If only I were Nancy Mitford I'd have a landscape full of dogs, guns, steeplechases, hounds, horns, pink coats and other paraphernalia of animalism in people to guide you through the strange new circumstance of a Jewess (no longer young), about to welcome into her home (and his) a toy white French poodle. Twelve weeks old. Two or three pounds. Shivering in a little crate at the Delta cargo terminal at Newark Airport, sitting in its mess at 8:15 PM on a Friday night. Shabbat. The poodle's first Shabbat! How lucky: to be reborn on Shabbat. She even gets a new name, though we're not sure what it is. Maybe Sugar? Suga? Shabbes?
This I need to sleep on. I'll think about it in the morning, or after I shlep off to buy all the real paraphernalia of my new life with animal, including...puppy papers. Ecchh. As the little boy from Sheffield said to the Duchess of Devonshire when asked, while on a school trip to see her working farm at Chatsworth, what he thought of the tiny calves sucking at the teats of their calm mother: "I never saw anything so disgustin' in my life. I'll never drink milk again."
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