just as soon as I finish this post...

It has been ten days since I sent my dad a letter. I guess it is time for me to sit down and write him another one. I know it has been that long because I save copies of all the letters I have sent him since we moved here. So I know that I have sent him twenty letters over the eight months we have lived here, and I know how frequently I sent them and what I wrote to him in each of them. I have not received anything in return from him, nor do I expect to. And yet, I still say, it is time for me to write my dad a letter.

When I first started writing to him, I tried to only write about things I thought he would care about or be interested in. Gradually I realized that he doesn't really care about the things I do out here and the only thing he is interested in is when I might be coming back. So. I stopped caring whether he was interested or not, and now I pretend that he is a normal person who is interested in normal things. I write him cheery, descriptive letters about our lives here. I tell him about the house and the dogs and the garden - pretty much what I write about here, actually.

To be honest, I am not entirely sure why I continue this practice. I think my letters might actually irritate my dad in some ways. I mean, we like it out here, we're doing fine, we're not planning on ever going back to Ohio (at least I'm not!) so, obviously, he doesn't want to hear about it. On the other hand, if I stopped writing to him, I think he would be pissed off about that, as well. So, yeah, damned if I do and damned if I don't. I guess the main reason I continue to write to my dad is because I think it is the right thing to do. Is there a better reason than that?

no good deed goes unpunished

So I got a call from Wesleyan Village this morning. "Dad is doing fine," the soothing voice on the other end of the line assured me right away, "but we've got a bit of a problem." You know, as soon as I saw that 440 area code in my caller I.D., I knew it wouldn't be good news. And it wasn't.

One of the requirements of living in an assisted care facility, it seems, is that once a year the resident's primary care physician must examine the resident and fill out a form pertaining to the resident's general health. You know, the results of an annual check-up. Doesn't seem like a big deal, does it? Well, that's because you're not my dad. Apparently, he insisted he doesn't go to doctors and so doesn't have a PCP. When told that he had visited the doctor a little over a year ago, he replied that he doesn't have transportation to get there now and so can't go. When assured that transportation could be provided for him, he declined, as he would have to pay for it.

"The last thing he said to me before he hung up on me, " the nice lady told me, "was to call his daughter. She got me into this mess." Yes, I got him into that mess. One only need look at my blog posts of early last year to see how I agonized over what to do with my dad as he had clearly deteriorated to the point where he could no longer live alone and care for himself. I shudder to think how things would be for him if he were still living in that decrepit house all by himself. The "mess" that I got him into was the best and most expensive facility in the area. Aren't I a bad daughter for doing that?

I explained to my caller that I live in Maryland now and that my dad is mad at me for moving so far away. (That is what I assume, anyway, as he has never said.) She did not have my updated info, and apologized for not knowing. "We will try something else then, " she assured me. That's what they will have to do because I can no longer drive to Elyria and take care of him. I most especially can't go out there now to deal with this. That would teach my dad that raising a fuss gets my attention. So I will treat him like an unruly child and be careful not to reward his bad behavior. Meanwhile, yeah, I feel like crap about it. And as ornery as my dad is, that's probably just what he wants.

mea culpa

Yesterday was my dad's 84th birthday. I did not call him. I did not send him a present. Yeah, I feel bad about it. I sent him a birthday card, a post card, and his regular letter. I briefly considered sending him a potted plant, but when I asked Ben what he thought about that idea, he quickly vetoed it. And he was right. Last spring I took my dad some branches of blooming forsythia in a vase of water. They sat for weeks on his radiator until I removed them. Needless to say, they were quite dried out and dead by that time. I don't know why he left them like that, but he did. Maybe he figured I put them there, I could move them.

