A Love Letter To Madison

On the occasion of the Bicentennial of the founding of Madison Township, May 7, 1810.


It has been thirty eight years since we met, and I am writing this on the occasion of your momentous birthday to tell you something I should have said a long time ago: I am still in love with you.

I was a shy teenager when we first encountered one another, back in March of 1972; on a cold, windy St. Patrick’s Day afternoon we walked through fields still golden with the dry grass of winter, and wandered into woods barely misted with new green. You welcomed me then, and to this day whenever I come home to you I still feel the same sense of welcome. There’s a peace in your presence that I’ve encountered nowhere else in the world.

You are dependable but never boring. You are always there for me, whether I have been away for a long time , a long distance, or both. You still have the ability to take my breath away, and in some cases, give it back. I remember flying into Dayton after a wonderful five- day stay in New York City, and driving all the way home down Diamond Mill Road at midnight with the truck window open despite December’s freezing temperature. I drank the cold clear air into lungs that had been assaulted by that amazing mix of diesel fumes and garbage and humanity that perfumes all big cities, but New York in particular. Every mile and every breath brought me closer to the place I wanted to be – with you.

You are wonderful in summer, magical in spring, breathtaking in autumn , challenging but full of fun even in the depths of winter. We’ve been together quite a while now, year in and year out, and mosey along with the comfortable familiarity of many lucky old couples , but you will always hold some mystery for me, and I think that is part of your charm. I know where you hide your venison and wild turkey, but your spring mushroom crop eludes me still!

A large part of what I have become exists because of you. You showed me first hand the workings of nature as the wheel of the year turns. You taught me gardening – sometimes by trial and error, but those were the lessons learned best. You showed me the ways of native plants and birds. Occasionally, if I am paying attention on my morning walks, I catch little glimpses of your past – broken china and abandoned whiskey bottles, native American artifacts, parts of moonshine stills and abandoned cars – sometimes a shady past, I guess, but as I walk the trails with the sunlight streaming down like a blessing through fresh rainwashed leaves, I realize someday I too will be a part of your past – and strangely, even that is comforting . You will go on to be loved by others, but there will be a little part of you that will always be mine.

Regardless of my mood, I only have to step out the door and you are waiting to cheer me up. You have been there to share my victories and happy moments, and to comfort me in times of loss, tragedy and death. Some of my dearest family members are folded into your embrace. Perhaps, if the fates are kind, my ashes will join them there in due course of time.

We’ve changed over the years, grown, grown older, a little more worn, and I hope - in my case, anyway - a bit wiser. You at least have managed to improve without losing that down-home country charm that attracted me to you all those years ago.

And so, dear Madison Township, I write you this love letter on the occasion of your two hundredth birthday . This relationship we have, you and I, is the equal of any one immortalized by Hollywood. In an early episode of the television series Sex and the City, Carrie refers to New York as her “big ol’ boyfriend,” and while I can see the attraction, he’s not the one for me. As Scarlett O’Hara talks about going “home to Tara,” I know exactly what she’s feeling. And when Dorothy Gale clicks the heels of her ruby slippers together I’m all about it ( even if my footwear is an unspectacular pair of weathered brown riding boots instead of ruby slippers): There’s no place like home.

And Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Humor...

Cleaning out some old trunks on Mom's back porch tonight and I came across a treasure trove of stuff from high school, including the following essay which, sans typos, I will post verbatim. I think this is circa 1974, Dottie Davey's Creative Writing Class at Madison High School.

Hmmm... Obviously once a nut, always a nut. You will not be surprised to learn that my undergrad. major in college was anthropology.



You know, objectively speaking, the life we lead as American teenagers must be quite a strange one, if we look at it from the angle of one who hasn't been brought up in the middle of it. Let's look at it from the viewpoint of someone who's never heard the least thing about it...say, a rather educated pygmy from the African interior. Here's what he might relate to his companions when he returns to the safe quiet world of the jungle, where all one has to worry about are things like fighting off spastic baboons, whether the Lion Sleeps Tonight or if he suffers from indigestion and is particularly grumpy, and when the next crop of tse-tse flies is due in.

The life of the American Young person is a strange one indeed. Rather than sensibly going from childhood straight into adulthood as we do, they waste their time in a long and unprofitable period known as their teens. Much of this time is spent in a building which is a place of education. While I never saw any effort made to teach them the practical things which they ought to be taught, such as how to make a knife or fight off a spastic baboon, they have learned to sue a weapon which, though not often deadly, does tend to stun the victim: the spitwad. Another method of self defense --or perhaps of agitation--is concealed in the spiral notebooks the students carry --the metal spirals have ends which are capable of snagging one's sweater --or one's skin. Students are also taught chants, particularly how to inform another student of what one's mother was. These chants are often recited before lockers that refuse to open, or overly active water fountains which tend to give one a bath rather than a drink. The personage who runs this place of education must be none other than a god, because each morning his voice floats into the rooms over thin air, informing the students and teachers of what is expected of them during the day. At this time, several students are often called to this god's place of rest, known as "the Office." It must be a terrible place, because commands to report there are usually met with wide-eyed stares, and mutters of "what did I do now?"

There is one period in which the students' endurance is tested, for they are forced to consume some rather dubious looking substances in a chamber called the Cafeteria. Teachers stand guard by the door, and woe to he who gags.

