Twice now in the last few days, as I came out of the bank and again, walking passed the school, a fox, all bushy and gorgeous, trotted by me.  This would never happen in New York; there, it’d have been a huge rat digging in trash or terrorizing subway riders.

I had a rat in my Soho apartment once, I’d dealt with mice and they were bad enough, but a rat is, as they say, a whole other animal. For the record, they do smell. And shriek like a two-year-old, and charge at you in the middle of the night if you get up to see what the hell is going on. I threw shoes at mine and trapped it under a metal bucket. Then I hid in the bathroom trying to reach animal control on my cell phone. Somehow I got transferred to 911 and they sent two burly cops who, on seeing the size of the tail whipping around outside of the bucket, debated about whether to shoot it but decided against blowing a hole in my floor. Only slightly less afraid than I was, they finally shoved an old cookie sheet under the bucket and carried that thrashing, screaming nightmare out the door. A Manhattan moment if ever there was one; but at least the damn thing hadn’t leapt out of my toilet after swimming through the sewer or actually bit me.

Perhaps my favorite interaction with a non-human species was at a loft party one New Year’s Eve where Zippy, the world famous roller-skating chimpanzee, plopped down on the sofa next to me and held my hand. His paw felt like a leather glove, and with his toothy grin and little suit and bow tie, he looked exactly like George Burns. We sat holding hands until one of my friends half jokingly said I had better watch out or I might have to get married. Not that I haven’t dated worse, my ex-husband, for one, was a bit of a beast - but I do remember Zippy fondly.

Happy New Year!