Dad doesn't make it easy. There is nothing he needs, but more importantly, there is nothing he wants. Last year, every time I went to visit him, I took him something. A new sweater. A beautiful quilt for his bed, which even Dad thought looked quite pretty. Soft, colored t-shirts so that he would quit wearing his white undershirts to dinner. I never saw him wear the sweater or the t-shirts. He returned the quilt to me and told me it was too heavy to sleep under. So he wears old sweaters over his undershirts, just like he always has. His bed is covered by a cheap, unzipped sleeping bag from Walmart. I never took him flowers again, needless to say.

Ben tells me all the time I should call my dad, and he is probably right. But I don't want to call my dad. He has never been good at talking on the phone, and he is even worse now. He has no small talk, nor is he interested in mine. That is why, really, the letters I send him on a regular basis are the perfect way to communicate with him. He can react to them - or not - any way he wants, and I won't ever know it.

These are my rationalizations for not calling my dad or sending him a gift for his birthday. Pick whichever one(s) work for you. They don't quite do it for me. On the positive side, today is the last day of February. Hooray for that, anyway.

but is it communication?

I try to write a letter to my dad every ten days or so. In fact, checking my folder of letters, I see that I wrote every eleven days in December, actually, so it's time for another update. I have been holding off, waiting for the photos that Ben was going to send to Walgreen's, but they are ready to pick up now.

I sit down at my computer, adjust my font size to 14, and try to write a cheery, informative letter. I try to make it sound like I am sitting in Dad's room at Wesleyan Village, chatting with him. Frankly, when I am there I frequently wonder if I am boring him or if he is thinking what an idiot I am, so basically I wonder the same thing as I type these letters. But I persevere. I usually end up with about a page and a half of news about what Ben and I are doing, changes we are making to the house, how the kids are, and what the dogs are up to. Then I hand sign the letter and send it off.

I don't ever expect a reply, you understand. My dad used to be quite the letter writer, firing off hand-printed, single-spaced, many-paged missives to anyone who rubbed him the wrong way - and that was a lot of people. I found copies of many of these letters when I was cleaning out Dad's file cabinet before the house sold. They made me sad, though, and I threw them all away. He has been so angry for such a long time.

Dad sent me a couple of "letters" last year when I was working on getting him situated at Wesleyan Village. They were printed in pencil on torn sheets of paper, and generally were one-sentence requests or questions. He has never liked to use the telephone, you see, and only calls me under situations of duress. He hasn't called me since we moved to Maryland, and I don't believe he will. I think he thinks the phone call will be too expensive, although I tried to explain he would be calling my cell phone with the Ohio area code.

In spite of all this, I will sit here later today and write another letter. I will try to make it light-hearted and informative. I will try once again to connect with my dad. I don't know if I'm doing it for him or doing it for myself. I only know I need to do it.

how it is

My dad and I went to his favorite restaurant for lunch on Tuesday. I have mentioned the place before. It is a formerly skeezy bar that now houses a small family restaurant. It is a clean, bright space, and the mismatched Fiesta ware is homey and cheerful.

The food is simple, tasty and inexpensive. We usually order the same thing every time. We each have a bowl of stuffed pepper soup - which I am in awe of and wish I could make myself - and we split a grilled cheese sandwich. Sometimes we have a patty melt instead, especially when Dad tells me he hasn't been eating any meat at Wesleyan Village.

We usually see the same waitresses working the lunch hour. For a while, it was a little dumpling of a woman named Patsy, whom my dad recognized from several other restaurants in the area. Patsy always brought us our sandwich halves on separate plates, each with our own chips and pickles. We haven't seen her for a while, but the woman who waited on us this week was someone who has waited on us before. I have to say, her service was indifferent, at best. She brought us one plate with our sandwich and chips on it, and I did not receive any refills on my glass of water, although she did refill my dad's coffee cup.

I took a peek at the bill as my dad pulled a handful of cash from his pocket to pay our tab. It was fourteen dollars and some change - not bad for lunch for two. When Dad left two singles on the table as a tip, I began to understand the service we had received. We got up to leave, and my dad shuffled up the aisle to pay the bill. "Let me just get my coat on," I called to him, but I was rummaging in my purse for my wallet. I found only two singles there, but quickly laid one of them on top of his tip.

