Cruella is the New Miranda Priestly

Designing a Cliché In “101 Dalmations,” the 1956 book by Dodie Smith, Cruella was the wife of a wealthy furrier — as she was in Disney’s first animated film, in 1961. It wasn’t until Glenn Close embodied her in the 1996 live action version that she became a designer in her own right, running the…

The ‘Talking’ Dog of TikTok

Alexis Devine said that she knew early on that Bunny, her sheepadoodle puppy, was destined to talk. A 40-year-old artist and jewelry designer in Tacoma, Wash., Ms. Devine had pored over literature on canine cognition, communication and training in the months leading up to Bunny’s arrival. Through her research, she came across the Instagram page…

Save Your Houseplants!

Welcome. Winters are hard on the Hoya carnosa hanging in my bathroom window. Some time in October, the radiator heat sputters on, the sun gets stingy and the plant’s wax-leaved vines begin to shrivel and fall off. By April, the plant is spiky and parched, the leaves luster-free and a little bit dusty. I remove…

A Last Hurrah a Year After the Wedding

Ms. Quiroz says she would feel this way without the pandemic. But current limitations made matters worse because it meant she wasn’t invited to the wedding, and the bridal shower was a drive-through. “There wasn’t even this fun social event that I was going to get to attend,” she said. “It rubbed me the wrong…

Can This Houseplant Be Saved?

I just moved my houseplants back outside, after an interminable winter of low-humidity, low-light indoor torture, and some are the worse for wear — particularly one long-cherished fancy-leaf begonia. Also, I love Japanese food. In fact, I just picked up takeout the other day. There might not seem to be a sequitur powerful enough to…