Happy New Year.
As those of you know who followed her adventures in the year now gone, Praise Be, Mimi, in order to continue her European education, had to weigh twelve kilos, including carrier, to be allowed to fly Air France. So I put her on the strictest of diets, worked her out, had to take a car to JFK to get her health stamp several days before we actually flew as that office was closed on Sunday, spent a small tesor on various certificates, and then no one ever weighed her or checked. She was livid, which shows in a white dog, no matter how fluffy. Nor could she have the many treats one is offered as an irresistible femme in France, Switzerland or Italy, as there was the chance they would weigh her on the way back(they didn't.)
So safely home, in a fury of revenge, or perhaps a secret longing to be on Access Hollywood, she has developed an eating disorder. The first business day of the New Year, January 2nd, I spent on the phone trying to reach the vet, to find out if there is bulimia or anorexia in dogs-- if I don't feed her right on time, and much, she spits up, very delicately of course, as she is always Mimi, and looks for a place on the wood (not cushions or rugs) where it will be easy for me to clean up, The vet, however, according to the receptionist, was dealing with a dog that was 'crashing,' which translates 'dying,' and was in surgery. Mimi is nothing if not compassionate so was momentarily distracted from her obsession with food by worrying about a fellow(girl) creature, something nobody has yet recommended as a solution in diet magazines, or by Oprah, but perhaps should be.
If we could all go out and do something for a fellow(or girl) perhaps we could cut back on the frantic excursions for sushi, the longing for pasta, the bolted hamburger. Good deeds in place of bagels! I can hear the cry of street-hawkers in Baghdad, the fairy tale version, not the ugly today reality which has fallen out of public interest as a key issue in the election, I can hear him crying 'New lamps for Old!' giving rise to Aladdin and a thousand fantasies. Good deeds for Bagels! What a positive substitute.
At any rate, the patient (a black lab) lived, so it was a good first day of the working year for Nicole Overby, D.V.M. Mimi is still hungry and dissatisfied with the amounts the vet prescribed, taking little solace from the snack bone she is allowed in place of a heavy lunch. I have decided to give her as much as she wants and that I will love her more the more of her there is, as a journalist who was hitting on me once when I still worried about gaining weight said to me as part of his pitch.
Happy New Year. Enjoy life, it is fleeting as kibble.