I felt bad for the waitress. I felt bad for my dad. I felt bad. That's just the way it is these days.

a day in the life

I drove out to see my dad yesterday, and, once again, when I called to let him know I was coming, he seemed very glad to hear it. Our visit went, really, okay. He did tell me, once again, that he doesn't think he will ever like it there. "Well, I'm sorry to hear that, " was my reply, "because you know you can't live in the house by yourself anymore." Yes, yes, he allowed that was true, and we went on to the next topic. So maybe he just needed me to respond in some way - any way - when he told me that, rather than just looking at him sadly. That's not to say I think he won't ever say that to me again, because I know he will. But now I feel like I know what to say in reply.

I think the weather has brightened Dad's spirits a bit - I know it has mine. He told me has been walking downtown and back every day - a walk of about seven blocks each way. The neighborhood has gone downhill a great deal since we lived there, not that it was ever that great. I'm sure the sidewalks are cracked and hooved up by tree roots, so I worry about that. But I know he needs to get out and walk more than anything else, and I try to remember that. I wonder if he misses the walk he took for so many years around Eastern Heights. I wonder if the people on his route miss him.

All in all, we had a nice visit, which will certainly make it easier to go back the next time. Because there's always a next time.

yeah, it's still February, so this is how it goes

Yesterday was my dad's 83rd birthday. I called him in the morning to wish him a happy birthday, and to let him know that Ben and I would be driving out to see him and take him out to lunch. He expressed concern that the roads would be too bad, but I assured him we would be fine. "Well, that's great, " he said. "I'll be glad to see you." A promising start to the day, I thought, and after picking up cupcakes and sparkling water and birthday plates, napkins, and cups, we headed to Elyria.

Dad did seem genuinely glad to see us, but I was discouraged to see that, as for my last couple of visits, he wasn't wearing one of the nice, new sweaters I bought, but an ugly, heavy, untucked flannel shirt. He had a bad cold, he told us right away, everyone did in that pest house. I stifled a laugh as I thought, for god's sake, that's straight out of Charles Dickens. The Wesleyan Village could not be further from a pest house. I remarked that anywhere alot of people were living together - in a dorm, for example - winter illnesses were rampant. He seemed unpersuaded.

We took Dad to his favorite little restaurant for lunch, which he seemed to enjoy, remarking on how much better the food was there than where he lived. He allowed Ben to treat, which is unusual, but we insisted as it was for his birthday. When we got back to the Village, Dad seemed reluctant to return to his room, and took us on a slow, circuitous tour. Now, I have toured the facility probably four or five times, I was wearing a heavy coat (and it is warm in there) and I had to pee. Finally, there was nothing else for it: "I have to pee! Could we please go back to the room?"

Dad had arranged his desk chair and the bench we brought from the house in a little seating arrangement, so we sat and had cupcakes and chatted. I had brought his college scrapbook along, but he was disinclined to look through it, and told me to keep it. "You guys don't have to stick around," he finally told us, so we took that as our cue to leave. I don't think he realized how personally I took his parting words to us. "Well, I still don't like it here," he said. "I probably never will."

Everyone keeps telling me, he needs time to adjust, he'll get used to it. But I'm not so sure. I tend to agree with my dad. He probably never will.

sometimes, where you least expect it, joy

"Remember my old college suitcase?" my dad asked me recently. "I want you to give it to your cousin, Davey. He always loved it. Used to drag it around the house when it was bigger than he was."

Well, of course, I remembered the suitcase, but I wasn't at all sure that Dave would. The suitcase was older than me, needless to say, and the stickers on its side - "Ohio University" and "Phi Kappa Tau" were among my earliest memories. My dad took it on every business trip, and I remember it coming home festooned with tags from airports across the country.

