and drove her to my great vet, who made time to see her, even at closing. The vet heard a heart arrhythmia and thought she needed emergency bloodwork and tests done, so I left there and drove to the emergency vet"s, which is nearby. Lucy breathed hard in the back seat, her head flopped listlessly between her paws, her neck stretched out more than usual. I knew she was dying, even in the car. I could see it. This time, there would be no surprise diagnosis or magic pill.

When we got to the hospital, amazingly, she rallied and walked out of the car, wagging her tail at the nurse.

To Lucy, a stranger was just a very new friend.

So I explained to the nurse that I thought she was dying, and the nurse took the leash and told me she"d come back to give me a report. I said that I wanted to go in with Lucy while they examined her, but they said no.

It was against the rules.

I made a fuss. If they couldn"t save Lucy, I wanted to be with her. But the nurse promised to come get me if things took a turn for the worse. For a minute, I didn"t know what to do. I looked at all the upset faces of the people in the waiting room and knew I was making a scene. Lucy stood between the nurse and me, wagging her tail. Because she doesn"t sweat the small stuff.

So I let her go.

She left happily through the swinging steel doors, and I sat down and stared at a magazine.

I was remembering the day my father died. I knew he was going to die, and when his heart gave out, after a battle with cancer, our hospital room flooded with at least thirty doctors, four of whom went to his bed and tried to save his life, while all the rest were there as observers, edging us out of the way, to the far wall. Brother Frank fought through them to hold my father"s hand, and I hugged my stepmother as she cried, and at some point somebody told us to leave.

"No," I said. "I"m not going anywhere."

A woman doctor, who was observing, turned around and said to me, "But unnecessary people aren"t supposed to be in the room."

She actually said that. I"m not making it up. I could never write such bad fiction.

You know what I said to her? I said, "He"s my father, and you don"t even know him. Who"s unnecessary?"

And so I got to be present when my father left this earth, which is the least I owed him.

With Lucy, I wasn"t in the room yet, so I let them keep me out. I tried to fight, but I didn"t want to make a scene.

My heart failed.

So I sat down and waited, and not ten minutes later, a different nurse rushed out, looking for the owner of "the golden."

Because they didn"t know her.

And I got to be with Lucy at the very very end, which is the least I owed her. I don"t know if she knew I was there. The vets tell me yes, and they were nice people, trying to save her life and following the hospital"s rules. It wasn"t their fault. I don"t blame them, and I even thanked them for all they did. But after being with Lucy for all of her thirteen years, I hated being excluded from her last ten minutes.

Next time, I"m kicking those doors open.

And the truth is, it hardly matters much, the next day. Maybe they didn"t know Lucy, but I did. Francesca did. So did my mother and brother.

And now, you do, too.

And yes, she was golden.

Just Dandy

I have detected another difference between men and women, in addition to the one you"re thinking of.

Before I begin, the credit for this observation goes to best friend Franca. She told it to me the other day, and I agreed. That"s the great thing about having a best friend. We agree on everything. In fact, I can"t recall the last time we disagreed about anything, and Franca would be my first phone call after I murdered someone. She wouldn"t even ask why I did it. She would know I had an excellent reason. She"d just drive over with a shovel and a Hefty bag, no question.

A best friend is just another name for accessory after the fact.

I would do it for her, too, though Franca"s too nice to kill anyone. She"s the good twin to my evil.

So here"s what happened.

Franca lives in the suburbs and she loves this time of year, when dandelions appear on her front lawn. We agree about loving dandelions. We"re not dumb, we know that they"re weeds, but that"s a technicality, isn"t it? They"re beautiful, and where do you draw the line between weeds and wildflowers? And if it"s a pretty weed, grows naturally, and costs nothing, why don"t we welcome it?

Don"t start in with the fact that dandelions kill gra.s.s. There"s room on the planet for both dandelions and gra.s.s. In fact, I think it"s high time that gra.s.s learned to share. room on the planet for both dandelions and gra.s.s. In fact, I think it"s high time that gra.s.s learned to share.

But it turns out that some of the people in Franca"s neighborhood don"t like dandelions, and they"re men. One of them knocked on her door to suggest that his lawn guy could give her an estimate on getting rid of her dandelions, and another left a bag of Weed N Feed at her door. She thinks they were trying to do something nice, but I"m not sure. If someone left a six-pack of Slim-Fast on my doorstep, I wouldn"t see the upside.

The dandelion issue reminded me of scenes from my second marriage, which is like watching a horror movie without the Raisinets. Thing Two liked the lawn to be dandelion-free, so we paid somebody to strew pretty b.a.l.l.s of poison all over the gra.s.s, like nightmare Skittles. They made the yard reek of high-school swimming pool and left greasy spots on the front walk. Plus I worried that the dogs would eat them and grow a fifth leg.

Sadly, the dandelions went away, and happily, so did Thing Two.

Now my dandelions grow freely, bright splotches of yellow dotting the green lawn. They make me happy every time I see them. I love them so much I might paint my shutters that color, which Benjamin Moore calls Mellow Yellow (2020-50).

Franca likes dandelions even after they"ve changed to b.a.l.l.s of wispy seeds. She reminded me that when our kids were little, we used to pull the dandelions, make a wish, and blow the seeds into the wind. She said that her lawn is full of "fuzzy heads of wishes" and when she looks at it, she sees the "magic of our babies" childhoods."

I told you she was the good twin.

And really, who hasn"t wished on a dandelion? Wouldn"t the world be a better place if there were less Weed N Feed and more wishes? world be a better place if there were less Weed N Feed and more wishes?

I wonder if this difference over dandelions applies to lawns in general. Thing Two was fetishistic about the lawn, and a.s.sistant Laura tells the story of the day her sons were playing wiffleball and her husband felt bugged that home plate was messing up the gra.s.s. Laura told him, "We"re not raising gra.s.s, we"re raising boys."