Schools are also the location of a strange ritual that took place every seven days or so while I was there. These took place in the evening, in a large chamber known as the Gym, lined to the rafters with students thirsting for the sight of blood. In the center of the Gym, the warriors from two competing schools did battle in scanty uniforms. In the game called basketball, the object seemed to be how many eyes one could gouge out while attempting to distract opponents with what looked like the gallstone of an elephant. Priestesses as scantily clad as the players led the fans in chants to urge the teams on. Food and drink was sold by itinerant peddlers at stands outside the gym, and a group of people with strange instruments sat off to one side playing music with which to bring out the hunting instincts in the players. One that for some unknown reason stands out in my mind was entitled "Beat-A-Cheetah."

The courtship ritual is a long drawn out process lasting months and often years. It begins with the youth asking a girl to "the Game" (basketball, remember?). Sometimes this question differs slightly - the most unusual one was "Wanna go to my place and listen to my Yamaha?" which must be some strange exotic species of caged bird -- but the most important thing about the question is the insinuation behind it--whether the girl desires her suitor's company or not. If not, she advises him to seek someone else's attention by gently telling him "stick it in your ear." While not following her instructions to the letter, he usually takes the hint. If he does prove acceptable to her, they go off and exchange vital information about one another, such as what color socks he wears and what that funny red mark is on her neck (she usually explains that she ran into a high and vicious doorknob). They also journey to such diverse places as the Drive In, a place specially designed for what they call "necking" and "making out" with larger-than-life figures demonstrating just what to do. While I never had the opportunity to visit one of these drive ins, it is obvious that they are most awesome training places to prepare for what will be expected of them later in life. I never learned just what "making out" meant but "necking" obviously involves our brother the giraffe.

I would like to set down more, but I think I hear a spastic baboon in the distance.

So....if your daughter or granddaughter sounds like this now, in 35 years she could be me. Flee while you can.....

What Happened Last Weekend: The Erma Bombeck Writer's Workshop

Last week I was lucky enough, due to someone else’s cancellation (thanks, Anna!) to attend the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop at the University of Dayton. I sat through some wonderful, encouraging and challenging presentations on everything from finding an agent to finding your “voice” as a writer and using humor as a means to address heartbreak. The host of this last seminar was Wade Rouse, who read excerpts from his memoirs about growing up – and coming out - gay in the Midwest; after some discussion we were given a 20 minute challenge to write in a humorous manner about something that we feared. I was happy with what resulted from my own frantic scribblings so I polished it up a bit and posted it on this blog on the evening of the day I had written it. So far, so good.

The conference was exhilarating, inspiring and best of all FUN – I enjoyed meeting so many people interested in the craft of writing. I collected a stack of cards with email addresses, websites, and blogs. Everyone was excited to talk about publishing successes they’d had, and willing to share their work experiences. The spirit was great, the camaraderie was amazing. I felt encouraged. I was charged up and ready to write more. What a great experience.

So as you may imagine I was surprised to get home on Saturday evening and read the following comment someone posted after the blog entry about my Mom that was the result of Mr. Rouse’s writing exercise:

Didn't read your blog -- but love how you've managed to mention it in every Erma Bombeck session I've been in. Kudos and congrats on your blatant self-promotion. It's impressive. Again, props to you!

I was crushed. Completely shot down. Almost terminally embarrassed. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Had I been that obnoxious? Had I made a complete fool of myself? One person evidently thought so, and that was enough to shake my hard-won confidence. I’ve worked for years to be less socially backward, stupid, nerdy and geeky than I always thought I was, tried diligently to maintain conversations without the benefit of a dog or cat between myself and the person I was addressing – and here I’d unwittingly blown a cardinal rule of conference etiquette and some good person, evidently thinking to perform a service for the masses, took it upon themselves to let me know. Overnight my anxiety reached epic proportions and by about 3 a.m. I was considering moving overseas and setting up shop in a hut in Madagascar, only the volcano in Iceland was already messing up travel schedules.

Let me explain. We were invited to introduce ourselves when we stood up to ask presenters a question. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t. But on the three occasions when I did, and also mentioned the name of my blog, it was because the presenter had spoken of his or her pets – evidently a favorite subject for many writers - and I hoped if possible to strike a chord which might motivate some like-minded to folks to read the things I had written. Besides, we were invited to tell what we had done, what we had published. I wasn’t the only one. I was hoping for some constructive criticism. I did not expect vitriol. I did not bargain for anonymous, waspish snide remarks made by someone who lacked the courage to simply come up to me at the conference and say “wouldya shut the hell up, already?”

Analytical (and please note the very apropos first four letters of that word!) worry wart that I am, I can’t just let it go without a fight. Therefore, I find it necessary to pick this little bit of cyberspace excrement to pieces and give it the slow death it deserves.

According to my blog, the comment is from “M2.” M2? That’s not a name. That sounds like a pseudonym from some vintage cold war spy thriller. I can just picture “M2” sitting in front of ancient rickety table, pounding out smudged letters on crackling onionskin paper using a manual typewriter with broken keys in a cold little room somewhere on the east side of London, the room illuminated only by a single uncovered lightbulb flickering and buzzing at the end of a frayed wire. The haze from half a dozen stubbed-out cigarettes hovers in a cloud over this unhappy individual’s head as people on the other side of the wall rattle the plaster with an argument or loud sex, or maybe both. M2, indeed.

“I haven’t read your blog” – M2’s loss. Wrong thing to announce, since I’d give the complaint more credence if he/she had read it.

