People frequently say admiring things about my prodigious intellect. What they may not realize is that the gray matter packed tightly into my petite brain cavity is not always used to positive effect.
To wit, a recent series of diabolical poops I have been making indoors, with absolutely no justification since the doggie door is literally within sight of my chosen spot.
I am a complex dog. Underestimate me at your peril.
One of my favorite books -- Robert the Rose Horse, by Joan Heilbroner -- details the struggles of an unemployed horse. I often ponder the poignant words of Robert, the protagonist:
Fathers had work.
Mothers had work.
Every one had some kind of work.
But there were not many jobs for a horse.
Robert's words resonate with me. Options for a fluffy dog, particularly in this economy, are limited.
So I was intrigued to read "Pets Help Sell Manhattan Apartments" in the New York Times two weeks ago. The article outlined an opportunity that seems tailor-made for a cute dog such as myself: providing charm, warmth and character to seduce prospective buyers of properties up for sale.
I have heard of similar schemes where, for example, college men rent a puppy to serve as a chick-magnet. But that sort of work seems a bit beneath me. Here I feel I'd be more directly contributing to the GNP.
Is it outlandish to expect that the prospect of a dog snoozing on the couch could increase buyer perception of a home's value by 20% or more?
There's a beautiful flower that I like to visit at the bluffs.
It has been a launching pad for some of my most important investigative work.
It has also crossed my mind that if I were to position myself strategically I could use this flower and its foliage as part of a disguise to render me scary and warriorlike, as the elephants did when fighting the rhinoceri in Babar's Travels.
Just a thought.
The tea and madeleines took me back....
No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me....
And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Leonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated segment which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And as in the game wherein the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little pieces of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch and twist and take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, solid and recognizable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.
-From Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, Vol. 1: Swann's Way.
