Nancy Goat

My brother’s girlfriend’s name is Nancy, but my brother calls her Goat.  He says that’s because she’ll eat just about anything, and I have to admit that he’s right.  I’ve seen her in action.  And you might be thinking that I’m not so nice, commenting on Nancy Goat’s eating habits, but she’s very stylish and very fit and I’m not saying anything she wouldn’t say herself.  Or you may be thinking that my brother isn’t so nice, being that he nicknamed his girlfriend after a cloven-hoofed animal associated with the devil, but Nancy Goat has really taken a shine to her name.  When she and my brother rented a house in Southampton for the summer, for example, she had Goat’s Cove painted on a sign and hung over the doorway.  And two years ago she gave my brother a goat for Christmas.  The goat didn’t fit in with their SoHo lifestyle, though, so they donated it to a Family in Need.  And she really seems to enjoy being called Goat, in a way that I wouldn’t if my husband referred to me as Sugar Whore.  But maybe it’s all in the intonation.

This year for Christmas Nancy Goat gave my brother a photograph.  Whether or not he liked this photograph I can’t say, because I’m not supposed to mention him in my blog except in the most cursory of ways.  Actually, many people in my family, as well as some of my friends, have asked for privacy clauses, usually with the same rabid concern that others have asked for cameos.  And I usually refuse to commit to anything, mainly because I like having power over other people.  But anyway, the story is that Nancy Goat was in some store in Manhattan, and she saw a wall of photographs, all of dogs and their owner’s feet.  And she thought they were very cool and wondered if she should purchase some for the new apartment she and my brother share, an apartment which has heated ceramic tile in the master bathroom.  I mention the heated ceramic tile only because I’m ridiculously jealous, and didn’t even know such a thing existed until a couple of days ago.  And also, heated ceramic tile just seems so very Nancy Goat, who tends to say things like, The last time I was in Florence for truffle season . . . and then looks askance when we have the audacity to laugh.  We can’t help ourselves.  We think she’s joking.  But then she tells us she’s perfectly serious and follows up with something like, I had truffles for breakfast and truffles for lunch and truffles for dinner and I still didn’t tire of them.  And then we laugh some more, because if I had to come up with a similar statement it would go something like, The last time The Boy and I were on our way back from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania . . . and then end with something like, Our flight was cancelled and then when we finally landed in Memphis our next flight was delayed and then there were tornadoes and we had to huddle with the masses in the bathroom where The Boy sobbed and quivered with fear and then our next flight was cancelled but we got on a later flight and landed in Austin twenty hours after we’d left Punxsutawney and we both cried.

So Nancy Goat was looking over these photographs when she saw a note from the photographer, offering to commission herself out for Christmas gifts.  Nancy Goat could hire the photographer to take a picture of the chihuahua she and my brother had adopted, along with her own feet, clad in her favorite shoes.

Nancy Goat likes heels.  I know this because I don’t think I’ve seen her in anything else in the three years I’ve known her.  The ones she was wearing on Christmas Eve were five inches high.  And when I told her that I’m just not a heel kind of girl she tried to tell me that I’d be fine if I bought gel insoles.  But I think she’s lying, because she used to be on that show, remember the one I told you about?  Where she had to make people over?  And she’s told me that the makeovers had to be extreme.  And me in skinny five-inch heels would be extreme.  And painful.

Nancy Goat hired the photographer, Charity de Meer, to take a picture of Barney the Chihuahua posing at her feet.  And I have to say, the photo’s pretty amazing:

I was so impressed that I thought I’d try to duplicate the photograph at home.

My favorite shoes are my bedroom slippers.  I wear them all the time, usually all day, with socks.  And when it’s time to pick up The Boy from school I kick them off and grudgingly slide on my flip-flops or my tennis shoes, and then as soon as I’m home again I put my slippers back on.

And you know about the big white dog and the fat beagle, though you don’t know that it’s really really really hard to get a picture of them both at my feet, even when I’m bribing them with French fries.

My husband’s not a professional or anything, but I think my photo’s pretty good.

Nancy Goat might not have been able to convince me to wear heels, but there’s still hope because for Christmas she gave me a sizable gift card to J. Crew.  And she even offered to be my personal shopper, though that makes me a little bit scared.  Because even though she looks fabulous just about every time I see her I don’t know if I’m ready for her to make me over.  And anyway, she’s not here anymore to help me.  She left early this morning with my brother, to go skiing in Jackson Hole.  Meanwhile, I haven’t showered and I have a raging headache, because I’m a little sugar whore.  And my house looks like something Christmas regurgitated and The Angel has a week off and my car’s leaking something foul all over the driveway.

But I have a gift card to J. Crew.

Copyright © 2009  Jennifer Hritz  hritzontheedge  All Rights Reserved

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