“Blatent self-promotion” – Hello? Speakers were promoting their books or website services. Aspiring writers were passing out cards, authors in the crowd were waving around their self-published books, everyone was asking everyone “what do you write?” “What have you published?” There was LOTS of self promotion going on, in case M2 didn’t notice (maybe no one chose to speak to M2?) M2, if you don’t believe in yourself enough to get your name out there, no one else is going to do it for you. Furthermore, to swipe a snippet of dialog from Pirates of the Caribbean – Jack Sparrow is being held by the soldiers, one of whom says “you’re the worst pirate I’ve ever heard of,” and Jack, undaunted as ever snaps back “but you HAVE heard of me!” M2 DID remember my blog.

In a wonderful seminar called Making Them Laugh On a Wednesday Morning, USA Today columnist Craig Wilson said someone once came up to him in the supermarket and announced “you’re a jerk!” and then walked away. If Craig Wilson can take it, I can.

So M2, if your plan was to hurt my feelings, you temporarily succeeded. But only temporarily. I stepped back into my normal persona on Sunday (or at least what passes for “normal” around here!); with my husband’s encouragement I climbed back into the saddle and brought home the first blue horse show ribbon of the season. In a phone call, a client whose dog had gone through a sudden illness that ended in euthanasia despite our best efforts waved aside my sympathetic wish that I could have done more to help and said “don’t worry, we’ll be seeing you again.” They had not lost faith in me. And a sixteen year old girl whom I’ve been mentoring, - a new mother with a passel of odds stacked against her – called me, excited that she’d been the only one to volunteer to dissect a cat in science class, and said “I figured I’d better do it now, if I wanted to be a vet like you.”

I don’t have to “lift up mine eyes to the hills” for my help – it’s all around me. What a blessing!

And as you see…I am still writing. Climbed back into THAT saddle, too.

By the way, M2 – what have YOU written?

Writers' Conference Challenge

The speaker: Author Wade Rouse. The Subject: Humor, heartbreak and finding your voice as a writer. The challenge: Write about something you're afraid of. You have 20 minutes.


So...here's a slightly edited and cleaned up version of what resulted, in my notebook at least.



I am a veterinarian. In the course of my work, I've drawn blood from unhappy horses (and no horse is happy to donate blood); castrated calves restrained by two burly - and rather nervous - convicts at an Ohio correctional facility; wrestled reluctant Rottweilers and even managed to coerce belligerent clients to pay their bills. All in a day's work.

Despite resolving any number of virtually unimaginable messes and being covered at one time or another by most forms of yitz, gunk and spoo that animals are capable of producing, I'm ashamed to admit that I'm still grossed out by sick people.

The smells, sights and sounds of hospitals and nursing homes make my skin crawl. A client once raised her shirt in my clinic to ask my advice on whether or not her ten-day post-op mastectomy scars looked "normal" and I felt my innards backflip and try to force their way out my left nostril. My husband complains of an upset stomach and I shove two dog nausea pills and a cold washcloth through a crack in the bathroom door and whisper "call me if you need me," hoping desperately that he won't. And being childless, I have managed to sidestep the rivers of snot and midnight projectile vomiting episodes that I am told Moms are privileged to behold. And I haven't missed it a bit.

But as I am an only child living next door to a 90-year-old mother I've known for a long time that the day was coming when I'd have to square my shoulders, hike up my riding breeches and perform one of those corporal works of mercy the nuns told us we'd have to do in order to gain admission to our happily-ever-afterlife.

It happened just the other day, in fact. My fragile but feisty 90 year old mother shit her drawers.

She'd taken a laxitive, you see, and realized - too late - that she lacked the speed and strength with which to make it to the bathroom in a timely manner.

Fortunately for her, I was sitting on her living room couch, so when her response to my query "are you all right?" was a faint "no, I'm really sick," I shot off the couch, mentally bracing myself to face the inevitable, and hustled to her rescue.

I helped her to the bed and washed her off, then brought her clean clothes and tidied up the bathroom. Although grateful, she was also understandibly embarassed by this (hopefully temporarily) loss of dignity, and I think we both realized this was somehow a watershed moment - the first such unfortunate occurrence but not likely to be the last. But neither of us is overtly emotional, and so on impulse I brushed aside her quiet apologies and tried to lighten the moment with the dry sarcasm that's part of her legacy to me.

"Well, geez, Mom, " I said as I gently wiped her soft, papery thin skin, "I've had my arm up to the shoulder in a cow's ass. You'll have to admit this sort of pales by comparison!"

And then we both laughed and I realized that whatever comes, I'll manage to handle it.

Veterinarian, Heal Thyself (Or Not...)

March. What a tease. One day, it's warm enough to consider getting out the shorts and sandals; then some time during the night a weather front roars through and when you wake up it's spitting snow: one final bitch-slap from Old Man Winter. Seems as though our yearnings for better weather grow more desperate with each passing year.

But at no time in my life can I remember struggling through this changeable, flirtations month as laboriously as the year I spent most of March on crutches and an air cast. As if March mud doesn't pose enough challenges on two good legs.

"My horse stepped on my ankle and broke it yesterday," I told my family doctor as I was sitting in his examination room, feet dangling off the exam table. He was drawing breath to suggest an x-ray when I wordlessly proffered him the envelope holding the one I'd already taken that morning in my veterinary clinic. No big deal, really - I had calculated the settings, wiped a few stray dog hairs from the machine and took the shot. The only dicey part had been dropping my pants and climbing on the platform without losing my balance, since at the time I was reduced to teetering on one foot and a metal crutch.

