When I began my time as a foot soldier in the trenches of how to be happy, I read a book that resonated with me: The Geography of Bliss. Eric Weiner wrote the book, and at times it was easy to see that he had been an NPR correspondent: The book liked itself a lot, got bogged down in the middle, and begged to be read in a somewhat exotic accent, which is to say with a New England prep school affectation. Minor quarrels aside, I have tried to take to heart its basic tenets. Family and friends matter. Cultivate strong ties to your community. Visit Iceland but not Moldova. Embrace experiences, not things.

Chris recently turned 50, a fact that pains him to no end, and to celebrate, we went the whole experiences-not-things route and took a trip to Manhattan last weekend. We did not go to the city until I was 40, and since then, we have been three times. On the first trip, I tried to look like a New Yorker, wearing all black, and I kept my mouth shut. On the second trip, people asked me for directions, and as the cab driver took the family to the airport to return home, he asked where we were going on vacation and when we would be back in the city. On this trip, I thought: screw it. I am just going to be me. Which is how I ended up with absolutely no black clothes in my suitcase.

One of the things that made the cut was a pink hat that I made from a sweater purchased at Goodwill for $2.14. (I can explain the odd price: Sweaters are typically $4.29, but it was half-price day.) I washed the sweater in hot water and dried it on high heat to shrink it. I carefully cut around the moth holes, used the sweater’s rib as a head band, and hand-stitched the entire thing. The sewing took about three hours late one Friday evening a few weeks ago, all to the end that I have a homemade beret that looks like the love child of a pagoda and an iced cupcake:

I ended up wearing the beret all over the city, where it sparked the occasional photograph and conversations about its provenance and construction with everyone. Homeless people. Tourists. Cashiers. Residents. And the employees of Mood, the fabric store pilgrimage for all fans of “Project Runway.”

I went to Mood because Chris woke up sick — terribly sick, not the sick you want on your birthday trip — on Saturday morning. I was apprehensive at first about being set loose in downtown Manhattan, what with my having learned navigational skills in a pick-up in Moultrie, Georgia, but a conversation with the desk clerk emboldened me. I asked him if I should take a cab to Chinatown, and he replied that that was what his mother always did, but the subway was easy enough. Although I was old enough to be his mother (and not in a teen pregnancy sort of way), name-dropping his mother was like dropping a lighted match onto my gas can of independence. I rode the subway — first to Chinatown, then back to Herald Square — and set myself in the wrong direction on foot until I asked a cop if I was going the right way. It depends, he replied, on whether you want to get there today or tomorrow. And nice hat, lady.

As I walked firmly in the right direction, it began to snow, and a detour for hot chocolate was in order. When I walked into Starbucks, Ignition: Remix came over the speakers, and whether you are at home in your small city or wandering around a large one, your jam is your jam. The word serendipity blossomed beautifully in my mind.

So with a warm belly and dry feet, I made it to Mood, and happily spent a few hours talking handmade hats and handling Italian fabrics. This was also my jam, and in addition to having one Mood employee outline (unbidden) a complete business plan for my making and selling hats, I came away with several bright cotton prints, some crazy fur cuffs, a bright blue piece of wool, and a healthy dose of encouragement, which manifested itself as an overwhelming desire to start making my own clothes.

Chris (mercifully) felt better when I returned from Mood, and over the next 36 hours, we saw people and lights and two plays. We ate more than people of our age sensibly should. We visited MoMA and the Met. And in the highlight reel of my life, the vivid memories of what I want to recall even when I recall little else, I want to remember walking with him last weekend, cold and happy, hand in hand through museums, with so many beautiful things to see, pink beret tilted jauntily to one side. But before I knew it, there we were again — two subway trains, the Long Island Railroad, the Air Train, the JFK Jitney — standing at an airport gate.

In the plane and during the week, I thought about what I would make this weekend. I gathered a few patterns and notions. I mentally sketched images. I read sewing blogs. And (more to the point) on Friday afternoon and all day Saturday, I did what I needed to do to have an unfettered Sunday. And as I fell asleep Saturday night, drowsy after night out with friends, I dreamed of the time I would have and what I was going to create: a skirt, perhaps, and another hat.

What I did not dream about was making a custom anxiety wrap for Buddy. What I did not contemplate was a merciless rainstorm and an elderly, terrified, overweight giant mix of a dog. Oh no. As I placed my head on the pillow, it never even entered my mind that I would be awake from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m., cradling a 100 pound animal like a baby, cleaning up the physical by-products of his fear. But that is what I did.

A better writer than I could make it all seem comic, a big adventure, a lark. A better dog owner could tell you it was part of the joys of dog ownership.

Regrettably, I am neither of these better people.

Regrettably, there were times in the wee hours of Sunday morning that I felt positively unkind toward Buddy. And we’ll leave it at that.

With fuzzy eyes and a crippling lack of sleep and a veritable lump of coal for a heart, I began my unfettered Sunday looking at my patterns, my fabrics. And Buddy wandered into my sewing room and collapsed near my feet. For a few hard seconds I looked at my projects and my dog, back and forth, projects/dog, projects/dog, projects/dog, until once again I thought: screw it.

For It occurred to me that he is very old. That despite a successful cancer surgery, the surgeon could not implant the motherboard of a four year-old dog. That he can barely see. That he walks slowly. That things hurt. That he was very scared by the very bad weather. And that he probably needs me as much as he did when he was a puppy, a murky period of his life that occurred before he came to live with us. He has his own highlight reel — a simpler one, perhaps, but it’s there — and it needed to be filled overwhelmingly with kindness. I would like my highlight reel to be filled with the same.

That is why I pushed aside the Italian fabrics, the wool, the accoutrements of dress-making. That is why I grabbed instead some kraft paper and tape, some blunt-nose scissors and a Sharpie, a measuring tape and a few pins. I read a blog post about anxiety wraps for dogs, and I looked at listings and reviews of the Thundershirt. I resolved to make my own.

It is hard to get an exhausted dog to stand still to make a pattern. He did not understand the need for several fittings. He could not care less about Velcro placement or the right snug spot of the straps. Given his druthers, he would rather sleep or eat.

After too many fittings and adjustment of straps and tapering of edges, all with Buddy’s periodic collapsing onto the floor, I finally had a mock-up. I chose some old fabric, a black fleece with brightly colored monkeys, that my daughter selected a long time ago for a Snuggie that never got made. (And for a few dicey years, this fact was flown like a flag whenever it came time to itemize my (many) failings as a mother.) Finally, with most of my unfettered Sunday afternoon gone, my dog now had a bespoke anxiety wrap:

Buddy loves it. I am not certain if he likes how it feels or if he simply likes wearing clothes. I am certain that when I have taken it off, he happily gets swaddled back into it. I have contemplated a tartan for him; Chris suggested, much to my amusement and delight, a houndstooth. After watching Buddy’s anxiety, and after having had a little more sleep, I have thought about his fears and his wishes and his comforts. His family, his home, his bed. His desire for kindness. His newfound need to be treated as carefully and watchfully as a puppy despite his age. His love of walking, which I have resolved to indulge more, and of meeting new people with the safety of his old people beside him.

These are not too terribly different from my wishes, my comforts. And while I had no desire to make a custom anxiety wrap on my unfettered Sunday, it seemed like a fair use of my skills. It felt like what I needed to do. Good lord willing, there’s always next Sunday. The forecast is clear.

ALC