Permutations of Love
I. Lester is a beautiful Bernese mountain dog who stops traffic—literally. People pull their cars over to ask about him. He’s been in commercials. As a result of living in Los Angeles, he knows how to find the craft services table at any film shoot and charm a Teamster into giving him bacon; as a result of having been raised in New York City, he knows how to wait at the curb for car service. He has a big vocabulary and a well-trained owner (me). He used to be a solid 125 pounds, but he’s down to a skinny 105 as a result of degenerative myelopathy—canine ALS—with which he was diagnosed in August of 2018[…]