He raised his eyebrows and placed the radiograph on the viewer. "Well, you definitely have a fracture," he agreed and reached for his prescription pad. "Now what about some pain medication?" I had already covered that, I informed him, and he sighed, handed me a referel slip for an orthopedic specialist and walked out, shaking his head.

Well, it wasn't that difficult, really. A broken bone is a broken bone, and if I couldn't recognize one with 15 years of veterinary medicine under my belt, I was in trouble.

This business of veterinarians trying to heal their own illnesses and injuries is nothing new. It's not uncommon for an inveterate eavesdropper such as myself (this from long practice of performing operations and keep tabs on one's staff at the same time), at professional gatherings, to hear tales of how one's peers have sutured up their colleagues, treated their own dog bites and cured their children's infections utilizing whatever was at hand in the clinic. I don't believe it's so much a matter of saving money as saving time, but I'm sure it results in no end of exhasperation for their family doctors.

I began to fall prey to this mindset early in my own career. I had just purchased a veterinary practice and needed to have some bloodwork done for insurance purchases, so a phelbotomist assigned by the insurance company made arrangements to stop by my home and draw the sample. I've always held it's definitely better to give than to recieve in any procedure involving needles, so I was looking forward to this ordeal with about as much enthusiasm as I would view impending dental work or an IRS audit. I hoped the needle-wielder would be skilled, and quick.

The technician appeared at my door, took some information and a few vital signs, wrapped a tourniquet around my arm and began tapping the area of the vein crossing my elbow joint and shaking her head in what I've discovered is the universal phlebotomist's sign language for "oh, boy, I'm not gonna hit this one on the first try..."

I tried to make her comfortable. I really did. I joked around that I was a veterinarian and could appreciate a difficult situation; I added that at least I wasn't foaming at the mouth and trying to bite her (well, I thought it was funny). However, after unsuccessful several attempts to collect my blood, which apparently was in no hurry to leave my body, she suggested giving up and calling someone else to give it a try. At this point multiple stabbings were causing my patience to wear a little thin, and the thought of waiting around for yet another appointment was just about more than I could stand. "Just stick me again, and get the job done," I hissed through gritted teeth. I suppose by then my blood pressure was rising because the vessel practically leaped onto the needle and proffered the desired result. It was a good thing; one more failed attempt and I'd have drawn the damn sample myself,and I'm sure I wouldnt' be the first DVM to have done so.

One of the hazards of working in private practice is, as you might surmise, the fact that the veterinarian is subjected to repeated exposure to a variety of diseases. In the close quarters of the average examination room, potential contact with illness is never far away. But forget the animal parasites, never mind bubonic plague or anthrax or rabies; I'm talking about human illnesses. I've lost count of the number of times an owner has placed his or her pet on my exam table in the middle of cold and flu season; the pet is the picture of glossy -coated health but the owner is a pale, clammy, wheezing mess hanging onto the table for support and obviously only a hack away from coughing up a lung. When they can get their breath they will announce, "I've been in bed with the flu but I didn't want Boopsie to miss her appointment." Gee...thanks. I appreciate the loyalty and conscientiousness...but not that much. Some things just don't need to be shared.

Most of the infections that result from such exposure, I'm happy to relate, can be controlled by such medicines as we have on our treatment room shelves anyway, since a large number of them are generics that are available for both humans and animals. However, our attempts at self-medication can occasionally backfire.

One long spring I went through two rounds of what I deemed modern, "big gun" anitbiotics trying to fight off a respiratory infection under my own power. "Why don't you take some erythromycin?" Mom had suggested early on, and I had scoffed at such an "old fashioned drug." One wasted month later, when I had finally dragged myself to the doctor's office at my Mother's insistence he announced "we're going to start you on erythromycin." I was better in two days. Lesson learned: Listen To Your Mother.

On a particularly bad late summer weekend, filled with cases that refused to either die or get better, incisions that pulled open instead of healing, and the failure of a nearby Pretzel Festival to actually HAVE pretzels when I was in desperate need of a junk food fix, I sat in a blue funk at the breakfast table, taking my vitamin, immune system stimulant and...quite by accident...my old labrador retriever Tristan's post-op antibiotic capsules. In this case the drug was a generic that is in general use in the human population but one to which, as I happen to have discovered several years earlier (don't ask), I was allergic to.

I am here to tell you, it is damn near impossible to force yourself to throw up by putting your fingers down your throat if your attitude toward that particular physical function is that you would rather die than do it.

Failing that, I called my nurse friend - this was 7:30 on s Sunday morning - and whined pitifully to her for advice. She laughed in my ear, which for some reason I felt at the time was singularly lacking in compassion, and advised me to "take two benadryl and call the emergency squad if you quit breathing." (It will not surprise you to learn that I did have benadryl in the house - in my stash of animal drugs, of course).

Obviously I lived through that episode though I wasted a large portion of a perfectly good day in front of the TV in an antihistamine-induced stupor, and ultimately suffered the mind-numbing side effect of having a Sunday morning cartoon song playing unstoppably and annoyingly through my head for the next several days.

Then there was the Great Dog Bite Episode. Naturally in my career choice this is an occupational hazard, but while I'd had some near misses, nothing very severe had ever happened to me until I tried to break up a loud and rather violent difference of opinion between one of my own dogs and the neighbor's dog. You know how Your Mother Always Said Never Break Up A Dog Fight With Your Bare Hands? There's a good reaon for that. When I appeared at work the next morning wearing my pajama bottoms because my hand was too swollen for me to zip up my work pants, my long-suffering office manager took matters in hand and sent me to the doctor before I had the chance to try and medicate myself. The bite wound in the area of my knuckle had become infected and threatened to spread to the joint, and as a result I spent several days in the hospital on a combination of intravenous and oral antibiotics and IV fluids.