When my brother, Bill, and I were at the house on Monday, I asked him if he could find the suitcase for me. Of course, he could, and soon he walked down the attic steps carrying the ancient, dusty suitcase. "Are you sure Dave will remember this?" Bill asked me, as he cleaned decades of dust from the leather surface. "Not at all," I replied, "but Dad wants him to have it."

As I drove home that day, I decided to give Dave a call. "Hey, I have a gift for you from your uncle," I told him. "Yeah, what is it?" "Do you remember his old college suitcase? He wants you to have it." I was totally unprepared for Dave's reaction. "Are you kidding me?! Really?! Do you know that the family story goes that I took my first steps towards that suit case? My first steps ever! I am so touched that he wants me to have that!"

"I didn't know, " I told him. I didn't know. And I don't think my dad did, either. But he certainly remembered the strong attachment he and his young nephew - and namesake - had shared. He gave Dave a gift that he may not have known the magnitude of, but that doesn't lessen its value. My heart sang as I drove the rest of the way home. By asking me to deliver his old suitcase, my dad gave me a gift, as well. The gift of joy. Thanks, Dad.

progress report - if you can call it that

We moved my dad to Wesleyan Village on February 1st. It was a cold, clear winter day. In less than two hours, the movers had moved everything Dad wanted to take. And then there we were - Dad and Ben and Bill and me all standing in the room that was now his home. We had lunch there with him, but then it was time for us to be on our way. It felt stranger than I can say to leave my dad there. The three of us went back to the house, and that was strange, too. My dad had embarked on his new life.

That was on a Monday. The phone call and email came on Tuesday evening. "Your dad is having some problems adjusting. He had a run-in with the RN about taking his meds. He walked out of the dining hall without dinner when he got confused. What is the best way to handle this?" I was not at all surprised to hear this. I was surprised and dismayed to be contacted so quickly, however. My reply was quick and, I hope, courteous. Dad was going to have to learn to adjust and get along. Without me. I believe my message was received, as I have not gotten daily status reports since then.

I waited a week and a half before I drove out to visit my dad. I thought that would give him time to settle in a bit and start to develop a routine. Hopefully, to adjust. He is not adjusting. He doesn't like it there. He says the meat is tough, and so he only eats salads. He is constipated, and talked about it endlessly. Dad has lost his inner filter - not that it ever worked that well. As we sat in a bank office waiting for a customer service representative, Dad turned to me and asked, "Ever had an enema?" I was surprised, offended, and pissed off. "Not that I remember, Dad," was the best reply I could manage.

I tried to shake the effects of that visit all weekend long, but couldn't quite do it. I had worked so hard to get him in the best place he could possibly be, and he didn't like it. I should be so lucky to end up someplace like that. When I talked to my brother on Sunday, however, he put things in perspective for me. "Dad was never going to be happy there. He's not happy anywhere. He's not happy." He's not happy. It's true. And I was wrong to think that changing his address would change him.

expect the worst, I always say

I dragged my ass out to Elyria yesterday, having this inner dialogue as I drove that was really just me listening to me complain. I didn't want to go to Elyria, my dad was going to give me a hard time about some things we had discussed on the phone the day before, the banks and post office would be closed, we wouldn't get enough done in the time I had there. As it turned out, everything I thought was wrong. Well, the banks and post office were closed, but other than that...

When I got to my dad's house, the concerns he had expressed to me the day before were gone. (They may come back, I know.) We picked up his new eyeglasses and had them fitted. That took almost no time at all, and he liked them so well that he left them on for the rest of the day, even though he had worn his old glasses for reading, only. After lunch, we went back to the house, and I loaded my car with some books he wanted to give me, and some paintings I wanted to have.

The most important thing we did yesterday, however, was sign all the papers - so many papers - and put down a security deposit for his studio apartment at Wesleyan Village. Dad will be moving there February 1st. His third-floor "apartment" consists of one large, sun-filled room and an ample bathroom. The room's two large windows face west and overlook a couple of shuffleboard courts, the small patio homes that are part of the Village, and past those, the tops of trees in a small woods that leads down to the bank of the Black River. This is where I have wanted him to live since we first visited Wesleyan Village. I am deeply satisfied. I hope Dad is, too.

did I mention one step forward and two steps back?

