Sunday, April 22, 2012

Funds of Funds

Spread the bad tranches - dilute, dilute!
Praise the wise traders - salute, salute!
We'll call ourselves shrewd,
(Tho' the emperor's nude)
And a percent commission
Will turn into two!
Tho the umbrella's shredded,
(T'was never repaired)
The fox in the hen house
Says "Don't fear the bears,
"'Twon't rain again soon,
Bears promise they're fair!"
And foxes and bears why they're cute, they're cute!
With their odd little smiles and gold parachutes.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Corky

Part the Second, where we find out the fate of Corky the Yorkie.

I recently mentioned to Corky's erstwhile human that I had questions about his fate. She related the following:

As Corky was inherited by the people who took over the country estate, and the only remaining animal compadre of Corky was a Russian blue cat, who had come to the house later on than Corky, he did finally achieve Alpha dog status, though with a severely reduced empire, the aforementioned cat being pretty much it. And the land itself, of course, but any empire without subjects is no empire at all, really, so the cat was it.

My friend noted, though, that Corky and the cat had been quite close. Perhaps too much so, in my view, as I will relate.

When my friend was still there with her full menagerie, it at any given time included a cornucopia of species, including parrots and macaws (and once a duck living with them in the outdoor habitat), dogs, of course, the occasional python kept for friends, a tortoise, an iguana, a hog, several goats, etc. I'm positive I'm leaving out a lot. As an example, I once opened a bureau drawer to find hedgehogs. I was unsurprised although I had no previous awareness that she had hedgehogs.

Anyway, she told me the story of how she became friends with a fellow at the local grocery who kept the waste produce for her and would come by a couple of times a week to chat and deliver the animal chow. The fellow was African American and it happened he had a white wife, and my friend suspected that in rural South Carolina their social life might be circumscribed somewhat by the local mores, so she invited the couple to socialize over there at some future time (which did come about later.) But just as she told the man, "We don't much care around here what body people are born in," a goat attempted to mount at that moment one of the hogs. Goats' reputations are deserved, but at that instant Corky too was seized by a transport of interspecies lust and mounted the cat, who apparently and perversely had for some sporadic past occasions also, submitted to Corky's overtures to the point of actual consummation.

"I was afraid he (the visitor) would think he had stumbled into some sort of nightmarish Dr. Moreau situation," she noted to me.

At that point of course I could do nothing but laugh until tears flowed, and that was fine because the story was over.