top 5

wednesday night while watching american idol i told ryan that we needed to think of a new top 5. it's been too long. ryan didn't have his thinking cap on...in fact, he was asleep...so i had to do the thinking for both of us....again.

in all honesty my brain wasn't working too well either. it had been a long day and i was ready for sleep. i started looking around the room to see if anything would inspire a new top 5. i didn't have to look very far. curled up between us on the couch was our very own lucy lu. there are thousands of reasons to love lucy....here are only a few.

top 5 reasons we love lucy

1. lucy doesn't look like any other dog

in an age of designer dogs and purebred pets (not that there's anything wrong with that!) lucy has a style all her own. her appearance is so unique that people always stop to ask us exactly what kind of dog she is. we usually say that she's just a mutt...just lucy...and it makes us happy every time.

2. she is living proof that the journey IS the destination

regardless of where we're headed, what we plan to do, who we plan to see, how long we plan to be there...lucy is excited to go. she makes every adventure exciting and greets the world with an open, willing, joyful heart.

3. she faces her fears head on

lucy has never liked the water. when we got her she was deathly afraid of the garden hose and took the long way around puddles on our walks. after her knee surgery in january 2007 she needed to swim as part of her physcial therapy. not only was she afraid to swim but she was unable to swim. ryan and i bought her a life jacket (hilarious), strapped it on her and threw a ball into a little pond near our house in MA. she did not want to go in after that ball but she trusted our crazy cheers and made her way in for it. we kept this up weekend after weekend until she could swim without the life jacket. she now takes a running leap and flies into the atlantic ocean to fetch the ball. she is an impressive swimmer - strong, fast and determined - and has a blast riding the waves.

4. she loves wil

i was nervous about lucy's reaction to wil when we brought him home from the hosptial. lucy was my constant (and on many days only) companion during my pregnancy. when ryan moved to NJ in february she kept me company. when i moved to NJ last july we spent all our days together taking walks and playing ball. i wasn't nervous that lucy wouldn't like wil but that she'd feel replaced. turns out...she doesn't feel replaced at all. she loves wil and layed down at his feet (literally) when we brought him home. she has been so gentle, so patient and so loving toward him. our only complaint is that she'd like to lick him to death if we'd let her. i suppose that's not a big complaint in the scheme of things. we know they will be great friends when wil is older and we will be glad to have someone to share our ball throwing duties.

5. she loves us

lucy is a loyal, unflinchingly constant, gentle, loving friend and companion. she loves and lives with utter abandon...in the moment, for the moment, unconditionally. she causes us to stop daily and share love, show love, receive love. it's not something that we always remembered to do before her and it's a wonderful lesson. without her our life would be less interesting, less funny and less unexpected...although we might have more room in bed but, hey, nothing is free.

we love lucy...she's our brown-eyed girl and we are better for having her in our lives.