How do you do justice to describing an event with about a dozen dogs and Blue Moon, a miniature horse, all dressed up like Taylor Swift? That’s exactly what happened at UCLA on Thursday. It was a way to bring part of her incredibly popular Eras tour to the patients in Mattel Children’s Hospital.
It goes without saying that there was chaos. Picture a makeshift tent on the lawn outside of the hospital cafeteria with all of the dogs getting into costume. There were a lot of sequins and sparkles happening. I noticed a couple sitting nearby watching with very quizzical expressions on their faces.
When I walked over with Henry, the Dood of the day, to say hello to their little boy, they asked me what was going on. After I gave them a brief summary of the day’s events, they started laughing and said, “Now it makes sense.”
I was a bit disappointed that Henry’s outfit didn’t involve sequins, but he was in a plaid flannel shirt that was a perfect replica of the one Taylor was wearing on the cover of her evermore album.
ELBEE She dropped that in so casually as if she knew what she was talking about.
After the dogs and the horse were all dressed, they mingled with the huge crowd that had gathered. Then it was time for the fashion show down a mini red carpet.
A patient who had come downstairs for some fresh air, was very surprised, but delighted, when she saw all of the activity. She said how much better she felt as she posed for photos with the dogs.
Our next stop was on pediatrics. Some of the kids were a little young to be Swifties but their parents weren’t. Neither were the nurses. The animals, in their outfits, were the best dose of medicine!
The email that UCLA Health sent out prior to the Taylor Swift event included a short video taken during COVID. At the time, I was still doing Zoom calls with the dogs instead of in-person visits. On the computer screen, you could see Gus and Stanley sitting quietly next to me.
Henry, then a big goofy puppy, was crawling around my lap. I commented that, “Hopefully, some day he will follow in his big brothers’ paw prints.” How ironic. That’s exactly what he did last week.
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