Jolly Bumkins

It's late Thursday night. Fred and I were texting each other about this weekend's Frosty Cross race. After reviewing the list of pre-race rituals (cleaning bike, shaving legs and lots of pointing in front of mirrors) he writes, "btw. I forgot to blog. Maybe I'll do a 1 sentence post or something."

Oh crap. The blog. I also forgot.

This blogging experiment started well over 18 months ago. It was an idea hatched by Eric O'Brien. The idea was that each of us would post something on our respective blogs each week. We settled on a 5:00 AM Friday deadline and started posting the following week. I'll gloss over the fact that Eric has posted like maybe five times over the past year and half. But Fred and I have remained faithful to the pact.

Well, it's late Thanksgiving Thursday and I've got nothing.

Scratch-scratch. Here's something.

Everyone who has a dog has at least one nickname for their pet. Most have many.

From where does such frivolity spawn? I don't know. It's stupid. It's silly. It's a little kooky, too.

For some reason, I've been wondering about this as I began calling my dog Emmylou by her latest nickname, "Dolly Bumkins." I have no idea how those two words formed in my brain. Not only am I embarrassed to admit that my human brain formed those words, but I've also uttered them to my dog in public. I'm quite sure my neighbors have heard it.

Emmy don't care. She answers to Dolly Bumkins. Shoot, she'd prolly answer to anything so long as I used my special dog voice when pronouncing it, like I do with her other thousand nicknames. The special voice is the other part of this insanity. Katherine says it gives her groosepimples [sic] when she hears me use it.

I'm also quite sure that the neighbors have heard the special voice, too.

But Emmy knows that I'm speaking to her when I use that voice... "Right Dolly Bumkins?"

You see? The photo doesn't give it justice, but trust me, her tail is wagging.

It's a good thing she responds to it. Why? Because with the holidays and such, I just morphed her nickname once more. Say goodbye Dolly Bumkins and hello to Jolly Bumkins.

"Hello Jolly Bumkins!"

Emmy's tail begins wagging

And that's all I got to say about that, special voice or not.

Jolly good day to you. Thanks for reading.