In the hospital I discovered a whole new aspect of medicine: "the doctor as patient." Man, what a pain in the ass we are! I'm sure I made the nurses' lives miserable when my antibiotics weren't given on time, but they gleefully retaliated by announcing over and over to anyone within earshot - "she's a vet - and her OWN DOG bit her!" My hand healed uneventfully although for some months it was stiff enough that it was difficult for me to make that particular rude gesture which signifies to other drivers that you are the only one on the road with any sense at any given time and in fact DO own the road.


There passed a period of several generally healthy years, until the March day when I slipped in the mud while leading my pony down a steep slope, and provided a landing pad for his rear hoof as he attempted to jump over the ditch and me simultaneously. There was a sharp crack and I remember thinking "boy, I hope that was a stick!" but discovering when I tried to stand up that alas, it wasn't. I lay there in the warm spring sunshine for a short time, while the pony was caught and put away, and thought things through, but ultimately decided against going to the emergency room at the local hospital on a sunny Sunday afternoon where I was sure to share space with victims of chainsaw accidents and kids who'd tried to catch baseballs with their incisors. I crawled up the slope and was helped into the house by a friend, whom I instructed to "bring me a pillow and an ice bag, two big ibuprofens and a shot of whiskey." Hey, the old doctors knew a thing or two about medicinal alcohol. The ibuprofen took care of the pain, the whiskey settled the mildly shockey feelings I was experiencing, and the couch was comfortable. I was good for the night, till I could limp into the clinic and xray my aching ankle the next morning.

Later that next day I sat in the orthopedic specialist's office. A radiology tech approached me and said "I can't believe you took those xrays in a veterinary clinic!" I braced myself for a lecture and said "Oh really? Why not?"

"Because," he said, "you wouldn't believe the junk we get from some doctor's offices. Your x-rays, however, are excellent!"

Once in a while it's nice to be vindicated.

An End of Winter Tale

On this beautiful day of the vernal equinox - that is to say, the first day of spring - I had hoped to be able to wax joyful about the beauties of the season, but instead I find that what I want, in fact actually need to write about is, instead, what happened at the closing of the last day of winter.

Occasionally there wanders through the clinic door a pet among hundreds which, for some reason or other, becomes very dear to me. Mind you, I enjoy most of my patients, even a fair share of the grumpy ones, but these elect few - I call them "my Feel-Good Patients" - are cats or dogs for whom I almost feel compelled to actually pay their owners because of the sheer bliss that envelopes me when I'm in their presence. It's better than a therapy session. Are they Old Souls? The reincarnation of past pets, or even humans, that I once loved? I'll never know, but I'll tell you this -to me, as well as to their owners, they are special.

There was Terra Wright the old female boxer who could have given humans lessons on how to be WalMart greeters; she would stand in my waiting room wagging her stub-tipped rump and displaying a grin that seemed to split her head in half, thrilled to pieces that other patients and their humans were acknowledging her. She was cheerful to the last, even when that grin displayed the horrible oral tumor that refused to be completely removed despite numerous surgeries.

There was Max Scott, the huge, rumbling tiger cat who lay graciously on my exam table like it was his personal throne, purring with pleasure even as I palpated the cancerous mass over his shoulders that would ultimately take his life.

There was Babe Fuller, the boisterous Doberman girl who succeeded ladylike Doberman Boots and was nonetheless the pride and joy of her sometimes exasperated owner - who had been certain no dog on the planet could have replaced Boots, until he met Babe.

And then there was Morgan.

Personal friends among the readers of this post will of course remember the dreadful week last May when we lost Pete, our 6 year old yellow lab, to intestinal cancer. Pete was my dog-in-a-million, my best canine friend who'd seen me through some mighty tough times, and in the words of a song my husband wrote, been "my angel, my confidante and clown." We were devastated when he became ill, and many clients, among them Morgan's owners, grieved with us at his passing. Morgan and Pete had been young labs together, rowdily socializing when their paths crossed at the clinic and - maybe - teaching each other some manners in the process. Pete liked blondes, and Morgan was a feminine little yellow retriever, with deep dark eyes that squinted whenever she was gazing happily into your face, which was pretty much all the time.

About a month ago Morgan's owners, John and Angie Carr, brought her in to the clinic for a checkup, noting that she had been "vomiting off and on." The Carrs never ignored anything to do with Morgan's health, because we had dealt with chronic allergy issues over the years and they were always quick to bring her in to see me if there was something wrong. Morgan looked good, sitting at attention as always when I came into the room, wagging happily and grinning her doggy grin, fixing her eyes as usual on mine, her seasonal bandanna tied stylishly around her neck. She always made me feel like she was looking into my soul. I gave her a hug - you couldn't NOT hug Morgan - and checked her out. "It's probably something simple to do with her allergies," I said, "but let's do some baseline bloodwork since she's 'middle aged' now and be sure nothing major is going on."


And that is when the nightmare started. I felt my heart dropping as I looked at the printout of her bloodwork. Crap. Oh, crap. She was in kidney failure. Not borderline, not "maybe she's a little dehydrated from the vomiting". Full blown, evil, ugly, goddamit-all-to-hell kidney failure.

