Fritzi and I

I had an exotic infancy. Rejecting, they say, ordinary nourishment, I was dispatched to a German nurse in Santa Barbara, Aunt Kiki, who raised me on her farm on goat's milk, and whom I would visit every Summer and Christmas. At home in San Marino, family would visit and modify their codicils, cooing at my resemblance to my grandfather, who had roundly been despised. His ex-wife, my grandmother, is said to have wept. I wouldn't know.

But underneath my crib there lay my friend for life, Fritzi - an adorable ball of fuzz as I see his portraits now, who grew quickly into that gorgeous destiny of his own. Fritzi did not welcome interlopers, and his notion of alienation included too many in the household for the conven-ience of the dilletanti. He and I were separated. Always in my life, I have gratefully reached out to this breed, as they know.