Friends

I've been missing Oscar and Felix lately - surprise surprise - but there seem to be no shortage of animals available to befriend. Roxanne's dog Arissa barks cheerily from the adjacent classroom, Kate and Mike's cat Gringo is always available to pounce on our feet, and then there are the wild Bulgarian dogs and cats.

It seems like everywhere we go an orange kitten pops its head out a dumpster or over the edge of a wall, or a tired dog lures Brett over to feed it salami and pat its head. Though stray dogs were originally one of my least favorite things about our new home, I'm coming to see something nice about them. I like that Bulgarians would rather befriend them one at a time than have them rounded up. The parking lot attendants on both sides of our building have each adopted a stray: one smiles down on the little white kitten who sits by his booth, and the other feeds the irritating dog (who I've named Dopey) that sleeps in his lot. Both men seem slightly cheered by their unusual companions. 

Last week, as you know, one stray dog convinced Brett to turn on the water for it at a public fountain in Melnik, and on Saturday this white one won our hearts and our peanuts when we happened upon its nest by the gondola in the middle of Mount Vitosha. Have you ever seen a happier looking animal?