Today Bimba, my rescue dog, almost excised my middle finger. Well, wait, I'm overdoing things, as usual. However, we were playing on the beach, and at a certain point the rubber ball I threw for her to fetch slipped from my hand, so I tried to grab it in the air—and so did she. Fortunately, I just got a scratch, but it was a good reminder that I'd better avoid rough play with my little angel. She's a saint, but I was told she's also 90% Staffordshire breed and today she showed she can be rough when there's a toy involved.

On the other hand, Bimba can also be something of a PR agent. Yesterday, we were on the beach early in the morning—the hour I take her out on a walk in order to avoid the crowd that gathers there later this time of the year. Bimba was running unleashed when a young woman came over to pet her. She spoke to me in English, which was a shock at first, but I suddenly recalled we are having an International Film Festival in town these days. I finally learned she was an Armenian filmmaker who was featuring a docudrama focused on Sergei Paradjanov, a famous Soviet auteur to whom the Festival has devoted a retrospective cycle. I happened to know Paradjanov's work, which I thought was likely to surprise her too, but on second thought, it shouldn't be much of a shock to casually find a film buff on the beach when a film festival is taking place, should it?