I still grasped at straws. We did a urinalysis and it confirmed the worst. We sent the urine off to our reference lab in case there was some freak error in the results. No error. We started palliative treatment for kidney disease - restricted protein diets, neutraceuticals to promote kidney function - and consulted our local specialist, who went out of his way to keep up with the case, even making phone calls to HIS colleagues to try and confirm what we knew was happening: Morgan's immune system was killing her kidneys, and that was killing her.

Despite the phenomenally high numbers indicating the rapidly progressing deterioration of her kidneys, Morgan dismayed all her medical providers by "acting good." Angie would report that she seemed a little tired at times but was still happy, "still Morgan." Until last week, when she called me in tears. We were down to some last-ditch, do-or-die treatments, heavy doses of steroids, and they weren't working. "She isn't feeling good now," Angie told me and asked, "how will we know?"

I'm asked that a lot, and yet I never feel like I've answered that question well. Sometimes, if I know the clients, I can say, "you'll have to tell me. You live with your pet, and I only see her when she's stressed or ill." Other times it's "well, when she has more bad days than good days, it's probably time." Sometimes - in all honesty - I say, "look, I'm the worst putter-offer there is. I've had to go to my Mom, even after all this time as a vet, and ask her if I'm doing the right thing, when it's one of my own pets." The bottom line is there's no easy answer, and there are almost always moments of uncertainty. As grieviously ill as Morgan was becoming, I had to say there was "no bad time."

The whole sickening experience was doubly bad for me because it was like losing Pete all over again - a relatively young yellow lab, an insidiously progressing illness - oh, God. I knew exactly how awful the end of this winter was for the Carrs, because I'd been through the same thing myself not quite a year ago. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

Last night at the beginning of evening office hours, the call came that I'd been dreading all week. Angie said it "was time." We scheduled the Carrs' appointment last, and the evening passed all too quickly for me, knowing that was hanging over my head. I stepped into the exam room and there sat Morgan, squinting her happy greeting at me. She looked a little rough, but not nearly as bad as I'd imagined. I guess her soul was shining through, and she was still beautiful little Morgan. I dropped to my knees and hugged her. How could you NOT hug Morgan? I could feel her body swaying with the wagging of her tail. I whispered that I was sorry she was so sick, and told her that she would soon feel better, and that Pete was waiting to play with her again.

Have you seen the recent hit movie Avatar? In it, the tall blue Na'avi, natives of the planet in danger, are able to unite their consciousness with that of other life forms in nature by means of a connection in the end of their long braided hair. We don't use our hair - but I know where the place of connection is in Labrador Retrievers - it's that sloping, dished-out concavity between their eyes. You lay your cheek right there, close your eyes, breathe. It doesn't matter if the tears you shed roll down across their muzzle - they don't mind. Pete never minded. Morgan didn't mind. Did she know what was up? How could I bear to face her, knowing I was about to end her life? And she had always trusted me. Can you imagine how hard moments like these are for me, knowing as you may how I feel about these lovely creatures, precious pets, treasured friends?

And yet....and yet, I wouldn't have it any other way. Somehow it's a privilege to be there for a family at times like these, knowing they trust me to walk them through this final step in a pets life as - in so many lucky cases - I have been able to walk them successfully through all the other steps, right from the squirmy, wiggly little puppy and kitten beginnings.

And so I brace myself one more time to do the task that is asked of me. I will tell you that with Morgan the technical aspects of the act went as perfectly I could have wanted. Morgan went peacefully to sleep in the arms of her family, and we all cried and hugged each other and said goodbye. She will be cremated and her ashes returned to her family, and somewhere out there I want to believe a star is burning a little brighter with the light from Morgan's beautiful , twinkling eyes.

I pulled myself together to make a housecall and vaccinate the crew of pets belonging to dear friends who understood how I felt, which helped, even though the playing of Blue Oyster Cult's song "Don't Fear The Reaper" on the truck radio as I arrived at their house caused me to dissolve into tears again.

So today when I got up, prepared to greet spring in all its glory, I went for my walk and in passing Pete's grave wept some more, knowing this morning when the Carrs awoke, their house was silent - no ear-flapping, no heavy, hah-hah-hah panting that researchers tell us is the equivalent of laughter in a dog, no toenails ticking along the floor. No smiling Morgan waiting to help them through the day with all the enthusiasm that a lab is capable of sharing with her beloved people. But perhaps there is the consolation of knowing that she is not sick any more, and that no matter where she is, she will always be their special dog.

Out here along my walking trail, the buds are swelling on the bushes, and soon the green mist of infant foliage will fill the woods. The daffodils are nearly ready to bloom. For the rest of my life, these lovely spring flowers will remind me of that sprightly, wonderful, Feel-Good yellow dog who always made me smile. Rest easy, Morgan, and give Pete a kiss from me.

Adventures in Continuing Education - the Midwest Veterinary Conference

So. It is early March, still wintry outside (my anxiously-anticipated ride in the sunshine yesterday morning was cut short by thick grey clouds and a bitter wind - rats...) and though the mega-icicles are gone piles of ugly used snow remain behind and the kitchen window is liberally smeared with muddy dog pawprints. But...the birds are singing with increasing vigor, the ponies are beginning to shed (Advice: never stand downwind of a pony you are grooming during the shedding season if you are wearing chapstick....), and that most important harbinger of spring, at least in the Wheel of MY Year - THE CONVENTION - has come and gone.

