Next, the Belgian Congo

So it's our last day here. I'm back in the business closet, eating the best vanilla cupcake of my life so far. Ivy's up on the sixth floor having her nap with Shannon, so I figured I'd check out the renowned little cupcake place up the street. It's earned its reputation, I can tell you.

Walking back to the hotel, swinging my paper bag of cupcakes, I ran into a police horse. It was huge and white, with a cop perched on its back like a little doll, and the funny thing was, I'd just read about it in the newspaper. There was this nice little fluff piece in the NY Times a few days ago about the NY horse squad (I forget what it's officially called) and how the horses are trained, and it mentioned that while paint horses (pintos, mottled ones, etc) "needn't apply", there was one white horse on the squad. The rest are all bays or chestnuts. So I ran into the one non-regulation police horse in the city, and it made me ridiculously happy. I'm in a pretty good mood, given that I'm exhausted and all. It's rained for the last couple of days, and cleared the air. That, or I've gotten used to it, but I think it's gotten better. Not as hot. And with horses and cupcakes and everything, it's really a pretty nice day.

Mainly I think I'm looking forward to heading home. I miss my dog like anything. My mother tells me Happy's become very depressed. It'll be good to get her to Saturna. Wallowing in otter shit always does wonders for her ennui.

Today we went into this store called Lucky Wang, this fairly gorgeous children's clothing store. It was raining outside but boiling hot inside, for some reason, and this horrible experimental jazz was playing that made me practically grind my molars into powder. The girl working there was annoyed with Ivy for accidentally setting off the store alarm. Ivy was annoyed that Shannon wouldn't buy her a miniscule pair of boy's swimming trunks, Speedo style. So we were all tired and irritable and this woman came in with a dog. It was a little fluffy dog on a very small scale, and it came over to me and stood up on its hind legs and licked my face with it's absurdly tiny tongue, and I loved it. I tend to become excessively fond of animals when traveling because they remind me of how much I miss my own. Anyway, it turned out the woman with the dog was Susan Sarandon. The funny thing was, I didn't recognize her at all until she started talking to Ivy. Her voice is actually pretty distinctive. Or I just watch too many movies.

That'll have to be the climax of my post. I'm finished my cupcake now, unfortunately, and I plan to go down and sit in front of the fireplace in the lobby, reading a book about rats and demanding hot tea from everyone that passes my chair, whether or not they work here.