Billionaires I Once Knew

I'm put in mind lately of a certain NYC mayor for whom I used to work.  Perhaps you'd like to know why.  So read on . . .

Peter Parker, as you may or may not know, has a great love of a little sad puppy mill rescue stud we've had in the family for three years now.  She named him after her idol, a certain Little Tramp from the silent film era.  If you're not familiar with the whole puppy mill situation, do look up some news items and what the ASPCA is trying to do in that area.  Suffice to say, our little guy spent his first five or six years of life in an open cage without normal socialization, love, hygiene, grooming, or any appropriate treatment.  When the farmer was done with his services, he was to be shot and left for trash, but was rescued by an intrepid volunteer.  A few months later, he was family.  We love him in spite of his quirks, including his inability to fully grasp house-breaking rules.  We especially adore his 100% attachment to Peter Parker.  Whither she goes, so goes The Little Tramp.

Soon after we moved down here to the family farm, the pup was in a little accident wherein he tried very hard to head-butt the tire of a moving car.  His twelve pounds didn't fare well against the car's 4000.  After a harrowing 30 hours in the doggie emergency room, it was determined that he would not die of a brain bleed, that no bones were broken, and that waiting to see what would happen next was the proper course of action so we took him home.  He's taking a few medications that make him a little sleepy--anti-nausea medication, a pain killer, and also a steroid to help his appetite and healing.  I can't tell you how amusing it is to think of our little poof-y Schipperke former stud on steroids, but there you go.  Look out A-Rod.

But I digress (anyone keeping a count on how often I say and/or do that in my blog?).  The main issues for our little guy ten days after the contest with the auto are that his he has no eardrum in one ear so his hearing is off and he has some form of vertigo.  To compensate he has his head tilted at a ninety degree angle almost all of the time, and especially if he's walking anywhere.  Even so, he's still a bit wobbly and sometimes flops over altogether.  As a result of his head tilt, he seems to have a perpetual attitude of intense curiosity combined with a few too many cocktails.

So what does all this have to do with the soon-to-be-former Mayor?  Back in the day, I worked at a desk relatively near his on the broadcast floor of his old offices on Park Avenue.  There were two cubicles separating us one from the other and our paths often crossed in front of one of the famed fish tanks--the one nearest his desk, by the open kitchen.  He would make small talk with me, especially whenever the tanks changed from one collection to another . . . he explained that the violence in the shark tank proved unsuitable for tender hearts, as much as he liked the carnage for inspiring his market guys; he confessed that the seahorses had to go when he felt he was personally decimating their fragile population by the demands of the one tank; and he schooled me about the little crab in the tank who was known as a "decorator crab" because his camouflage technique was to have a sticky shell that would attract tiny stones and shells to hide him from predators.  I thought the decorator crab looked like something you might find in a cheesy tourist shop in Florida, but I started to watch the guy.  One day I told Hizzoner that I had begun to watch the crab each time I arrived for work for what kind of day I would have.  If the crab was under a big rock, I would have some overwhelming task to manage; if he was frolicking around, it would be a good day.  The boss was highly amused.

One morning I got to the tank first thing in the day and I couldn't find him.  Oh god, I thought, he's dead and the fish guru has taken him away like so many seahorses.  I stood, dumbstruck, in front of the tank for a long time, searching for him.  And then I marched slowly to my desk and sat down, unable to work.  

About five minutes later I hear the big guy (who is actually a little guy) shouting across the broadcast floor, "He's okay! He's in the corner! Don't worry!" In four years working there, I only heard him shout like that when the Dow crossed 11,000 for the first time.

So back to the little dog.  As I watch him cope with all this, I feel his journey to be a metaphor for my recent life.  I feel as if, in some way, I've thrown my head against a moving vehicle 333 times my weight and lost.  Now I have to hold myself in an awkward position all day long to avoid the room spinning, and still I can't seem to keep myself from occasionally doing a 360 degree twist in a completely hopeless attempt to regain my sense of balance.  Get it?