"The Convention," also referred to as "the OVMA" by us vintage vets (OSU '88, GO BUCKS!), is the annual end-of-February, four day veterinary medical extravaganza that takes place in downtown Columbus Ohio at the Hyatt Regency Convention Center. As the veteran-veterinarian (sorry but I couldn't resist that) of many such events (I think I've only missed one) I take some delight in observing its growth and changes over the years since OSU spit me out on an unsuspecting animal population.

A word about the name(s) - formally this event is now called The Midwest Veterinary Conference; it is put on by the Ohio Veterinary Medical Association and was known as "The OVMA Convention" back in the days when I attended as a buggy-eyed, wet-behind-the-ears vet student, bent mainly on picking up bag after bag full of samples of pet food, pens, IV fluid rate guides and assorted other "swag." Along with similar events throughout the country at various times of the year (e.g. North American Veterinary Conference in Florida in January) "the Convention" provides us with hours and hours of presentations ranging from the extremely useful "Pearls of Wisdom" seminars to the questionable ("Aligning Your Chi" Cheeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....) to the coma-inducing (which titles I won't mention at the risk of offending a specialist from whom I may need to solicit advice, but which generally have the term "Metabolism" in the title, a red flag for a seminar guaranteed to be chock full with (*yawn*) charts and graphsssszzzzzzzzz. (Photos - I want photos!! Give me tumors the size of baseballs, wounds into which you can insert your entire hand , kidneys shriveled up like raisins! 'Cause ya know what one picture is worth, yes??) Regardless of our choice of sessions, the hours are totalled and eventually sent in to prove to the State Office Of Powers that Be that we have indeed been good children and racked up the required biannual 30 Continuing Education hours.

(All sarcasm aside, I have been to some really excellent lectures, most of which leave me either a) excited to try new techniques, b)satisfied that I've handled a case correctly or c)more than a little relieved that it IS possible for someone with a more advanced degree than mine to, well, screw up from time to time).

That said, and pushing on..Oh, my, how "the OVMA" as we old farts often still refer to it, has changed. First and foremost - you can now not only register online in the relative comfort of your jammies - you can also get the notes for the classes you wish to attend ahead of time off the website, print them out, and if you are STILL a gunner like you were in vet school ( you know who you are, and in answer to your question, NO, I WASN'T!), you can study them ahead of time. Of course all this goes to waste if a late-February snowstorm leaves your speaker stranded in an airport in, say, Dubuque (I like that word), but it's generally worth the gamble, if only to keep your hand from becoming permanently cramped, and let's face it, it's been a long time since I exercised those muscles that enabled me to take pages of notes for hours on end. Scribbling in patients' charts now is alleviated by the occasional Rottweiler-wrestling session, after all. At least having printed notes prevents writers' cramp by leaving only a limited amount of space in which to scribble, and in fact as often as not my margins are occupied by either swirling doodles or remarks that may eventually be turned into literary masterpieces such as the one you are perusing at the moment. (Butt-cramp, however, is still a problem which I have not entirely sorted out and which, with advancing years, will probably only get worse.)

In the last century, attendees to the conference were presented with a bound book- or books- of printed notes that weighed - and I'm not exaggerating - about 15 lbs, maybe more. Of course if your car was parked in the convenient Hyatt parking garage you could dump the extraneous notes (and swag) and lighten your load periodically but parking farther away - and more on THAT in a minute!! - meant that you were destined to lurch through the convention center like an overburdened camel until you could find enough time to hike to your vehicle and divest yourself of the excess.

About that parking garage: to my knowledge it has not undergone any significant construction to lower the parking levels, yet for the first time this year I was informed that my pickup truck was too high to park in the garage. WTF?!? "I've been parking in here for 20 years!" I told the attendant, who was unimpressed and said over an obnoxious mechanical buzzing noise, "It won't let you park here now." ( What the hell's IT? WHO the hell's IT? Do I need to sacrifically let some air out of my truck tires in deference to IT so that IT will let me park in the garage again?)

Well. It would be simpler to just drive the Honda and let Keith borrow the truck, but I like a my big, gas sucking pickup on I-70 so that tooling down the road at 70 mph I am not in as much danger of being swept away by truckers going 90. So be it. I parked in the hinterlands this year beyond BF Egypt and soothed myself with the notion that at least all that hiking would help alleviate Seminar Butt Cramp ("SBC" - we veterinarians like abbreviations. As you may imagine, we have a whale of a time with license plate letters).

The Conference - since I've been attending - has always been in the Hyatt Regency Convention Center in downtown Columbus, a location which I like for several reasons: it is right across the street from a remarkable emporium known as the Yankee Trader, wherein one can purchase all sorts of ephemera from MardiGras beads to fake anatomy parts (plastic boobs and gluteal enhancements predominate) to rubber bugs and raffle tickets. Essentially it's a store for lawn fete prizes and similar stuff. So if you ever want a spongy, life size red brain, I know where to get one for you. I also like the Hyatt location because North Market just a block west of the Convention Center, enough of a walk, especially if there is a brisk breeze outside with a wind chill of -4 degrees, to clear your head, and enough distance to provide yet another emergency treatment for SBC. North Market has a remarkable assortment of food counters, both foreign and domestic; some of the best popcorn in Ohio; and ice cream to die for. Bonus: the people watching's great. Last year I observed a young guy at the salsa/hot sauce shop, asking for the "hottest sauce" the shop owner had. She smeared some pasty green stuff on a cracker and he tucked in. He grew redder and sweatier as the seconds passed until finally his eyes had swollen shut and steam was rolling off his brow. "Man, is that good!" he choked. Now I'm a firm believer in the fact that food shouldn't hurt, but I had to try, so I dipped into the same sauce although my portion was admittedly a lot smaller - a little bigger than a fingernail paring. Pea-sized at best. And I wheezed and snorted and blew my nose all the way through the first two afternoon lectures on Gastrointestinal Emergency Surgeries. But I had to try! I'm not sure I'm a better person for it but I still hold with the philosophy that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." (I think that was discussed in Gastrointestinal Emergency Surgeries, incidentally....)

