Who is beautiful, redheaded, big-assed and divine, she went cross-country yesterday mid-afternoon to chase rabbits and has returned at dawn in a
queen's
walk of shame
, radiant, with a smile of satisfaction drawn from ear to ear, wrapped in a manila shawl of fresh deer shit?
Rome!
Rome takes its name from the Capitoline Wolf, the bronze statue that represents the wild goddess Luperea, protector of flocks from wolf attacks, and who, according to the most widespread version of the myth, in the 7th century suckled two runaway babies, Romulus and Remus, saving their lives.
Years later, these two young people would found the capital of the Roman Empire.
The moment I saw her for the first time, on a hot, sweltering August Saturday eleven years ago, her name was clear to me.
Me, in my eighth month of pregnancy, about to explode, going down to the street from my fourth floor without elevator, in a T-shirt,
shorts
and slippers, to the grocery store, to get a couple of jugs of water;
she, a few months old orange-colored, hairy, gangly and short-legged puppy, fighting cars at a crossroads where two four-lane avenues converge in the center of Barcelona, crazed and stiff with fear in the middle of the hubbub, in a cloud of noise of horns.
I have never been one to have too much sympathy for pets.
I have never seen the point of keeping anyone caged or tied up against their nature, in a hole in the jungle of cement and tar, an environment that is already quite harsh with humans, who are supposedly capable of rationalizing it and understand it.
But that day I didn't hesitate.
I stuck the staff like Gandalf in the middle of the asphalt and threw myself determinedly onto the road. I stopped the cars shouting, "What the hell do you expect me to understand, the poor beast, with so much beeping?" skin of the neck, as her mother would have done, and I took her out of there.
I took her to the nearest vet, so they could scan her chip, do the required check-up and take care of the problem.
I left it there.
A couple of hours later the phone rang.
The consultation closed in ten minutes.
The animal, which must have been just over four months old, had no chip or apparent health problems beyond the scare.
On Monday he would head straight to the pound.
Roma came to live with my daughter and me and came out better than anyone else when I decided that we were coming to live in the countryside.
Here it is easier than in the city to eat homemade and healthy.
If on any given Friday afternoon I happened to call the nearest pizzeria to order a couple of margaritas for delivery, I would get a laugh.
It doesn't cost anyone to send a driver, so food never comes to you, you have to go get it, and travel for the sake of traveling, it is more practical to go shopping once a week or every fortnight and have The pantry is always full: both the basics and the superfluous.
When I buy a couple of whole chickens or a large piece of beef or pork, cartilage, tendons, calves, and scraps go into a pot where they boil for a few minutes.
From there, to a bowl in the refrigerator, where they come out to season the feed that Roma eats.
Giving him raw chicken would endanger the neighbor's chickens: he would automatically identify them as a snack.
Near my house there is only one flock of sheep.
We neighbors know the shepherd's schedule and routines, and he takes care to have them properly marked with cowbells that allow us to know from a distance where the cattle are.
This means that Roma can go for a walk with me without being tied, with the peace of mind that comes from knowing that there will be no clashes.
Rome today cannot move because of bone pain, the stiffness due to overexertion will last a couple of days, and because of frustration.
He's getting older and he no longer has the body to jog, but he knows that in life there are evils (smells of wild boar, running rabbits, fresh deer shit) that are worth getting carried away with, just like me. I don't feel like giving up spending the occasional evening chewing tobosines knowing that heartburn is going to keep me up all night.
She only escapes a couple of times a year, and there is nothing I can do to prevent it, other than condemning her to always living locked up or chained, like in the city.
Recently a woman attacked me in the supermarket shouting “Look at Nicolau, the standard bearer of traditional food!
This photo goes straight to Twitter!”
She caught me putting a couple of bags of Risketos and a package of Donettes in the car.
We don't eat just to give the body the nutrients it needs to continue functioning, but we also eat to celebrate the joy of staying alive, to enjoy each and every one of our degrees of freedom.
To live with less than three contradictions is to be a fanatic.
Madam, I do not accept terrorist blackmail: we all like to eat shit from time to time, and anyone who says otherwise is lying.
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