Miss Lulubelle has always had an odd relationship with water. She likes it but in her own weird way.

In the morning after my husband fills the coffee pot and replenishes the water bottles he refills the Brita water dispenser and Frankie gets her morning water from the Brita dispenser – meaning she drinks from it directly as the water flows through.

During the day if she is thirsty she will park herself in front of the sink and complain, at which point one of us will fill a glass cup with water and put it on the floor,  she will first lap up any water that has dripped on the floor and then drink from the cup.

And then there is the bathroom. When she was able to jump into the tub, in her younger days, she’d make a beeline for the bathroom as soon as anyone had finished their shower to lap up water drops from the shower curtain. Or if someone had used the coffin shower in the hall bath – bingo – you was there.

Since we got rid of the tub and put in the new, big walk-in shower she has been in Frankie bathroom heaven. Except that she knows she is forbidden from going in there. It is so funny to watch her wait, as unobtrusively as possible, in the hall until we get out of the shower and then she slowly meanders down the hall, towards the shower room. If I catch her before she gets there and tell her ‘No’, she does an immediate 180 and wanders nonchalantly into the bedroom. You can almost hear her saying, “What? I wasn’t going into the shower just headed for a little nap on the bed”

It’s always been difficult to catch her slow meander down the hall, but yesterday I did manage to get her as she almost into the shower…(There is sound, me telling her ‘No”)