My dad had his assessment yesterday for his admittance to Wesleyan Village. What this means is that an RN from the Village came to his house and asked him some questions and gave him a couple of simple cognition tests. I thought he did pretty well. He certainly knew what day of the week it was, what year it was, and what state he lived in, anyway. There may be cobwebs in the corners, but he still does his own laundry, showers every day, and heats up the food Bill and I bring him. All good things.

When the conversation turned to his daily medication, however, the tone took a turn for the weird, as it so often does with my dad. Yes, he told her in answer to her question, he takes his medication every day, because he paid for it, but once he is finished with what he has, he doesn't want to take it anymore. The young lady looked up from her notes and focused her bright blue eyes on him. "Are you saying you would refuse to take your prescribed medication?" I looked up from my knitting at that point, pretty sure that Dad was on the verge of messing up all we had accomplished to that point. "I want to try to get along without it, once I am moved in," he replied. "That seems reasonable," I said, looking right at her. Yes, she agreed, that seemed reasonable. Whew.

I got a call from Roni, our incredible liason, later that day, and to my relief, she said the assessment had gone well, and we could think about setting up a move-in date. At that point, she and I laughed about my dad's comment, but for a minute there, it wasn't all that funny. What a relief it will be (on so many levels) to have him safely settled.

full disclosure

My dad, who will turn 83 next month, was recently diagnosed with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease. As it turns out, this diagnosis came as a relief to him, as it confirmed what he had suspected for some time. Needless to say, Dad can't continue to live by himself. This is something he realizes, and this realization has driven our current search for an assisted living facility. From the beginning, I wanted him to go to Wesleyan Village, and it now looks like that is where he will end up.

I will be writing about our journey here in the hope that it will somehow help me deal with my sorrow, anger, and frustration. As I said to a friend, this is a maze I had hoped to never enter, but we are in the thick of it now, and sometimes taking one step forward and two steps back, we proceed.

going for a ride

I remembered a car trip on a summer day. Just my dad and me – my favorite way to travel. No little brothers to share his attention, no mother to doze and snore in the front seat, admonishing us all to shut up - just the two of us speeding along quiet country roads. In those pre-air conditioned days, all the windows were rolled down, letting a wall of hot summer air rush in.

Sometimes I sat up front, on the long bench seat next to my dad. If I got tired, I lay down and rested my head on his leg as he drove along, his freckled left arm turning pink, then red in the bright sunlight. Sometimes we sang together – but not the songs you might think. “’Twas a cold winter’s evening, the guests were all leaving…” we would begin, and we would sing one of his old college drinking songs with great gusto. My mother despaired that neither of us could carry a tune, but we liked each other’s singing just fine.

Although I liked to sit up front next to my dad, that day I had clambered over the seat, and lay stretched out on the back seat, my bare feet (a no-no when my mother was along!) propped on the open window. It was hot in the car and the air blew in the windows with a monotonous roar. I stared absently at my wiggling toes as the telephone poles rushed past, the wires between them looping quickly by. It was a moment of pure contentment that I have never forgotten.

I wondered at first why that memory came to me yesterday as I drove home through the fine, driving snow of a January afternoon. I had spent the day with my dad, trying to get some of the myriad tasks accomplished for his move to an assisted living facility a block away from the house where I grew up. We made several stops: the doctor’s office, the pharmacy, the bank. At each stop, the seatbelt in my car confounded my dad, as he pulled the wrong end of it or couldn’t click it safely closed. Each time I did it for him.

