Stacy Horn

Along with I don’t know how many thousands upon thousands of people all around the world, for the past few days I’ve been watching the Livestream of animal rescuer Eldad Hagar and his most recent rescue Shaggy. It was such a powerful display of fundamental human kindness and decency it was impossible to look away.

As I type, Eldad is taking Shaggy to the woman who has adopted her. Of course this is a wonderful thing for Shaggy, but I already miss her terribly. Crazy, I know. Anyway, here are a few screenshots I took this morning. (In a couple of cases I didn’t like the shot I got so I went back to the video record. I’m a perfectionist. It will be the death of me. Note to self: leave the apartment now.)

Goodbye Shaggy, and thank you Eldad Hagar and all your fellow rescuers. Sob. Speaking of sobbing, toward the end we could all hear Eldad crying. It takes so much courage to do what he and many others do. We all watched as Shaggy went from shrinking from human contact to happily laying next to Eldad, following his every move, and crying whenever Eldad left the room. Then, for the first time, this morning Shaggy was playing around on the floor with Eldad, completely transformed from the dog who hadn’t felt a human’s touch for the past five years.

How can rescuers not fall in love, at least a little bit, every time? And then you must say goodbye.

I took this picture to illustrate how cold it is. Storekeepers frequently put out bowls of water for thirsty dogs out on their walks. It’s a sweet tradition. Someone put out this bowl of water and it quickly froze, but look closer. It has slices of lemon in it.

This is both insane and endearing. This person not only wanted to give water to the dogs passing by, he or she wanted it to be especially tasty.

The second bone graft failed so I’m not getting an implant after all, but a bridge. I don’t think getting a bridge is the end of the world, it’s just that I’ve had three surgeries now, over I forget how long, so all that pain and healing and time for nothing is a difficult pill to swallow.

Part of me is glad. I was nervous about the implant part. They had me sign this sheet saying that I understood all the possible risks associated with getting an implant and it was a very scary list. Also, after I’m done healing from this most recent bone graft—which feels like adding insult to injury, having to still endure healing and more waiting—we can wrap this baby up. I was concerned with being done and presentable by the time my book comes out and that should no longer be an issue.

But having an implant is the better option and I went through a lot in order to have one so I’m upset about how it all turned out. I’ll get over it fast of course. It’s not like I went through treatment for a life-threatening disease and that failed. Still. I feel like throwing a temper tantrum or buying myself a present. I think I’ll go for the present.

I liked the colors in this window. Also, that’s a John Lennon bio it seems. I wonder why it’s part of this display.

Yesterday I put on 16,000 layers and lots of fleece and walked downtown to the Municipal Archives, where I’m doing research for a book proposal I’m working on. If all goes well I will practically live there for the next few years.

I get to Chambers Street and turn left towards the Archives. It’s not a pretty walk until you get to the end, when you hit Law and Order territory and all the City buildings. On the way though, it’s mostly Lots for Less type stores and it has a junky feel. I should look past the facades and at the buildings themselves. What were they used for 100 years ago?

Usually you see a lot of law enforcement and court workers coming and going, and people showing up for their court dates or jury duty. Yesterday, it was relatively empty.

I get to the Archives. That’s their building on the left, and through that arch to the right is One Police Plaza, where I spent some time researching my book about the NYPD’s Cold Case Squad. It’s like another country beyond that arch. I’d love to write more about the police, but the subject is just so … fraught. (Everyone who has ever had to cover the NYPD is probably smiling and nodding at my very careful word choice there.)

And now, here I am, in front of the Archives. It’s beautiful inside, but I’ve never once gotten a decent picture of it. I signed up for a digital photography course, so maybe I’ll learn something I can use to try again.

I read ugly comments on Facebook from people who are not happy that Barack Obama is our president, and from gun owners, many of them likely completely reasonable people, who won’t agree to perfectly reasonable responses to all the gun death in our country — even last night, on the live chat between people watching Eldad Hagar and Shaggy, people were fighting about how to care for Shaggy. Not simply disagreeing, but getting nasty and personal.

People are insane. It’s not enough to have a big heart, or a big brain. I mean, look at freaking Thomas Jefferson, the man who wrote that we all have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He was not only a slave owner, he was apparently not a kind slave owner, completely unable to have any compassion for his slaves who were desperately seeking a little life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness themselves (see the new biography, Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves).

Jefferson wrote this in a letter to Samuel Kercheval:

“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

Such mind-blowingly visionary words! What hope is there for all of us when the man who wrote them is the same man who put his child slaves to punishing work, allowing them to be beaten and mistreated? How hard was is it to see that was wrong?

I’m watching the series on PBS now about abolition. When I see how horribly the first people to call for the abolition of slavery were treated, something so clearly and obviously wrong, it’s less surprising to see people, many of whom are completely decent people and not idiots, fighting over reasonable gun control, gay marriage, or how to care for a frightened dog.

The tearing up of Perry Street continues. They were working last night, and they started up again at least as early as 7am this morning.