Learning to Live with Fritz

Book excerpt: An opera singer meets her greatest teacher in a Manhattan pet store. In Learning to Live with Fritz, author E. Rawlins tells the story of her chaotic relationship with Frizbee, an eight pound nut case who is in reality an ill-tempered angel in a hairy disguise. In her humorous and self critical memoir fifteen years of non-stop travel take the dizzy diva and her high maintenance mascot to Paris, Brussels, Tokyo, Vienna, Salzburg, Milan, London and back to the Big Apple. Along the way they captivate a handsome young baritone on his personal journey to international operatic celebrity. As the drama unfolds, the idea of love at first sight reveals itself to be anything but a romantic illusion. Fritz upstages and controls his mistress through his rigidly enforced rules and regulations, his antics, his irascible charm and oftentimes through his bizarre otherworldly connections. This is a memoir of a narcissistic would-be diva and a dog who is dead serious about teaching her to give up her illusions, to live authentically and above all, to learn the meaning of unconditional love.