My dad drove me, and now I drive him. It’s really pretty simple.

a final farewell

I went to visit my dad yesterday, which turned out to be a good idea, as today we are being soaked by freezing rain. Northeast Ohio in the wintertime - gotta love it. We had a nice visit, including lunch at a little family restaurant that was a skeezy bar thirty years ago. Now it is a bright and cozy space with mismatched Fiestaware dishes and the work of local artists displayed on the walls. They serve the best meatloaf I have ever eaten. (Yeah, we both had the meatloaf. Hey, it was my big meal of the day, so climb off.)

After lunch, we decided to drive by our old house, which has the misfortune to be located between two local behemoths that are swallowing up all the old homes surrounding them - the high school and the old folks home. (You can supply your own p.c. term for that - I grow weary of trying to keep them straight.) It is the high school that is taking our house, along with the rest of the houses on that side of the street. An eight-foot tall chain link fence surrounds them all now, and it looks like the workmen are finishing up the process of removing all the valuable fixtures from the interiors of the houses, and beginning the demolition.

The old street looks pretty bad now, although even when I was a kid, I knew it wasn't a "good" neighborhood. It was a solidly blue-collar neighborhood, with many of the fathers on the street walking to their jobs at local foundries, and then straight to the nearby bars when their shifts had ended. I suspect my dad was the only person on the street with a college degree, but things like that never mattered to him.

This is an ugly time of year in Northeast Ohio, and even though the sun was out yesterday, it could not improve the appearance of the empty, windowless houses with piles of rubble outside each of them. It was unutterably sad to know that I was seeing my old house for the last time, but at the same time, I was oddly comforted to be there with my dad. He is not a sentimental man, and I drew strength from his matter-of-fact attitude.

As we drove away from our house for the last time, I took with me the memory of a young father walking up the street with his daughter's small hand held in his own. It is twilight on a warm summer evening, and the two of them are walking to the local carry-out to pick up a six-pack and maybe a bag of pretzels, if she can talk him into it. He says hello to everyone they pass as they walk along, whether he knows them or not. He explains to his young daughter that it is courteous to do so. He walks on the street side of her at all times, explaining that a gentleman always does this to protect his lady.

Darkness has fallen as they walk home, and the three glowing yellow rectangles of the bay window welcome them as they turn the corner towards their house. The young father allows his daughter to run ahead once they have safely crossed the last street. Whatever else it is - or isn't - the old house is home to her, and she is happy to return there.

lost and found

Well over fifty years ago, my dad worked at Timken Roller Bearing in Canton. When I was a little girl, he had a couple of roller bearings in his top dresser drawer - a place of utmost interest to every child, I think. One of the bearings was about an inch in diameter, and the other one was at least twice that size. I was utterly fascinated by their intricate design and by the smooth movement of the rollers. (Don't know what a roller bearing is? Look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapered_roller_bearing)

When I was in elementary school, I received a house key for the days when my mother would not be home when I got there. (Our "house key" was actually a big skeleton key, but that is a story for another time.) I had a key chain for that one key, and my dad gave me the smaller of the two roller bearings to put on it, as well. I was so proud and excited! Other kids had house keys, but no one had ever even seen anything like my roller bearing.

Although even as a child, I was not prone to losing things, I lost that key chain. It is not an exaggeration to say that I was devastated. I didn't care so much about the house key, but my roller bearing was gone. My dad walked the five blocks back to school with me, searching all the way there and back, but we never found it.

He always kept the remaining roller bearing in his top dresser drawer, but whenever he would let me take it out, it only served to remind me of the one I had lost. When I was at his house earlier this week, he started to tease me about losing that roller bearing, and I think my response surprised him. "I still feel bad about that!" I told him. "I can't believe I lost it. I never lose things." It was my turn to be surprised by what he said next, "Well, would you like to have the other one?" I looked towards my brother and asked him, "Would you mind if I had it?" "No, I don't care," was his immediate reply. "I think it's in my room, actually. Let me get it for you." He gave me the roller bearing.

