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Leveraging Audrey's Social Capital to Save Dogs

Audrey, after all her hard work, bussing tables in the servant's quarters at minimum wage, so she can earn money to save dogs, is in tears on payday.  30 hours worked at $10 an hour, minus federal, state, and local taxes, and Social Security, as an independent contractor, nets her $237. At Costco, a thirty pound bag of USDA Organic Chicken & Pea Formula Dry Dog Food is $49.99 plus $5 shipping. Even a small dog needs at least four bags a year.  Poor Audrey is weeping face down on the floor of her bedroom.  So little money, and so many dogs to save! Rex is whining, because his savior is so upset. But not Tutor.

Tutor loves being a pedant, charged with Mentoring Heirs. He stands in his black clerical issue slacks, blacks socks, and favorite Hawaiian Luau shirt, holding up his forefinger, at right angles to his extended arm. "My Future Queen," he intones, "if I may your future Highness....." Audrey turns her head. "Shut up, Tutor, "Now is not the time to be a Stupid Grownup. We need to save dogs, and we can't. Making one of your stupid speeches is not going to help anything."

But Tutor has a plan, as Audrey will soon see.  But first he must help her take inventory of her Four Capitals.

"Your Highness, what is your total wealth?"

"$237, Stupid. I already told you. And kibble is $49.99 a bag."

"Yes, but your Highness, is that your real wealth?"

"O Tutor, why do you have be such an asshole! No, of course my real capitals are - you made me write this down - Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and what was the other one?

"I forget, too, but lets consider your intellectual capital. Can you read and write? Draw pictures? Use an Ipad?"

"Please, Tutor, why are you being such a jerk?"

"Yes, Miladay, and now what is your Social Capital?"

"The people who like me. And you are my Social Capital too, Rex., aren't you. boy?"

"And who else likes you, beside me and Rex?"

"Momma does."

"Now," says Tutor, drawing himself up to his full height, finger pumping forward and back, "Who is Momma friends with?"

"Well," says Audrey, "The Kings and Queens of Europe, hedge fund managers, artists, poets, the President of the United States, all the people who are always coming to the Castle to get her to do something, buy something...... Stupid Grownups just like you."

"Audrey, do you want to save millions of hungry dogs?"

"How?"

"We must leverage your Social Capitol...."

"You sound like Master Jack. Please, just be normal for once, ok?"

And so, they convene to the toy box, pull the blanket over the top, and as they sit facing each other, feet touching, the plan unfolds. (To be continued.)

Castles for Sale or Rent

Given the success of Gifthub, and the power of Tess's story and example, it should come as no surprise that more and more wealth advisors are shopping for Castles on behalf of their Dynastic Wealth clients. Nothing says "classy money" like a moat full of alligators. 

His Prayer for the Blessed Virgin

Sleepless in the cold grey dawn, awakened with a dream (entering the Roman arena to deliver a package, "for the good of the order," as we say in business,  then slain), Tutor stands at the casement window in the Priest's nook behind the altar in the chapel. Below he can see the ancient, now overgrown garden, once a "hortus inclusus" with roses; now, untended, full of weeds.  Built long ago, under another dispensation, the garden had a fountain (now dilapidated) for birds, and a statue, pocked by erosion and pollution, of the blessed virgin, on a pillar of stone.  The mossy fountain is filing with rain.  The Virgin cemented to her pillar cants ten degrees off center, where the earth shifted under the pediment. "Blessed Mary, Mother of God," prays Tutor, "You who are entirely without sin, who intercedes for us all; you, Blessed Mother, as you stand forgotten in this cold rain, who prays for you? Whatever you wish for us all, I pray for that. Through your being, grace, and patience please guide me with Audrey that she may own, rule, and save all creation, if only between two beats of her heart, as she lies sleeping this moment in hope. Raise what is low in me; humble what is proud. Make me your stepping stone, and hers. The first shall be last; the last shall be first. I pray this in your name for what streams through you, even now as at the hour of our death and at world's end. 

Where Red Hair Comes From

Tutor is on the iPad, longs legs extended, sitting on Audrey's bed, his back propped up with pillows against the wall. She is on the floor playing with her Thelma and Louise dolls. Tutor says, "I know something you don't know." "Tell me half of it," says Audrey, since this is a game they often play. "Has to do with red hair," says Tutor. "I have red hair," says Audrey, "what about it?" Tutor points at the iPad. "Says here that red hair comes from Neanderthals." Audrey, with the choleric temper for which Neanderthals are also known, shouts, "I am not a Neanderthal! You are the Neanderthal!" When Momma looms in the door, Tutor and Audrey are chasing each other other around the room, shouting. "No, you are the Neanderthal!" Momma, says sternly, "I cannot concentrate with you two shouting like this. I can hear you all over the Castle. Knock if off; I am trying to take delivery of Brazil."

How the Castle Reverted to a State of Nature and how Justice was Restored

Momma is out of town, negotiating to buy Brazil. 

Master Jack has accused Tutor of just loving Audrey for money, since Tutor gets, as Moral Tutor to the World's Wealthiest heir, $25 a week plus room and board. Tutor is in the dock; the jury of his peers (servants of wealth from upstairs and down, some with Doctorates, others largely illiterate, some both) have been impaneled to adjudicate this serious accusation. Master Jack, himself a JD, as befits a most Trusted Advisor,  glowers at Tutor, pointing with his finger. "Do you, Sir, or do you not love that child?" Tutor acknowledges he most certainly does. "And do you, Sir, or do you not, get paid to love her?" Tutor acknowledges that he most certainly does, an "honorarium" as he calls it, of $25 a week, to serve as her surrogate Dad, and Morals Tutor, and to prepare the child to inherit the earth and all things in it, so that, in accordance with God's Plan, as expressed through the Free Market, she can own, rule and save it, in due course. "And so, would it be fair to say, Sir, that you are a kind of prostitute in secular priest's clothing, consorting with children in Wealth Bondage for hire?" The jury of Tutor's peers, and for that matter, Master Jack's peers, gasps at such a bold statement of a truth that applies to all.  "No, Sir," says Tutor, "I am an ordained monk, and like Hillary Clinton, I serve the Best Interests of the Castle, and merely have accepted by a way of emolument what I was offered, $25 a week, before tax, plus room and board. But, yes, I do love that child," Tutor continues, "pointing his finger at Audrey, whose head is slightly higher than the Plaintiff's Table at which she sits, as the Innocent Victim and Chief Witness. "I  most certainly do love Audrey because she is very lovable." At which point Audrey leaps upon the table, her feet apart, and her little fists dancing above her head, her face as red as her hair, "I am very lovable." The jury members look at each other and murmur, "She is very lovable, of course." The judge calls for order in the court, but Tutor rises to his feet in the witness box, and shakes his own accusatory finger, moving it like a rifle barrel this way and that around the room. "But," he intones, "There is one of among us, a hypocrite,  who does not love Audrey, our once and future Queen." A gasp goes through the packed court room. "One among us does not love our once and future queen, she who will one day own, rule, and save us all?" Audrey, having resumed her seat, once again leaps upon the table, shouting gleefully, and pointing, "Master Jack!" All order is breaking down. The Just Society over which The Castle presides, is now in Momma's absence, as the world's wealthiest, reverting to a State of Nature, under Mob Rule. Master Jack, on the verge of being lynched or at least tarred and feathered by the irate mob, exclaims, "I love her as much as anyone!" "Me, too!," the Judge shouts. Then down comes the gavel: "Case dismissed." Order restored.  All is well with the world.

Meanwhile, Momma bought Brazil and is headed home.