Earlier I mentioned the freebies - the layout of the convention encompasses many large and unexciting lecture rooms, but in the middle of it all is...(trumpets, please) The Trade Show. Row upon row of displays of specialized diets (with some samples, though not as much as there used to be), surgical equipment, drugs, supplements, supplies and (ooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh) BOOKS. Not to mention fun stuff such as shirts peddled by student organizations and, just in case you blasted out of town and forgot somebody's birthday or other critical event, a variety of critter jewelry.

Fun. I still get a little thrill out of looking over displays of polished, finely made surgical instruments - must be the silver and gold! - and of course the published material is hard to pass up. I shelled out several hundred dollars this year for a 2-volume updated set of internal medicine textbooks and when the guy said " is there anything else I can help you with?" I said "yes but it'd be hard to pack the whole rest of the display out of here." It's tough to choose! There's just something about new books...The depressing thing about the trade show, though, is all the cool new equipment that is just a tad beyond my reach, financially speaking, to purchase: Ultrasounds, digital x-ray units, flexible endoscopes (yes, those go just where you'd expect them to go....)...wow! Who WOULDN'T be an expert diagnostician with all those toys? The new technology is wonderful, amazing, superb...but it ain't cheap.

The conference, as I mentioned, lasts four days; I only attend the first two because my brain would explode if I tried to do this stuff for four days in a row. In addition, the first two days are quieter, less crowded, more relaxed - primarily because a lot of DVM's and staff are still working and only take the weekend off, but also because the rest of the convention center proper often is not fully occupied until some other event fills in the empty rooms. Most years recently our convention has overlapped some - well, for want of a better word, Cheerleaders' Conference. I don't know what the proper name for this event is, as I try desperately to be out the door before all available elevators are taken over by loads of quivering, overly made-up glittery little girls carrying pompoms and shepherded by overly made-up, equally glittery mothers with attitudes like German Shepherd Dogs. (There is glitter everywhere. EVERYWHERE. On the floors, on your clothes if you share the elevators with a herd of them..it even works its way into your luggage...). I will always wonder at the motivation that makes a woman WANT her elementary school child to dress and wear makeup that screams "slut!" It just ain't right...and I see it, year after year. So I try to be pelting down the highway headed for home late on a Friday afternoon before the first wave of sparklies hits the Hyatt door.

But the best, oh, by far the best conference "overlaps" were the years in the '90's when the vets congregated at the same time as - wait for it - The Arnold Schwartznegger Fitness event (extravaganza? circus?). We DVM's - with our practical haircuts, our work-worn hands, our late winter-pale skins and post-holiday office-cookie flab, found ourselves surrounded by PERFECT BODIES! It was amazing and not a little disconcerting! I remember going up in the elevator surrounded by these flawless women who all looked like versions of Barbie dolls, and since I am a FEMALE vet (sporting all of the above external characteristics) I have to say I just kind of huddled in the corner and oozed out the elevator door to my floor as unobtrusively as possible. The sights were pretty amazing - men with shoulders about 6' across - and there truly WERE "Arnold sightings" as well, though I wasn't among the elect on that score.

My most memorable moment of those convention years occurred early one Thursday morning; I had left the house at 5 a.m. and made the 2 hour drive with a little time to spare, so was moseying along the corridors from the Hyatt garage (yeah, THAT one) to the seminar rooms, idly observing the folks around me, while still in that early-morning, running-low-on-caffeine fog. I remember thinking how nice it was that the unofficial dress code of my student days - business suits and heels for the convention - had become more casual, such that nice jeans and boots had become perfectly acceptable. We could sit through the seminars in comfort, same as we had in vet school! Aaahh...and just look at that gal ahead of me, she's wearing....what is that, black lycra pants? Hmmm...and a slinky leopard-skin lycra top? What was up with her? And that guy with her (the one with the six food shoulders) - what the heck was he doing, wearing the same thing? And that kid with them, also dressed the same...wait a minute! (my fog was lifting...) That's not a kid! That's a DWARF!!! At this point my brain kicked in gear enough to say to the rest of me "what the hell's going on around here???" and I realized I was adrift in a current of weirdly-dressed people (OK, so I don't exactly hang out with body-builders...). About that time I passed the signs that welcomed Fitness Convention attendees, and it all made a sort of surreal sense - but suffice it to say we DVM's had a lot of fun that year.

Anyway, another year, another convention is in the bag; I got eleven of this year's 15 hours done and will pick up 2 more tonight at a dinner seminar on parasitology (this seems like a hell of a time to eat spaghetti, but it's at Bravo's, of all things...), and I got another hour's worth last night..sitting on the couch with my computer in my lap, tapping into an approved continuing education website for a seminar by one of my old OSU professors on Hyperadrenocorticism. And while the technology is better, the subject is as convoluted as it ever was - even if I'm relaxed enough to be wearing pajamas. Just not motivated to try the lycra, though.