I look at the roller bearing from time to time where it sits on my desk as I write this. I pick it up, feel its familiar heft in my hand, and spin the rollers. It's not as shiny and smooth as I remember it, but it is, after all, almost fifty years older. I don't know if I can articulate how much it means to me to have this here. I hope this post will serve to do that.

what did you just call me?

I was thinking about nicknames and how some people have them and some people don't, and how some people are more prone than others to give nicknames to their friends and family. My dad has always been a 'nicknamer'. I think that must go back to the days right after WWII when he and all his fraternity brothers had nicknames for each other. He was "Fish", of course, (with a last name like "Fischer" that was an easy one) and they had an assortment of strange and colorful names that he referred to them by.

Both my brothers and I had nicknames our dad gave us when we were kids, and in fact, I had several. I hated them all. I was "Wee-cee" or "Sissy" or, worst, and most enigmatic, "Mabel Bollinger Krause". Wee-cee was for my middle name, Louise. Louise is a family name in my dad's family, and there is at least one in every generation. My dad's eldest sister was Louise, although her nickname was "Weezy". Sissy was what my younger brothers were encouraged to call me. I don't really know why my dad started calling me "Mabel Bollinger Krause", but I am sure he only continued it because I hated it so much. It always sounded like teasing when he called us by the nicknames he gave us, and, boy, I hated to be teased.

Our son Tom was called "Tommy", of course, until he was in the 6th grade, and he asked us to please call him "Tom" from then on, and we always have. We sometimes called him "T.J." when he was little, but that never really stuck. We sometimes address him as "Mr. T" or just plain "T", and for a while we all called him "Big Brother", which we picked up from Julie. I am pretty sure she got that from the way Sally addresses Charlie Brown in the Charlie Brown Christmas special. Julie, who is mostly just called "Jules" now or sometimes "Sister", had a plethora of nicknames as a child. She had so many that at one point when she was nine or ten, we sat down and made a list of them all, and I am sure there were more than twenty. Zowels was among the first, and I think perhaps came from Tom's inability to say "Jules" when he was very young. Fazouls and Fazouli sprang from that root, I believe. I will have to ask her; I am sure she remembers most of them.

Our newest dog, Rufus, has not yet had time to collect many nicknames. He is called Sir Rufus or Mr. Rufus or Roof-a-lator or sometimes Muffin, since he is a little black dog just like Muffin in the Country. When we are feeling Irish, he is Boy-o. Lucie is sometimes Lucie Lou or Lucie Luebner, or we call her Girlie or Girlie-pie or Girlie-pop because she is just such a little girlie, and both dogs answer to a host of miscellaneous terms of endearment sort of interchangeably.

Now, Dominic was a dog who collected nicknames. The most frequently used and best beloved was Bobo, and that is how we all really think of him. We gave him that nickname maybe the first summer after he came to live with us. Ben and I had gone to a large antique show at a fairground in central Ohio. There were lots of dogs there, but the one that caught our eye was an old bichon frise one of the dealers had brought to the show with her. We stopped to chat with her about her dog, and she told us his name was "Bobo". "How nice," we said, but "How silly!" we thought. But, don't you know, we came home and started calling Dominic that, and Bobo he was until his dying day. He was also Sir Bobo, though, and Mr. Bobo and Bobo-san and Bobo-sani. Sometimes he was Bobo-lator or Bo-bin-ator. Tom always insisted that it was inappropriate to call a dog by a term of such respect as "Bobo-san", but I always thought it suited him. He was also known as "St. Bobo the Long-suffering", which I felt was particularly apt when the kids dressed him up or carried him around in their backpacks.

When we hired a new receptionist recently, although she was younger than both my kids, she had the unpleasant habit of nicknaming people in the office, then persistently calling them by the nicknames she had created for them. I will not miss being called "Miss Mancine" all day long.

Oh, and I don't answer to "Annie" either.

Note: I know that I have not been at all consistent with the use of quotation marks in this post, and I do apologize for that. It is just too exhausting.