or since it has been years since we last had a canine, that your cats think you are.
Let me explain why this thought occurred.
My power has now been out for 37 hours. Latest word is we are not likely to get it back before tomorrow. So I have left Arlington for Capitol Hill, for a Starbucks with A/C and lots of outlets.
As I do various things online I have been people watching, something I love to do.
I have in partiuclar watched one young mother with her infant, a very alive and active child that likes to make eye contact and to smile. I found I was smiling back - at the infant.
Then I thought of the past two nights, with no A/C, and how our cats have reacted, how friendly and cuddly they have been, as if they knew we needed some comforting as the normal processes of our lives were disrupted.
When I was a child I can remember my mother's mother, born in Bialystok Poland in the last century, saying that there were some things a Jew simply did not do - what might it make others think of Jews.
That never really affected me.
In my 17 years as a classroom teacher, I did come to realize that many of my students looked up to me, and I had a responsibility not to abuse that trust.
But it is not quite the same. My beloved Sheltie, who passed well more than a decade, was absolutely loving and absolutely trusting. I thought of her - would I ever abuse that trust, that love? Not if I remembered it.
Almost all of us will at some point disappoint someone who trusts us, believes in us.
Perhaps sometimes when we become empassioned, totally involved in the immediate issue, we lose sight of our reflective processes. We forget how perhaps what we are saying or doing might strike others.
So perhaps it is useful to reflect - what would the children say, what about our parents, what about the trust with a significant other?
And what about our four-footed lovers who hang on all we do, who trust us to do the right thing, even when it might not be the easiest, most "rewarding" in normal human terms.
Being the person my dog - or my cat - thinks I am - being a person worthy of that absolutely love and trust and acceptance.
Not a bad standard by which to try to live, eh?
Peace.