I arrived in San Francisco yesterday afternoon, ready to spend a week working with a client and visiting with friends. I love coming here, as the people I stay with have a lovely home in the Castro, an open-door policy, and a fun and welcoming collective of family and friends. There’s always something going on at their house; it’s the kind of place where a dinner party might break out at any moment.

When I walked into the house, the first greeting I got was from Cosmo.

Ah, Cosmo. The Coz. Cozziemodo. She’s aged since I saw her last, moving more slowly now, barking with less vigor.

For some reason I thought back to the first time I saw her: she was a little thing, all soft brown fuzz and nippy little teeth. That was eleven years ago, and as I remembered her puppy self, I couldn’t help but remember my comparatively puppy-ish self of that time too. When I met Cozzie, I had no career, no partner, not even a fixed address. I ended up living with my friend and Cozzie for a while, a time which marked the beginning of new phases in my life, both personal and professional.

Looking at Cosmo now, it’s funny to think of her being on that whole journey with me in a way. When I was growing up, we never had the kind of family pet that alters the course of childhood history. We did get a dog when I was in high school, but I’m sorry to say that she spent most of her life in the backyard, looking wistfully into the living room where she wasn’t allowed. I hate even to admit this now, but at the time, I’d never bonded with a pet and didn’t think there was anything strange about the dog spending her life alone in the yard, barking at passing cars.

But as an adult, starting with Cosmo and her fellow reclaimed stray, Bo, I began to understand the bonding that takes place between pets and people. And I really began to get it a couple years later, when Stella and I moved in together with her cats, Flossie and Brigitte.

It wasn’t love at first sight. I was horribly allergic to the cats — sneezing and itchy-eyed and irritated. They clawed at the furniture, they brought dead mice (and once, memorably, a live one) into the living room, they coughed up hairballs and yowled at night. They were creatures to be tolerated, not loved.

But over time, those purring little furballs began to win me over. Flossie, trying to trick the birds outside the window by ack-ack-acking like a crow! Racing down the hallway, her belly swinging side to side! Sitting at the table, as if she was reading the paper!

And Brigitte, with her translucent yellow eyes and soft black fur, silent and shy except when she trilled happily like an opera singer.

Reader, I fell for them. Hard. So hard that on the day Flossie died, I was the one who had to pull over on the drive home from the vet’s because I couldn’t stop sobbing. And I had lived with her for only four years, not 13, like Stella had. This was the moment I realized how much these animals were witnesses to our lives, to our own transformations. They were constants in a changing world.

Okay, so I admit I came to this particular revelation a little late. And I don’t even have a pet now, so what’s the point in waxing all rhapsodic about this magical, mystical bond? If you’re a pet person, you’re probably wondering when this post will tell you something you don’t know. And if you’re not, you probably abandoned reading this post long before the first cat photo.

But what can I say? I’m a convert, with the convert’s requisite, possibly annoying zeal. Of course, I approach pets in much the same way I do children: I love ’em! But I don’t necessarily want ’em myself! You know, they’re a lot of work and expense and all, especially if you travel a lot. So, herewith, a small gallery of my favorite proxy pets, some of whom will be recognizable to the greater Great Whatsit community.

Dexter the Horse Dog:

Lucy, the Softest Dog on Earth:

Chimpy, the Cutest Sentient Being in the Known Universe:

And, snoozing on the floor next to me as I type, Cozzie. Here she is, leaving in embarrassment at all the attention: