So yesterday afternoon, Joi and I were sitting in this cafe in Piazza Santo Spirito when this large dog sauntered up beside me. Of course I immediately started talking to it and petting it, and at first it just stood there, not deigning to look at me. My love for the dog was so pure and selfless that I did not care about this snub. We could not see who the owner was, but for those few moments I believed that the dog was mine. It then flopped onto the ground. Then to its side. Then when I turned away for two seconds to do something else, that dog shockingly and scandalously turned right on its back and stuck its legs in the air. I had no choice but to keep petting it. During this time Joi was ordering us more coffees and was slightly uneasy to order mine in ultra American fashione, with much milk and so on, but I pointed out that my lavishing affection onto a dog on its back for the past half hour had already fully outed us as Americans. Meanwhile this one long haired sunken looking man had passed us several times without looking at us. At one point he walked past, after that dog had been at my feet for something like 45 minutes, and said something gruffly in Italian. And then my new best friend leapt into the air and followed him out without so much as a backward glance!! My heart broke in two, but that is how it is when you let these Italiano dogs have their way with you and trick yourself into thinking they actually love you. Sigh. Then the man came in for one second more to do something at the counter--not even GLANCING at us--and the dog followed. It stopped at me, licked my elbow two times, then ran out with the man and out of my life forever. At least it came to kiss me goodbye, leaving me with nothing but memories and these two photos:




The end. Oh and here is Joi looking wistfully out of the window onto our picturesque street, perhaps wondering when her own canine true love will come: